Nice coworkers, duplicitous executives
Pros
Lots of nice people around, fun work environment many days, deep discounts on your credit through them, plus they literally offer you up kool-aid at the 30 orientation.
Cons
The kool-aid is very bad for your career. It looked to me like the people who partake the kool-aid and get all the loans stick around for 30 years. The 30 day orientation is the only time they actually tell you about the kool-aid, but it's everywhere and you are required to attend the monthly kool-aid meeting extra early. We went through rebrandwashing where "we aren't changing who we are, it's a chance to re-articulate who we are." They showed us emotionally manipulative videos "not for the public, this is just for you," and even had workshops to make sure we know who we are. The pay is subpar and you could easily become dependant on a lifestyle you cannot afford without their discounted debt. If you don't have saleable skills you might find yourself unable to leave or advance your career. The software system was dated, and poorly maintained because they got such a great deal. Paying $10,000 or less for a software system and paying a developer $56,000 to fix bugs instead of adding features is suspicious at best. From talking to all the nice people, I gathered that the systems are dated all over the place. Since all of the systems are dated, no one is developing skills but just doing busy work. I heard a lot about their culture and how important it is to them; however, it appeared that they used it as a tool to control the employees. My lead developer was an admitted jerk, and was very cruel and hurtful towards me. My manager told me I had to let things go to get along. When I was fed up and confronted him about it, he told me that I misunderstood him and he actually meant that I was supposed to bring it up so we could resolve it. I don't need every word to matter, but I require that the important ones don't get lost in the RCU magic. I was a 12 year RCU member before coming to work there and believed RCU was good because of all the good people who have helped me over the years. I was extremely disturbed to see the sophistication and variety of manipulations employed from the top down. As my first post college job, it was the most heart breaking experience of my entire life.