Pros
OSU benefits are top notch. Premium health insurance for under $100/month (for my under $100k salary range) if you opt in to completing a quick yearly biometric scan and survey. OSU also recently implemented a lifestyle savings account where we get reimbursed up to $125 each quarter for well-being-improving activities/purchases (fitness, hobby, books, massages, etc.). Work-life balance is actually pretty good. Most people don’t expect you to work outside of your standard working hours. Your experience varies greatly based on which part of the University you work in, as with any large entity. I have heard people say that OSU is a wonderful place to work, but they’re not in my department.
Cons
If you are at or near the bottom of whatever organizational ladder you fit into, be prepared to take the brunt of the unpleasantness of whatever your work is. Middle managers seem to have no accountability for how they manage or work with their subordinates. They can give you wrong information, act inappropriately, or fail to actually manage their subordinates, and nothing happens. But, then again, even upper management can be virtually MIA for weeks at a time and it’s just discussed as an irritation. Meanwhile, if your work is waiting on anyone above you who isn’t doing their job, you’ve just got to deal with it. What does that mean? Who knows. You’re just supposed to make it work. If you deal with faculty, be prepared for them to regularly expect you to disregard policy because they think their needs are more important. If you don’t disregard policy and actually do your job, then the faculty might complain to your supervisors about how you are impeding their work. Management says they have your back in this, but all that actually means is that you won’t get in trouble with your department (for doing your job). It doesn’t mean that management will tell faculty that they can’t treat staff poorly. You are constantly set up to fail at OSU. You are expected to know the unspoken rules and when you are expected to break both the written and unspoken rules. You have to follow OSU policy, and also keep faculty happy, and also know when OSU policy can be bent or altogether disregarded. This also applies to supervisors, who are expected to supervise their subordinates but also do another entire job (or even more than one person should reasonably handle), so even though middle managers don’t have any accountability for what they provide their subordinates, it’s hard to be too mad at them individually whenever you know they’re trying to do 2.5 jobs on their own.
