Pros
Excellent facility. Good people to work with. Good pay and benefits. I went to work at Westinghouse when the promise of the nuclear renaissance was fresh and sparkly. I got to experience the move from Monroeville to Cranberry and all the promise and optimism of the time. I eventually made the transition from engineering to management like many others have, and since the domestic and Chinese projects got underway, witnessed the slow and steady deterioration of the company and the industry at large.
Cons
Toxic work environment. Insane hours. Forced overtime. The threat of being laid off or fired constantly hanging over your head. The problem is that the nuclear renaissance never happened and will not happen for at least a generation. Southern and SNC rushed to place the AP1000 orders to get the perks and loan guarantees, but after that there have been no new orders. WEC got geared up and staffed to build 10 plants a year, which turned out to be a pipe dream. Now they're a bloated company with a trickle of income and no real future prospects for new plant business. There will be no new construction of AP1000s in this country ever again. It's simply a lot cheaper to build gas turbines, and we are sitting on a literal ocean of cheap natural gas. There might be some new plant opportunities overseas, but since WEC sold the Chinese the AP1000 technology, they will be competing against bids for cheap Chinese AP1000 clones, the same way they created Framatome way back when. Danny is trying everything he can to drum up new business and cozy up to government, but there's only so much he's going to be able to do. The fact of the matter is that the economics are very much against WEC. There is still a little money to be made in fuels and services for the existing fleet, but that market is already captured, there is no growth in it, and in fact, it will start to shrink as plants are decomissioned and as more utilities are doing their own core design and engineering services work. Of course, WEC can try to capture the D&D market, but they're not the only player in that arena and do not have the same unique value proposition that they did with the proprietary AP1000 design. In the end, the ship is sinking and everyone knows it. Senior execs know it, and the employees know it. It may be a good temporary stepping stone for something else, but don't plan on a life-long career there. The reality is that there are too many people and not enough money. As a result they're firing or laying people off any chance they get. When they do, the survivors get stuck with the work the other people were doing. The work is not going away either. There are endless design changes and licensing changes for the AP1000s, and they expect the few survivors to do it all. Over time the work accumulates and the resources dwindle. This is a recipe for more overtime, and more discontent. They then use this discontent for more layoffs and firings. Watch out for employee survey time. Naturally everyone thinks they work harder than anyone else, so when they complain about how their neighbors are such slackers and work nowhere near as hard as they do, management/HR then uses it to fire more people and stick the next round of survivors with even more work. This is a runaway reaction, and at some point it's going to go supercritical (a little bit of nuclear humor, ha!). If you are lucky (or unlucky) enough to still be employed by WEC, you should look elsewhere ASAP if you haven't started already. Start a side business, or start submitting your resume somewhere else. Literally anywhere else. Try to go to a different industry, or if you want to stay in the nuclear industry, apply at a utility. Somewhere with a nuclear fleet with at least another 10-20 years left in their operating license should be relatively safe. Whatever you do, start now. Things are only going to get worse, and sooner or later either you will be out of a job, or still employed but your life will be unbearable. Get out, get out now while you still can! It's a lot easier to look for a job when you're employed than when you're desperate.
