Great agency overall but stay away from Flight Standards Division
Pros
The colleagues and coworkers are great, and benefits like any other federal agency are almost no match compared to industry. Awards systems works most of the time depending on the office management philosophy. "Job security" is great and once you know what you are supposed to do you can then explore other areas or job functions.
Cons
At least within the Flight Standards Division (FSD) you are "encouraged" to telework, however, depending on management it feels like "pulling teeth" when you request it, either because of management "control freaks" or because even if we have the technology available it is not set up to enable most people to telework. Depending on the size of the office there is potential drama involved. The majority of office managers and front line managers are not "pro-employees" instead they are more "pro-themselves" just because it seems that they can not trust their employees and treat them as adults, even thou over 60% of the employees are GS-13 and GS-14 (earning more than $80k a year). Some of the frontline managers I have no idea how they made it thru the management ranks since some of them absolutely no management or leadership experience neither as civilian or military (i worked with one that wasn't even a "cub scout"), when in contrast the vast majority of the inspectors and other support personal are military veterans including NCOs and officers that have experience leading people in different campaigns. When it comes to career progression, at least the FSD they focus mostly in Aviation Safety Inspectors. Support personnel like admins and managers assistants are basically on their own if they want to move up either by relocating to another geographic area or moving to a region or HQ positions; and it is my impression that this kind of strategy hasn't change in the last 25 years at least. PASS, the union for bargaining unit employees, definitely doesn't do their job when it comes to really give the extra mile for the employee; at least that is my experience with the representative i have worked with for the last 7 years.
