These are the cons if you were expecting to be on a hard working (or even average) team that gets something done for NASA, and you don't find one of the temporary islands of productivity:
- your coworkers are civil servants who cannot be fired for not doing their jobs. 'Country club" as a friend called it.
- there are projects with 10 people where 2 people end up doing all the work
- you can get stuck working insane hours on a key project, unable to hire help, while tons of other folks are hardly doing anything because they're known to be not that good or not motivated
- must learn to tell if you're on a project that helps NASA & space, or just gives civil servants something to do
- some groups have been working in the same problem for 20 years without NASA actually using it
- before taking a job, ask how their work has changed something at NASA, not just done make-work demos
- folks there don't necessary know how to judge impact (e.g. we delivered something, but no one ever used it, or they stopped after 2 months) so you have to learn to do that yourself, if your efforts making a difference in the world is important. Think of the warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones
- wastes money that could be going to helping NASA be successful and effective
