San Juan Catastrophe aka Plaquecity
Pros
It would be easy for myself and other employees (current and former) to sit here and list all the cons of this workplace without saying a good thing about them. But I would like to give this place some acknowledgement for the hands on lab experience. Pros? It's a job that pays you money. Easily attainable if you are coming straight out of college with any kind of science degree and have basic motor functions. Considering the vast majority of employees are coming from college, the culture feels very much like college. There is a lot of employee gossip and trash talk behind the supervisors and managers backs. This can make work comical and passes time quickly but really shows that many of the employees don't care about the company and its success and just want to get their 8 hours over with and keep a paycheck coming in. Lead technician was very personable and worked hard to schedule people fairly on top of his long list of other tasks. Schedule is somewhat flexible, you can come in anytime between 6-8 in the morning. Compensation for the horrible location.
Cons
Location is very inconvenient. Nobody wants to drive into the middle of the mountains for work. Yet people do because there aren't many other options that are better for them at the time. Contracted employees have been paid less than previous ones. On top of that, this used to be a 6 month contract-to-hire place but that has slowly disappeared over the last year. The company is so client focused they just want to produce as many results for them without thinking about the impact or stress on employees. This company chooses to do things as cheap as possible. Lack of space, organization, communication on all levels. IT is still an ongoing issue, somehow. There is no job or career growth here. With enough years of servitude there is a chance you can move up, once everyone else around you has left the company already. You realize you are used and then replaced with another contracted temp after you leave. For the ambitious individual, they quickly look to other jobs after 6-12 months of employment here. Management is not very open to ideas and there is quite a bit of obvious favoritism and politics in the office. Supervisor treats leads differently and does not create an environment people want to move up in, so they seek ways out. Management knows the game they are playing and don't care either.
