worked for American Systems as a sub-contractor at an off-site location
Pros
This position was a good stepping stone to my current job (with much better pay and benefits); I liked my coworkers for the most part (both the other Amer. Systems employees and the prime employees). We had somewhat flexible work hours at first. I didn't hate it but when I started interviewing elsewhere I realized it was not a great work environment/pay/benefits.
Cons
I was hired from out of the area and moved to Maryland for this job. Having never worked in government contracting or lived in an area where it was common, I really had no idea what working for a government contractor like Amer. Systems meant - and no one bothered to explain it to me before I showed up. So on my first day, imagine my surprise when one of the pieces of paperwork said the contract ended in 5 months (I thought I was signing up for a permanent position). I suppose I could have asked around and done more research, and yes the contract got renewed, but looking at my job history, the manager or HR person should have explained the contracting process at this worksite to me. (Having been recruited and interviewed for other government contractors since, let me assure you that other companies do bother to do this and make sure you know what you're in for before being offered the job.) I was also not informed about other details that might have influenced my decision to work there - i.e. fewer paid holidays than the government building was closed for and unpaid snow days (which ended up taking almost all of my PTO for my first year there). Once I got there, there was no onboarding in place (that was also the prime contractor's fault though) and then on my fifth day I was told that I would be working at a slightly different location, about a mile away, and performing a different job than I had applied for and interviewed for (the tasks I ended up doing were never mentioned in the job description or during either interview). After being there for about a year, I realized I was making significantly less money than all of my coworkers (even those with less education and similar experience), and I felt like they lowballed me because I was coming from a lower-cost-of-living area and the salary offered was higher than what I had been making (but at least $10,000 less than my Amer. Sys. coworkers). For the most part, I felt like I only heard from my managers (who were both located in Florida) when there was a problem - i.e. when I didn't enter my daily time (even on holidays). They were nice though. Another problem was one of my coworkers (another Amer. Sys. employee) was seriously combative and had run-ins with everyone, yet it took months and months for him to finally get fired - Amer. Sys. did not want to fire him (I'm guessing because they wanted the $ for having him there) and insisted on shifting him to other working teams, making each of them miserable in turn until finally people on other contracts and a government person refused to work with him and they HAD to let him go. (His work was also poor quality).
