Most everyone has good intentions but everything is mired in bureaucracy, mismanagement, and a resistance to new ideas.
Pros
Strong worker protections from the unions. An opportunity to learn a great deal about how the sausage is really made in transportation policy and procedure. Job security - performance expectations are either too vague or too low for anyone to actually fire you during your probationary period.
Cons
Antiquated policies and procedures for just about everything. Performance expectations are either too vague or too low, or both. Each division is isolated in its own silo, making it difficult to collaborate across divisions on new ideas that would benefit the whole department. (This also results in many duplications of efforts, simply because each division is not talking to each other.) Culture has a strong resistance to creative thinking from its employees, at all levels. Poor communication from management on expectations, program status, and funding levels. Old, depressing office building that is falling apart. Technology is always at least 5 years out of date (we just upgraded from Lotus Notes to MS Outlook 2007, for example) and most employees are surprisingly not tech-savvy enough to adapt to the rapid changes happening in our field and in other state DOTs. (It's worth noting that all of these observations are at the main headquarters office in Sacramento. I have heard from other employees that it's not quite as bad in the district offices.)
