Pros
None. Nadda. Zip.
Cons
- No home/work life balance - There is never any money to update/replace very outdated technology. You need to just make it work. - Cost cutting comes before people - "You will work 24x7 until it is fixed!" is the go to mentality of senior management. - There are not enough employees in the organization to support the number of projects or production systems that need to be worked on. This is not a personal statement. This is actual fact based on benchmarking. - There is no succession planning for employees. - All industry standards for project planning, development, testing, cut over planning have been thrown out. It is a fly by the seat of your pants environment. - Everything is important/ critical/ must be worked on and resolved. Get ready to be pulled in different directions at least every hour of your day. And management continues to expect everything fixed the same day. - Sleep....what is that? Expect to be called out in the middle of the night almost nightly and you are expected to be at work bright and early the following morning ready to go. - Weekends - expect to be working. - Outsourced "partners". The running joke of the department is they give PS their new trainees. They don't know how to log into systems. They don't know how to perform the basic job functions they are assigned to do. - Expect to wear multiple hats. If you are a project mgr. you will also need to know how to design systems, architecture, coding, creating test scripts, test the systems, tell the coding vendor where to make code changes to correct a failure. If you don't your project will fail and you will be blamed for it. - If you enjoy being micro-managed every second of your day, then this is the place for you. - When you decide to take a vacation...expect to be called on your personal cell phone. - The standard work day is 7:30am until at least 8pm or later. Expect to not be home for dinner with your family. Expect to be called out to solve more problems on your drive home at 8 or 9pm. Expect to log in and be on conference calls until 3 or 4am in the morning. Expect to not be able to leave the office until 3 or 4am, drive home, and report back to work at 7:30am. - You better know everything. Because if you don't you will be blamed for it. - Don't you dare make a mistake. You will either be fired or placed on a performance improvement plan. No matter how good you are at your job. "You are only as good as your last mistake" is the motto here. - Have ideas on making things better. Don't bother bringing them up, no one listens. Especially if it's a technology change or different from the top guy. - Expect to work with old technologies. This is not a cutting edge or even recent technology company. The organization is called "The Dinosaur" for good reason. - Expect to find ways to cut costs on everything you work on. - There are no perks or nice things provided here. No coffee, was cut for cost saving measures. Pens and paper are on lock down. The other running joke is, we are all surprised they still provide toilet paper. Even the security people who used to safely drive employees to their vehicles late at night or to the train station, because it's Newark and safety is a concern, no longer can. Cut. Hope you don't get mugged on the way. - Expect a culture of nastiness, talking down at you, and being thrown under the bus. It didn't used to be this way. But with current management of the IT department this is where it's at. - Expect to pay roughly $200 a month to park your car. - If you are working during a storm, management will actually tell you to "sleep at your desk". You will need to fight back to get approval for a hotel room. In addition, if you are working a storm, bring your own food because you will not be fed, and the cafe will not be open to buy food. Business will not be open to buy food. If you don't bring your own food, you will be living off what is in the vending machines. - There is very little room for career advancement or promotions. - When an employee leaves, expect to pick up thier workload because they will not hire for a replacement. Cost cutting.