Feigning Corporate in an Academic World.
Pros
Vacation and Medical Leave are separate and accrue at equal rates. Laid-back, academic atmosphere. People enjoy sharing what they are working on. Vast melting pot of cultures from around the world. Cool tech on the frontier of physics.
Cons
Communication between Sectors, Departments and Groups can be rather problematic. Too many islands. Too much budget tension from year to year. Despite being employed by Fermi Research Alliance, the purse strings are held by the US Department of Energy Office of Science (thus DoE...thus Congress) Salary freezes and furloughs do occur when Congress refuses to function. It seems that Cronyism runs rampant in the (shallow) ranks of Management. There is a lot of dead wood which should purged. There are MANY working groups which tends to make the Management structure more broad than deep. The problem is that a non-physicist has a difficult time moving up the rather short ladder.
