Poor salary for lower management: Between the analysts and the upper management there was this interim layer of management that was also on salary. The problem was that more than any other job at GPS, this layer of management was the ones who were over utilized and under paid. In many cases, these people (I was one of them) were paid less than the good analysts, but performed substantially more work than any analysts. It was like a pie-eating contests where the reward for eating your pie the fastest was more pie. The people getting promoted into these positions were the analysts who excelled, so generally this meant a pay cut over what you could have made under the commission structure. In addition, you had a lot more responsibility for the quality expectations, but no stake in the company actually hitting its quality goal (as was the case with upper management who got an annual bonus if quality levels were hit). So, I guess if you never make it this far, you may not need to worry about this problem.
Probably great salary if you are an owner: Of course, I wouldn’t know, but they both drove around pretty nice cars, so I have to assume they made a hell of a lot more money than me or anyone else that worked there. Also, they went on vacation a lot, sometimes on the company dime, under the guise of a “trade show” or “conference” of some sort. And then there were the frequent half days when at least one of them was not to be found. Perhaps this may not bother you, but if you are an analyst you don’t really get “vacation”, since you are paid on a commission. If you stop working, you stop making money. For those who were scratching by, this was nearly an impossibility.
Minimal opportunity for growth within the company: My ultimate reason for leaving the company was not because of any dissatisfaction with the people or the work, rather, it was because it became apparent to me that there wasn’t any real growth potential in the company. Nevertheless, I stand by my statement that it is a great stepping stone to get fantastic hands-on experience in the IP field. The reason I believe there is not long term growth potential is because it is still a small company, and there are only a limited number of positions at the top. Further, the management and the owners (who are the real decision making power) don’t have a lot of business management experience or IP experience beyond prior art searching, so they (the owners) have a general and apparently insurmountable fear of expanding into markets that go beyond searching. As much as I don’t mind searching, I want a little more out of my career, but if you don’t, then maybe this wouldn’t bother you.
Very little diversity in the type of work performed: As I just mentioned, there really is only searching and writing search reports at GPS. There isn’t really anything else, and I speculate as to whether there will ever be anything else.
