The culture is cultlike, and if you are not 100% into the culture, your job can be very difficult. Salaries are horribly low compared to area averages for the same positions at other comparable institutions. Stress levels are off the scale, and my health was negatively affected by dealing with the stress to the point of absolute burnout. Many offices are understaffed at a critical level, and the higher-ups expect the already-stressed-to-the max employees to make up the difference. My supervisor was/is a workaholic, arriving two to three hours early each day and leaving past 7 PM most nights, and fully expecting all employees to do the same without overtime compensation of any sort. Those of us who have families cannot work 80+ hours per week every week. Salaried positions aren't eligible for overtime, but killing your employees by working them to death isn't a good way to retain talented people.
Some of the VPs supervise areas in which they have no expertise or experience. Their judgments of workloads and job performance are muddied by unrealistic expectations and/or not fully understanding the areas they supervise. Staff are quite often summarily regarded as "necessary evils," and this is terrible for morale.
