06/03/2010

Category
Pay	3
Respect	2
Benefits	2
Job Security	5
Work/Life Balance	3
Career Growth	3
Location	3
Co-Workers	5
Work Environment	3

Pay is, as far as I can tell from industry publications, a little on the low side. Increases are usually bare minimum to match cost-of-living/inflation. Basically as little as they can get away with without driving an employee away.

Outside of the people I worked directly with on a daily basis, respect (in my experience) was zero. HR memos come across as condescending and suspicious of all employees; even lists of holidays somehow carried an implied "we're watching you to make sure you don't take more than you're entitled to" message. Some company policies (like that for bereavement leave) were or are still explicitly hidden from employees to prevent complaints about their contents. Management, with a few notable exceptions, are slick Stepford Smilers who clearly view employees as disposable, replaceable components.

Benefits: Few and getting fewer. Best eliminated bonuses in 1990, there is no incentive plan, and the upper management had to be blackmailed (via a threatened strike by the financial analysts) into implementing a 401k -- *in the early 2000s*. Until around 2008, talking about flex time would get you reprimanded. Health and Dental are expensive and offer minimal benefits for high copays. And what does it say in this day and age when a company refuses to put refrigerators and microwave ovens in rooms that are supposed to be break rooms?

Jos Security: If you can ignore all the bad stuff and you don't mind advancing at a snail's pace, you can last forever here -- just don't run afoul of the snitches and the secret rules.

Work/Life Balance: Surprisingly okay. For all their other autocratic ways, management doesn't demand their employees give up their personal lives in service to the company. There is no stigma to arriving and leaving precisely on the clock, and the implementation of flex time (finally!) makes it even more friendly for working parents and those with unusual needs.

Career Potential? You can last forever at Best, but unless someone above you moves out or on, you're going to be sitting in the same cube for decades.

Location: Pleasant campus in rolling countryside. Far prettier than it deserves to be.

Co-worker Competence: No complaints. Almost everyone I worked with was world-class.

Work environment: Pleasant modern buildings, nicely laid out and furnished, but mostly balanced out by deliberate choice of HR and management to position themselves as enemies of the employees. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they view themselves as wardens or guards. It's clearly too much for most people: turnover among employees is immense, with most people leaving after a year or two. Most of those who last longer are either numb to the shenanigans of HR/Management, or are Quislings.

Jobitorial - A.M. Best - Company Reviews

06/03/2010 - Oldwick, NJ