How did I stay at this place for so long?
Pros
-To their credit, They work on some very large-scale construction projects (usually that no other contractors want) with big-name clients that look good on a resume. -Pay is within the market for construction (although that'll still be less than most engineering careers out there) -It's construction, for the most part you can swear all you want
Cons
-Can't speak for the tradesmen but like another user mentioned, unless you're on the calmer phases of a job or they aren't winning any, you'll regularly have to work 50-60 hours a week and get nothing in return, if not to get lectured about how you owe them even more. Depending on who's managing you, you'll even get chewed out for being 5 minutes late the next day (mainly applies to the Hanover office). -Management consists of some of the least open-minded people I've met, without exaggeration. They're pretty old-school, and will pretty much always have a "You work for me, you do as I say" mentality. As another user stated, there's a lot of instances in which they'll push working harder over working smarter and will clearly have their own "favorites" to protect. -Very unprofessional culture, be prepared to hear plenty of screaming, drama, insults casually hurled at women and minorities...etc. -General negative/tense aura all around. I've never seen a workplace where everyone seems so chronically unhappy, especially in the Hanover office. -Extreme lack of training. You learn mostly by tripping and by researching what things are on your own. Prior experience working in the trade helps more than anything you would've learned in college. -Plenty of time is wasted on submittals and paperwork. Part of the cause to this is that work will be reviewed by a different PM/upper management and changed back and forth multiple times without consistency. Delegation of duties is rather disorganized- you'll often end up putting out 100 fires for people in a day without being able to focus on anything you wanted to. -Nature of work is cumbersome and unrewarding unless you're sure construction management is your dream and not just the first job you got out of college. A lot of it is just bookkeeping and helping construction workers use computers rather than any actual engineering.