Pros
Living in a college town is nice, as are some of the benefits. They are stingy with wage but make up for it in vacation benefits. Access to the software library is a nice plus, even if legally I have to delete it if I no longer work here. Some of the departments are superb, as are the professional interactions between groups.
Cons
There are significant cons. The biggest one is that poisonous managers are shoveled between departments. They don't get fired, just "reassigned", to cause more personnel issues elsewhere. If you get stuck with one of these, you're sunk unless you can transfer out, get another job elsewhere , or quit. That's what I'm in right now, and it's very very ugly. Ive been with the Uni for quite some time in other roles, and just at 1 year who was put on a 2nd 6 month probation after a previous manager gave me a glowing review. ------- snippets of actual communications ------- "Are you incompetent? Or do you know what you're even doing?" That was my 2nd day working under him. "Do X". I do X. Manager calls me into his office and yells: "You shouldn't have did X because it was WRONG!" This continued for 1/2 hour. So insubordination or getting yelled at. "We have a problem with X. Use your best judgement and come up with a good secure solution to this." I did so, and had it in testing. Then over internal chat, " WTF you do? We agreed that Y is the correct solution! Come into my office!" Half hour berating session commences. ------------------------------------------------------------ I do not complain because of retaliation, and the fact I'm still searching in IU system for other positions. The nail that sticks out gets the hammer. I don't want to be untouchable. Complaining would make me that. The director has also been in chat and has been witness to some of these trashtalking sessions. Either they haven't noticed it, didn't interpret it as bad, or doesn't care. I do hope that it's that they were interpreting it as the benefit of the doubt. I would heartily change my 1* rating to 5* primarily depending on manager/department. Major siloing happens, and different departments have radically different "standards". Had I known what this "silo" expects, I would have turned it down.