Pros
1. Get to work outside, helped my mental health being outside everyday in the winter. 2. Pays for accommodation and food for the week. 3. Has opportunities to do weekend work in nice areas. 4. The field team are full of great people who will stick together. 5. Hosts a party on Halloween where all food and drink is free, very good to get to know people in different sections of the company. 6. Tech ops are constantly working on different types of tech to allow you to do your job more efficiently, they are also always available when you’re having tech issues. 7. When asking questions about the kit etc I was always met with articles and chapter sections to read and was always well explained to me. 8. Good starting point within your career. 9. Lots of benefits regarding healthcare and corporate discount schemes.
Cons
1. In the contract regarding weekend work it says they have to give you “plenty of notice” which is obviously a purposely made grey area. In my opinion, 3 days and no option to decline said overtime unless I find someone to take my place is unfair. 2. They hired me knowing I had no driving license, and I lived 2.5 hours away meaning I’d get home late on Fridays and had to be there Sunday evening to arrive on Monday in time. My issue I created for myself obviously, but I was not going to move away from home whilst I was still in my probation period. They stated the driving skills was so I could progress in my role, why did I get fired for not being able to drive? My situation was well known. I had my probation meeting 3 months late, and it wasn’t led with “we’re letting you go”, they instead talk about my strengths and weaknesses, then I was told “you can either do another week or go home now”. It was severely disorganised as well as rude considering I HAD to do the weekend working prior to my meeting. 3. They do not treat field staff as well as they should, it is us going out into the field in all sorts of weather which they do not care about if it’s torrential rain and high wind, they just care about the hectarage. We have had the wettest winter, predominantly in the south which affects the ground conditions, but the low hectarage was made out to be our fault. 4. They are disorganised severely whilst having a large HR department which states they are there for you in times of need but this is very false. I’d rather a company that’s brutally honest than hides behind all these nice policies then treats you unfairly. 5. It’s 3 weeks in field, 1 in office. I had not had an office week since November after being let go on the last week of March. 6. In the ground office, many assistants were told to help one of the directors to move house, by dropping items off in the office from his house or vice versa, we are there to learn about archaeology and geophysics, not to be movers. 7. From my position, being a JPO or PO seemed to be a nightmare role with the heavy workload being added quicker than it was finished by the higher ups, and those higher ups were the ones pushing the field staff too far. 8. They claim they have a high turnover rate because people can’t hack the field or they get bored in the summer. Whilst that’s true to an extent, it’s just to cover themselves from every single issue I have stated here. Lastly, being in the office was so tense, it was like walking on eggshells and some people would speak to you rudely.