Pros
Starting base pay around COA, consistent with similar employers. *POTENTIAL* to make very good money on incentive based jobs, but can vary based on many factors Average benefit/vacation package you're used to and a couple pizza lunches each year You get an extra 5 days of vacation for every 5 years of employment... it used to be every 3 years before 2020... Hard to get fired if you just show up every day ...Uhh... An on-site cafeteria from 6am-1pm?... Not really any worse than any other factory job, but not any better either
Cons
Firstly, when applying for any hourly/incentive position, you will almost always get put on 3rd shift regardless of what they tell you. They get around this simply by adding "must be able to work any shift" at the bottom of every application. Personally have seen many people, especially single parents, that were forced to quit because they were not given the shift they were promised. Secondly, even if you are comfortable working 3rd shift, it can take several years to get on 1st. You may get lucky and get on 2nd soon, but you will quickly learn that is the worst shift during the summer; afternoon temps regularly reach the 90s-100s. If you can handle all that, the next issue is the flip side of having an incentive based position. There are over 15 different machine assemblies, with variations of most, and your rarely get to work the same lines day to day, especially during your 90 day training period, essentially setting you up for failure. You will soon find you only make good money on whichever machines you get to spend the most time on and practice. And like any business, there is the inner circle of employees that get first choice of the "good" jobs. When there is not enough work (often), senior employees get any of the remaining jobs, while newer employees are forced to work monotonous "backup" jobs that usually don't offer the opportunity to make incentive, as you are paid your "average" rate. You can get caught in a bad loop where you are consistently put on non-incentive jobs, before having the opportunity to raise your average incentive rate, staying at your starting base pay. Also everyone is forced to work many weekends when there isn't enough work to go around. Nice for people that need some extra money, but annoying for everyone else, especially if you like doing things on weekends or planning anything in advance. Vacation time is given out based on seniority and only a maximum of 20% per department can be out at the same time, so don't bother trying to take any popular days for vacation (around holidays). These all get eaten up by the long term employees who already have much more vacation time than newer employees, making it even easier for them to take up more days out of the year. You USED to be able to earn points for good work or fixing a hazard, etc, as well as a "bingo" board every month, which could be used to buy swag, gift certificates, personal parking spots, and even a vacation day. That is all gone now. They are all now bids and charities you have to pay money for. Lastly, there is almost zero chance or room for advancement in this company. Last year they literally stopped posting office and management level job inside. You now have to search through a confusing multi-company website to see what positions are open. A few years before that, they made it a requirement for all management to have at least an associates level degree. But as you can probably guess, most of the current floor management has been there so long they got grandfathered in. Now you have to have a college education to do the same job as someone who never went to college, makes twice as much money and can't figure out how to copy and paste or make his pictures horizontal