Pros
There are some wonderful, passionate people at the Symphony who are a joy to work with. The Symphony does some really great work in the OC community, and of course performances can be magical. Sometimes promotes from within.
Cons
Low pay and leadership makes excuses about being a nonprofit to avoid giving raises to deserving and hardworking staff members. Extremely and unnecessarily stressful working environment. Leadership runs in circles trying to make the board happy. Many wasted hours putting together documents and reports that are never used. Lower level staff is made to feel inferior. The organization has begun requiring that all employees completely use up their vacation days rather than being allowed to roll vacation over into the next year. Usually very little training for new employees or promoted employees, leaving people feeling disconnected, disempowered, and set up for failure. Budgetary concerns are real and there is a growing concern among staff that layoffs are looming. Leadership is not unified - there is a feeling of infighting that is extremely uncomfortable. Very reactionary organization in almost every sense. High turnover (understandably so). Unprofessional behavior is completely accepted (yelling at colleagues during a meeting, etc.). There is no HR and this is SUCH a problem.