Nice if you like having no money
Pros
Nice enough place to work if you don't mind being severely underpaid. Most colleagues were pretty great. 20% off in shops and restaurants and quite generous holiday (but not enough staff to actually take it) Living wage so a bonus if you're under 25 I guess.
Cons
National trust rationalises underpaying staff using it's "charity" status but the whole operation is ran like a money-grabbing corporation. Puts far too much on the volunteers and lower level staff. You're expected to go continuously above and beyond your pay grade but god forbid you actually ask for acknowledgement in pay or job title. Development is nonexistent. Removed all "assistant managers" so they could pay the same people a lower "supervisor" wage for the same jobs. Managers completely out of touch with their workers, the pay gap between them and everyone else is laughable. They work out pay rises before minimum wage increases so if you're only being paid a little above minimum, year on year the distance gets smaller and smaller. Unfair grading systems throughout, visitor services staff at the same level as catering and retail are a grade above them, supposedly because they sell membership yet there's no difference in the work and they could sell no memberships all year and still be on a higher base wage. The staff in retail regularly did ten times the work of reception staff (and worked longer hours) yet still got paid less, Grade 10 is general staff on reception but also supervisors in retail and catering, with supervisors often being paid less. No work-life balance at all, not enough staff to take holidays or time off in lieu and too much reliance on volunteers, when they inevitably cancel (because they are VOLUNTEERS) staff are left without any cover. They constantly ask department workers to get involved with more of the organisation (inviting us to event planning meetings etc) but it's just for show as they schedule all meetings during opening hours preventing customer-facing staff (the people who actually know what's going on and what customers want) from attending and having any say. No accountability for management. You try and bring up a problem and they skirt around the issue, I once tried to bring up a concern about the wider retail practices and my manager just gave me the name of someone in head office instead of following up a concern I'd passed on. Escalating to your line manager should be enough.