Slightly off topic but.. I bet this thread has huge selection bias even beyond this just being ATOT. Although there are obviously exceptions, people who feel they were inadequately successful are unlikely to post, people who feel they made too much to not be bragging are unlikely to post. Who knows.. I guess maybe people who made absurdly little take some sort of perverse pride and would have more propensity to share. Etc.
Or those who may feel there's some chance of being identified. (Even if it's a fairly small chance.)
I will say that I've only gotten one raise in more than 2.5 years with this company, and that my pay appears to be on the low side for my field, though cost of living also seems to be on the low side in this area. (Probably because any reasonable person decides to move away after spending one winter here.)
The good: My immediate coworkers are quite competent and capable - one of them is also my immediate supervisor, who understands what his department's duties entail, as he once was the entire department.
He can be...boisterous and somewhat animated, but the good part is that his frustration and such is almost invariably directed at other departments. He's usually quite ok with the performance of his two supervisees. Though his preference is usually for
fast solutions.
My preference is for things that work well, not only today, but also in future years, so there are sometimes debates as to how to best or properly resolve a problem.
That there is a big factor in keeping me ok with working there. I spent the majority of my time in school "dealing" with other people on a daily basis, and I have no desire to get into another place where conflict is constant. I'd sooner go back to stocking shelves on the nightshift at Walmart than re-live something like that.
The bad: Being a group of the few technical people at the company means that the department is constantly in high demand for internal technical support. Going 10-15 minutes without some manner of interruption is increasingly rare.
And our external tech support guy left the company awhile ago, and they don't appear to have any plans for a replacement, so the engineering department does customer tech support too now.