This review is written in regards to the Vista, California facility - as far as I can tell the rest of the company has their act together.
The Facility: it is not in any way adequate to what is being asked of it. It is supposed to be large scale manufacturing, but yet there is no warehouse to speak of for storage and much of our non-essential equipment is stored at the facility next door and employees have to ask permission from the neighboring company to access it. Other equipment is stashed in an off-site storage facility and a truck must be rented each time one of the larger items needs to be moved to and from this off-site area. In the nearly 2 years I worked there, the facilities and maintenance groups did not have an established workshop. Work was done on the production floor or in obscure areas. The facility also has extremely dated essential equipment, such as dilapidated old air handlers that service lab areas and climate controls that regularly fail. "New" equipment was specced out to the lowest possible demand it would ever receive and these essential items are regularly over burdened and inevitably experience hard stop failures unless constantly attended to. The roof is also in a state of incredibly disrepair and the upper echelons of management show no interest in getting it repaired properly.
The Culture: Safety is listed as one of the top priorities on paper, only. Personnel are regularly asked to work in dangerous environments without proper equipment or precautions - to their credit they will not usually chastise people who refuse to do the work, but high level managers have asked employees to do maintenance on running equipment or powered circuits, or near chemical spills with regularity. There is also a severe lack of accountability to managers, many of whom are tragically and obviously unqualified for their positions and have little to no knowledge of operations. The company management also fights back against necessary maintenance and calibrations upkeep, preferring to run equipment at the risk of failure or impact to the product just to meet their production deadlines
The Pay: The benefits are good but the pay is unacceptable. Starting wages are usually okay, but you are essentially stuck with that wage until you get promoted (minimal increase) or you get a new job offer (they MIGHT try to match your new offer). Yearly increases aren't even equivalent to a low end cost of living adjustment and border on being an insult to your worth as an employee. They have a nice performance bonus every year, but it is dangled in front of you like a carrot on a stick for the entire year in an attempt to get you to work extremely extended hours and it is never communicated what the dollar amount might be until you receive it, to even know if all the extra work is worth it.
Overall: there is a LOT of wasted potential, and this review is only covering the tip of the iceberg the Vista site is facing down. The day to day experience is hectic and disorganized, employees are becoming more and more visibly disgruntled and managers act very immaturely when subordinates raise fair questions or point out mistakes and oversights. Every day is stressful because of the last minute planning and daily "fires" that need handling without proper equipment, proper funding, or proper direction.
