Unrealistic employee expectations especially considering the pay rate - Substance Abuse Counselor Goodwill Employee Review

2.0
9 Sept 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Decent benefits and vacations time.

Cons

I interned with this agency though my entire Master's program and was hired on after graduation. My immediate supervisor was always supportive at first but then upper management started to decline and the staff moral went down. I worked in a DOC run facility and 1/4 was supposed to be a therapeutic substance abuse program but the mind set of everyone in the place is punitive instead of rehabilitation. They look for reasons to punish the clients and send them back to jail/prison. The program is supposed to be designed so that they work while receiving treatment and live at the facility. They are supposed to have enough money saved when they leave to get back on their feet and in theory reduce the risk of recidivism but this never happens! The client start off in the hole being charged for a medical exam and room and board for the two months before they even start looking for a job and then are expected to pull appropriate clothes and toiletries out of a magic hat. Once they do get in the positive...IF they get into the positive upper management will use any excuse to withhold their own money from them. Employees are under valued and over worked. I became pregnant shortly after being hired and was told that my position would be held for me. I even trained a tech who was to TEMPORARILY take my caseload, we even told clients together that I would be back. So I went on maternity leave for 6 weeks and on the fifth week I went back to have lunch with my team and show off my baby. I asked what I needed to do to prepare for returning the next week. I was told by upper management that no such arrangement was ever made and the tech denied ever making that agreement. Even with my immediate supervisor back me up on the fact that he and the tech made that agreement with me, since nothing was in writing I was screwed because I had worked there less than a year (even though I interned with them for over a year before that) and did not qualify for FMLA. So I had to go on unemployment which I could have been on from the start of my maternity leave if they had not lied to me. Since leaving they have pushed out two of my colleagues and that supervisor not to mention the countless employee turn over I saw during my internship.

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5.0
24 Apr 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Easy work, enjoyable, good company

Cons

A little boring, not long term job.

2.0
9 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Work fulfilling both physically and socially, dealing with donors and fellow employees for this retiree and former legal and business professional.

Cons

Creepy, clannish, petty, and cultish management is more interested in humiliating others under the guise of "following rules" many of their own making than in ensuring that the work facility is properly equipped to handle daily workflow. Communication nonexistent. Managers pop in and out, apparently stationed at some secret location.  Robotic replies to legitimate work questions when they weren't out-and-out nasty.  I've occasionally dealt with this sort of folks, but never an entire collection of them cheering each other on as might appear in some deleted scene from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Poisonous and bizarre. Recommended only for the Abnormal Psychology student.

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