USNWC Reviews

Takes favoritism to get a promotion. Supervisors aren’t hired from within. You must submit time off requests a month in advance, but management will only give you the schedule for one to two weeks at a time. It is hard to clock in but if you are one minute past the start time, you are marked as late. They will call you out of work 45 minutes before your shift starts. Good luck taking a break there! Your bladder will suffer. Water can be inaccessible. Management can do whatever they want to bottom tier people. Management requires you to wear a uniform but will not pay for it, and it isn’t cheap. You must buy your own professional gear on top of that. Management is lousy and the land director is a terrible leader. She only cares about the money and will lie right to your face and call you names. Not environmentally friendly at all. They don’t want to be called an amusement park simply because they specialize in outdoor sports, but they are an amusement park, with corporate-minded management.

I’d like to start by saying that my main reason for posting this review is to help someone else avoid wasting as much time as I did at this place and that maybe someday new upper management can come in and actually treat their staff like human beings. It’s a shame because of how awesome of a facility it is; it has so much potential but will not be able to reach that with the people in charge of it at the moment. 1. Once you start working there, you quickly start picking up on the cracks in the pavement. First of all, the upper management views all of their staff as easily replaceable. I spent two years working there, and I can't even count how many people they let go of for no good reason. I worked closely with several managers who continuously excelled at their position, and were told so repeatedly by upper management, just to be let go shortly after with little to no explanation. 2. Low Pay; Thought process…”It’s a nonprofit and a really cool place to work, and the people all seem great to work with! I’m okay with putting my blood sweat and tears into this position for $30k a year while working 60-70 hours a week with no bonuses or incentives.” We’ve all been there, I know I was. I was willing to put in the work because I thought it would be worth it. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, upper management has no respect for their employees and will let you go at the drop of a hat. I recently found out that fellow coworkers who had been there 1-3 years were let go VIA EMAIL. So if they don’t have enough respect and time to at least fire their full-time staff in person what makes you think they’ll hesitate at all to do it again? *When I say upper management, I do not mean Land Managers, Rafting Managers, Guest Services Managers, Retail Managers, etc. Most of these people I have worked with closely and have the utmost respect for. This tier of employees are often the ones let go of for no reason.* 3. Don’t let the overall Glassdoor rating fool you. If you look closely, you’ll see that most of the reviews are from temporary summer staff. So hey, if you are just looking for a fun summer gig to leave once the leaves change, USNWC may not be a bad option for you over an entry-level position at McDonald’s, for example. After all, there are a lot of great activities there. If you are looking for a career position, however, I’d recommend you keep looking. 4. Lack of employee areas; Many departments do not offer any type of break room, and they also do not allow you to eat (during your short break) where you’re visible to the public unless you change out of staff gear and are only eating food purchased through the center. I get why they don’t want staff eating home-cooked meals in front of guests, but if that’s a requirement then provide them a simple alternative. 5. Be cautious of HR and their ability to help the situation; I was not directly involved with some of the HR-related situations that I have heard about, but I do know that a lot of issues get swept under the rug at the USNWC, ranging from unfair treatment to sexual harassment. 6. USNWC IS NOT NIKE. OR APPLE. OR AMAZON. Chances are, most people in Charlotte have no idea about the whitewater center’s “W” logo or make the association when seeing their plain “W” billboard with no other images or text, that they spend thousands of dollars on each month. If you ask most employees, they said it took them 3 months of driving past it on their way to work at the center before they even realized it was USNWC’s logo. Really stating this one because I find it amusing, but also because they are never open to even hearing about their employees’ opinions or suggestions. I’ve heard some really great ideas come from staff ranging from hourly workers to salary, yet they aren’t given the time of day to voice their opinions on ways to improve the center and increase customer satisfaction.