Pros
The company hires a lot, even during the recession. The job will help you pay the bills to get by. There is always 'something' to do. Some of the people are very nice. They say they have no tolerance for people that show up late or take long lunch breaks or leave early (but everybody does it). The KPB building on Multnomah is very close to downtown and the possibilities of lunch are almost endless..this was great. Management people seem pretty happy (I think they are paid pretty well..) So they are easy going people that will help you with your personal needs. They offered me more money when I went to quit (this could be a good or bad thing depending how you think about this). Good benefits, seriously...If you do get sick and when you are able to actually go get checked out, its very easy to get taken care of! I called in, got an appointment the next day..they checked me out and gave me all the prescriptions I needed right away. On my plan I didn't even pay a dime at the doctor's appointment.. The plan that came out of my paycheck was dirt cheap compared to other companies. Definitely the greatest part about working here is that if you ever get some serious ailment, you are in good hands.
Cons
Anyone can get a job at Kaiser, this is a good thing if you are desperate for a job..but leave it at that because this is not a place where I would recommend working for a long time. I worked here in between jobs to get by and pay the bills. Some of my colleagues were wayyy over qualified with Phd's and others had very mediocre backgrounds.. I'm not from an Ivy league school or anything, but I have a rather seasoned resume I felt was endangered by the discombobulation represented at Kaiser...So I left for a much better job at a better company. There are a lot of good people at Kaiser, unfortunately there are a few who bring it down.. The few bad ones that I noted came from unimpressive backgrounds that seemingly wanted to feel a level of control over their peers, the good thing was that I didn't find that these people were in management so you could choose to ignore them when you felt like it. The pay at Kaiser for non-exempt full-time employees is not good, but I have seen cheaper companies out there.. Non-exempt full-time non-management employees are given on average the worst remuneration in the entire company. The PTO time accumulated is normal compared to fortune 500 companies, but the sick time is horrid for non-exempt full-time employees (unionized employees are treated much better in respect to this). Because Kaiser is a health care company, people at the office often travel back and forth to the hospital.. Hospitals (as much as they'd like to proclaim their cleanliness) are known cess pools of disease. You WILL get sick here, even if you are not the type to get sick.. You WILL. It takes more than 3 months to acquire 1 day of sick time, this is definitely not enough. You will be going to work sick or using your PTO time. In other fortune 500 companies you will get 3 sick days up front plus PTO..this would be more fair. The company also sends out emails that state you must come to work..even in severe weather (huge lawsuit waiting to happen with this one..). During fire alarms, they made us go down two floors and you are told not to leave the building..there are no repercussions for exiting the building during fire alarms. Smoke was detected in the building, people went down 2 floors and waited there for atleast 30 minutes to an hour with no further notification of what was happening (this is another major lawsuit waiting to happen). The other big con here is that while a lot of companies have plenty of meetings, I feel that this place goes overboard. You will have hour long meetings over the most menial tasks.. I remember a meeting that was an hour long discussion about whether or not someone should rename a file..and in the end of the meeting it was decided to not rename the file because it wouldn't change anything for the company. A lot of the meetings here are designed to micromanage you, they will insult your intelligence by proclaiming they are not designed for the purposes of micromanagement.. Rounding every two weeks with a manager (ugh!). The manager will pretty much tell you you are always doing a good job and keep it up, they want to know the dirt. George Halvorson reminds me of the Wizard of Oz..does he crank the machine behind a curtain? I never heard or saw the guy.