Pros
The people here can be very enjoyable to work with. There are still a few higher-ups who are willing to teach and support those who are motivated to learn.
Cons
When I first started working here (at the Piedmont location) it wasn't too bad, but unfortunately a large growth in business coupled with bad and uncorrected management practices quickly made Ortec an increasingly frustrating place to work. Terrible management that is afraid to let employees learn new skills and grow in their career for fear that their employees will learn more than them and make them look bad. I wanted to learn more about GC chromatography but was told I "wasn't ready" after spending 2 years working with the GC equipment. Management rarely, if ever, goes out of its way to meet with those working on the off-shift. Employees on the off-shift are therefore often punished for things outside of their control without the abilty to defend themselves or unwillingly take the blame for errors made by other employees who work regular shift hours. There seemed to be a habit of hiring lazy and/or incompetent employees and then waiting too long to fire them (all the while replacing them with equally bad employees) while allowing morale amongst good employees to dwindle. Work/life balance was pitiful in that the employees were required to be on-call during the weekends while the place was very understaffed due to lack of management to hire good employees. Little room for movement. Promises are made to employees which are never kept. We were punished for showing new employees how to do things if we did not ask management for permission first. Training was virtually nonexistent and many times useless (like filling out an absurdly long training document and quiz on how to use the lab dishwasher while useful and important methods and equipment were barely covered). Extreme micromanagement. Any type of friendly conversation amongst employees was looked down upon and oftentimes punished by management even though work was correctly and thoroughly completed, which lead to poor morale. If you are not a favorite of the manager good luck being allowed to do anything new.