Vantaggi
I gained a lot of technical skills in my short time at Artech. Because I advocated for myself (continually saying "I want to learn everything I can"), I was trained in driving box trucks, operating a order picker/lift, and soft packing fine art for transportation. I use those skills in my current role and I think my job at Artech was a big part of the reason I was hired.
Svantaggi
Artech's management demonstrated misongyny. Several times, I saw men promoted over women with more experience and competence. One team lead mocked his report in front of the whole crew by calling them "the sticker queen." First, that lead was misgendering his report because they are nonbinary. Second, the work of accurately labeling pieces for transportation is a key part of doing the job successfully. I was told not to become responsible for "the stickers" because that was all I would ever do. I.e. it was considered women's work. Women and nonbinary people were undermined on a daily basis. Artech also undervalues their employees, leading to unnecessarily high turnover. We had a minimal number of paid holidays and 2 weeks of vacation time a year. We were told there would be no work between Christmas and New Years. If we didn't want to take unpaid time off, we had to use our vacation time for it. Crews frequently arrived back at the warehouse late and leaving at 5pm was considered showing insufficient dedication to the job. Health benefits were stingy. One of my coworkers had to quit therapy because she couldn't guarantee she would be off work in time for the appointments and she couldn't have privacy for telehealth at work. These are just a couple anecdotes from my 3-month stint.