Vantaggi
Beautiful location in the Ottawa Valley, great outdoors activities, lower overall cost of living, some great co-workers but they don't stay long. Wonderfully aspirational future vision.
Svantaggi
The red tape is absolutely unreal. Everywhere you turn there is an endless approval process for everything. Even when they try to improve processes, they make them worse - procurement is a prime example. Honestly, I have not seen anything like the endless hoops you have to clear to prepare and issue and RFP - totally unreal and not at all intuitive. Good people with different ideas and new approaches to business do not stay long. The appetite for positive change exists at the senior levels only - everywhere else, it is endless parade of old guard getting in the way and preventing advances. Sadly, as a taxpayer and an employee, I hope this place gets shut down - they deserve it. Today was the last straw for me. I spend more time generating reports for AECL's review and response, then anywhere I have worked. Most places it is about to outcomes; for AECL they focus on the process and making sure each step was undertaken and you have proof to support you did it. In their burocratic minds, process is valuable, outcomes are just nice to have. In some ways, it is too bad Harper did not shutter this place when he had the chance. There is some challenge by the unions to have the operation declared a single employer for the purposes of pension and some other things. If they have not yet caught on, all they have to do is demonstrate to the arbitrator the level of reporting, and the day to day intrusions by AECL - attending meetings, talking to employees, addressing issues as an employer would - and their case will be won. Professional staff - scientists and technicians - a word of advice: start acting like professionals, and stop acting like entitled babies. Oh, and go work somewhere else for a little dose of reality.