Vantaggi
Fairly relaxed work environment depending on position whithin the company. Company provides plenty of small perks which are nice (again depending on position). Some of these include a Friday lunch for the office crew, free gym access, a very nice company picnic in the Summer and Christmas party in the Winter. Will occasionally let employees out early before holidays. End of year bonuses are also nice. But as you will see they are a con as well....
Svantaggi
Hourly pay. Derrick prides itself on its huge end of the year Christmas bonuses. However, they tend to use these bonuses to buffer and hide the fact that they simply do not pay their employees enough in hourly pay. Trained Welders starting at $14/hr? 4 year degreed Engineers at $16/hr? Yes, you do gross a decent paycheck by the end of the year. However, to do so you must work the mandatory 47.5 hours a week (for all shop workers and some office personell), and rely on a nice bonus (which is soley dependent on the profitibility of the company). Not to mention that bonus gets taxed at an outrageous 45% . A bonus should be a bonus, not a makeup for lack of pay. Derrick does not have a structrured pay scale, everything is "merit" based. I use the term merit quite loosely. More often than not it appears to be a popularity constest as opposed to who's actually doing the best work. This causes many workers to become discouraged and wonder what it actually takes to obtain a decent raise. Derrick is also becoming quite famous for their yearly layoffs. They have a turnover rate that is larger than any other company that I know of. Upper management relies on the plant foremen to decide who stays and who goes, which ultimately means the older guys who arent necessarily the best fit for the job stay, and the younger up and coming guys leave (hopefully for greener pastures).