Vantaggi
I admire what this organization does for the students. Its mission is to help and empower impoverished kids in the STL area, and there are some cool success stories. Also, pretty much everyone there is really cool. I enjoyed it while I was there.
Svantaggi
I was let go without any warning due to fairly vague concerns about "performance". Nobody ever expressed any concerns to me previously, and I had both really enjoyed the position and felt it was going well up until that day they called me into the office to terminate me. It is an especially odd turn considering how hard they fought to get me into the position when I declined their initial offer. Part of why I had declined was also due to lack of experience in a portion of the role they offered me, but when I expressed that concern during the interview, they insisted they'd "work with me". So much for that promise. Outside of serious reasons such as misconduct, it is entirely unprofessional to let someone go without warning like that, as I was blindsided. I would expect better professionalism from a school of all places. I'm also an alumni of SEMO, the university which sponsors this school; you'd think that would have also carried some weight. Also, several employees I knew complained about getting paid well below market average; I was included in that, but (mistakenly) took the job ultimately because I believed in the organization and its mission. I wish they advocated for, empowered, and took care of their employees the way they do their students. It's worth noting, as of now, I've been at my new job only as long as I was at Lift for Life, and have already received a $2/hour raise due to their happiness with my performance. I have always believed in giving my best at any job and performing as directed, so this was a clear leadership failure on the part of L4L leadership.