Fantastic Stepping stone for engineering internships - Student Lab Manager University of Utah Employee Review

Flexible scheduling. Employees are generally able to operate with minimal supervision. Allows one to acquire knowledge of campus layout and how to move objects of varying sizes in practical ways.

Risk of injury if employee doesn't know what they're doing. Labor may be outdoors and can be strenuous.

Most coworkers are super smart, dedicated and amazing to work with. The retirement benefits are unbeatable and the healthcare benefits are pretty good (they were better about 5 years ago, but budget cuts, etc. have made a noticeable dent). The core mission of education and research is important and it feels good to contribute to society in that way.

In the last couple of years, the university has really put a heavier emphasis on generic management consulting firms' expertise rather than actually paying attention to solving the issues identified by the many "company climate" surveys they send out. Under previous U leadership administrations, there was a genuine climate of caring and collegiality while we worked to provide students a great education and do excellent research - that culture is very much missing now. Now there is a lot of competition between employees for resources that are getting more scarce and an emphasis on standardization that doesn't suit an academic mission well. The U used to be a good place to work. Now, I would not recommend it unless you are either really desperate or willing to put up with a LOT in order to secure good benefits for yourself and/or your family. The crappy reality is that there are many of us are still here because the benefits are so expensive to replace.