Work - Sr. Manager, Operations Outward Bound Employee Review

I loved working here. The work/life balance is healthy, the people have good hearts, and the mission is strong. You also get room/board while you are working there. As you move up housing becomes more limited though.

Not a lot of room for growth in career. The pay isn’t great but it makes sense for what it is. There isn’t a health insurance benefit but you can get insurance from the state.

The people you work with!

Everything else. Incredibly disorganized, and often exploitative. I'm speaking entirely to Philadelphia Outward Bound "School" (POBS): employees in housing have no tenant rights and fall into several legal loopholes, and so cannot get basic fixes like obvious code violations such as open sewage 10ft from the house 24/7. The pay structure is hilariously overcomplicated and utilized in such a way as to be exploitative and even malicious, as people have been outright lied to. Entrenched management here make any changes impossible, and they also suffer from their roles, working far too much and in positions which they have no business entangling themselves. The last 2 (if not 3) staffing managers were forced out by odd managerial pressures and behaviors that would be a huge red flag to anyone who has had a job before. They prey upon young, idealistic people who care for the population and who get sucked up into the fast-paced schedule, wringing everyone out by the end of a single season. Avoid like the plague. Oh, they also breached ADA while I was there by trying to fire an employee who had gotten injured on the job and was trying to get worker's comp (which is a pitiful amount anyway), and they have routinely intimidated foreign employees on visas with similar when they have gotten injured, resulting in a culture where everyone just works when they're hurt, and policies (a laughable concept, as there are no policies or SOPs at POBS) that cause injuries in staff and participants.