Pros
State of the art Wellness Center; comprehensive benefits package; on campus cafeterias & pharmacy (I really miss the pharmacist. He was great.); company provided parking ramps; modernized downtown corporate campus all connected to downtown via skywalk system. Principal is a successful financial services company in a medium sized city, but has a world wide footprint. It boasts many employees who have worked there for their entire careers. I worked there almost 20 years myself. It is trying to attract the younger talent to position itself for the future.
Cons
This is not your father's Principal. The small company atmosphere has given way to a generic, large company, corporate coldness. The pay is mediocre. The medical insurance is middle of the road by design. PTO has recently given way to the new open time off system that companies all seem to be adopting. PTO was considered a "liability to the company." In my case, I forfeited nine days of PTO that I had remaining in my PTO bank, but the company policy changed, so I was not entitled to that anymore. As indicated previously, I had worked for the company for twenty years ( two separate time periods separated by a short period of about one year). I had no disciplinary issues. My performance reviews were solid. I was probably not a "superstar," but I was versatile and consistent. I was always complimented for being a team player with a good attitude. I put in overtime when needed, in order to complete time sensitive work. My quality was 100%. Why mention all of this? I was let go, based on missing "performance goals," the last time by less than 1%. The department had recently adopted a new work log system, and they took a hard line on performance, based on this system, which was not entirely accurate. It had to be fixed a couple of times for not correctly recording the data. Any attempt to reason with management was met with canned responses. ( I had about six managers in a ten year period, by the way). So, even though we were having to break in a new manager every couple of years, we never got credit for keeping things together during those transitions. There was lots of turnover in our department. The stress of this constant turmoil, coupled with minimal training, high expectations, managers constantly harping on your "metrics," and the monotony of the job, sends you home feeling like you are just a cog in the machine. No sympathy from management. They have directives that must be delivered, so expect that going in. Principal is just like any other financial services company, but with a sweet wellness center. Not for everybody. It was time to get out of "cube city" for me.
