Pros
Nice short commute (for me); federal job benefits
Cons
If you are looking for an entry into the world of Air Force logistics, the Palace Acquire program looks to be a great way to do it. And I'm sure that it is in most organizations. But if you happen to accept a PAQ job with the Air Force and end up with the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Hill AFB, I'd refuse the job or ask for another placement. The job sounded cool when I found out where I was going to be working, and it does have some "cool" elements to it. But the person with the oversight of the logistics PAQ program at AFNWC is terrible at his job and should no longer work for the Air Force in any capacity. The job is pitched as a three-year, career-ladder position; you are hired as a GS-7, with annual promotions to GS-9 and GS-11 and final placement as a GS-12 at the end of your third year. A great way to start a career, honestly... if it were actually the case. We were hired and told that we were given a great opportunity to get a jumpstart on our career and that we wouldn't have been hired if there wasn't future GS-12 opportunities for us in the organization. We were told we would be trained as multi-functional logisticians for the Air Force, one of the largest career fields. This was nothing more than a classic bait and switch from an organization simply looking for free labor (PAQs are paid centrally by AF personnel center and not the organization that "employs" them). Less than a year into my tenure, we were constantly told that we needed to look for permanent positions outside the organization and that our once promised promotion to GS-12 after three years was no longer non-competitive (which was counter to all published guidance). Instead of being trained byu qualified trainers, we were instructed to complete hours upon hours of online training, and "learned" our jobs by clicking through PowerPoint presentations for others or "taking notes" at meetings. Trainers were either too busy or completely disengaged from the entire process of actually developing PAQs. On top of that, senior management loved to favor certain employees over others, especially if they were women or married to military officers. If you didn't have previous missile experience or Air Force experience in general, you were a tier below others that did. If you didn't continually kiss the ring of the boss, you were deemed a troublemaker, and pressing even more senior management for answers was viewed as insubordinate even when your immediate supervisors were ignoring valid complaints from multiple individuals in the program. I was excited to be offered a position within the PAQ program; I was excited to begin what I was hoping to be a long career with the Air Force. Instead, I was disillusioned within 12 months and actively looking to leave not only the AFNWC, but the Air Force as a whole prior to the end of my internship.