Oregon Department of Human Services Employee Reviews about "work life balance"

Pros

This is a very rewarding job. To have the privilege to serve the community and protect it's children to the best of your ability is truly rewarding. To help eliminate safety threats and guide parents to healthy parenting strategies as well as helping parents achieve their personal goals as a person and as a parent is awesome.

Cons

This is a very tough job that exposes you to a wide range of issues within the community including but not limited to aggressive personalities, mental health issues, substance abuse issues, domestic violence, and child abuse. If you can handle that and find a healthy work/life balance then you will succeed. If not, you will burn out and it will negatively impact your quality of work.

Pros

You come in contact with many professionals, individuals, and situations that you would otherwise never encounter.

Cons

Again, you come in contact with many professionals, individuals, and situations that you would otherwise never encounter. The work/life balance is almost nonexistent as you get piled on with crisis after crisis, paperwork after paperwork, and bureaucracy run by so much regulations that you can hardly breathe. (However, it is understandable since you are dealing with incredibly sensitive and delicate situations.) All of my coworkers confessed that they never dealt with this much stress in their entire lives. So if you are OK with having limited time off work, constant stress at its highest level, LOW PAY ($40K if you have experience or a master's degree. If not, your starting pay is around $38K.), and bureaucracy then this may be a good fit for you. Don't forget the fact that you will be dealing with raw human emotions and that your decisions will have real-life impact on people's lives regardless how correct those decisions are.