Pros
Coworkers were great. Some of the best guys you’ll ever meet. Pay/benefits are decently competitive. Desk job employees seem to actually like the company. Carter University is a good learning resource and their in house trainers are relatable and good teachers. That being said, the classes are mostly made by CAT and show the proper way of doing things. Carter uses little to none of the processes you’re taught so it’s almost pointless. They put a lot of money back into the company in an effort to make the facilities look nicer.
Cons
If you care about the quality of your work, this is not the company for you. The profit is the only thing they care about. Parts junk and won’t live a full rebuild lifetime? Reuse it anyway. Parts washer didn’t completely clean a part and left dirt all over it? Put it on anyway, we’ll blow time standards if we take the time to do it right. Carter is not the company it was years ago. There is absolutely zero quality control. If you have your engines rebuilt here now, you should be looking elsewhere. If you have a family or care at all about anything outside of the workplace, this is not the company for you. 50-60 hour work weeks are common. Most of the top performers are in there more than that. Abusing Adderall or other prescription drugs to achieve this productivity is common. This is the best example of a company I’ve ever seen that acts like they care about safety, but only allocate enough time to do a task in the unsafe way. Or better yet, when they redesign an area and don’t put in cranes that are tall enough to remove heavy parts from the larger engines. When management is told of said issue, nothing is done about it. But if/when someone gets hurt due to practices like this, it’s their fault and they’re let go. Lower-mid management cares more about their bonus check for staying under budget than getting needed supplies or equipment. Weekend shift at Salem needs a new supervisor or the current one throughly retrained. A severe lack of social skills, technology related skills, problem solving and process management skills doesn’t create a very good work experience for those under him. Good technicians don’t go into management, whether this is their own choice or the company’s I don’t know. You either end up with the worst technician as your supervisor or a manager hired from the outside with no experience in diesel mechanics. Either way, you end up with someone who doesn’t understand how to do your job or the complications you’ll run into. Business comes and goes mainly depending on politics. Not a con for this company specifically, just heavy equipment companies in general.