Pros
50% discount on buck knives though store, including customer orders. excessive PTO availability (4 weeks starting, Between christmas and new years fabrication shut shuts down as furnaces requires annual inspection, ie, no work, so it' an automatic week off, with one day of PTO, or NPTO, guaranteed) Peers can be pretty chill. Swing shift gets paid lunchs, and breaks are 15 minutes.
Cons
upper and middle management are trash. left hand and right hand doesn't communicate. degrees are valued far greater then working experience and as such constant hiring from outside to fill higher level positions will occur, stagnating career advancement. Employees have worked fabrication floor for 20+ years and not left said floor, for any promotions. Only wage increase come from higher lvl certifications which has a maximum cap which is about 4$ more than hiring wage, and a annual 3% cost of living wage increase (to math this out, if you work for buck knives for 15 years, that 3% wage will increase your hourly pay a whopping 6$ over 15 YEARs, how's that for "loyalty"), which is trash compared to current inflation prices and prices over last three years ( ZERO room for wage growth for performance, and as such, morale turns to trash, especially given proximity to Washington state, where minimum wage is already 1$ HIGHER then buck knives starting wage) 401k matching is low, and medical and dental benefits are lackluster, with more cost put on the employee, then the employer. a supposed "free" telehealth program was supposed to be included for ALL buck employees, but even using buck knives access code causes a 40$ office visit charge you are expected to pay for every use of the tele health. There is a favored shift among the higher ups, that gets away with murder and can do no wrong, and other shifts are both expected to pick up for their slack, and any complaints about said shift go completely ignored, even when complaints are cause for drastic loss in revenue or parts. Attendance is based on a strict points system, and clearly still based around san diego weather and NOT the pacific northwest, as extreme weather does NOT excuse one from making it into work (don't die during your snowy drives.) it's also 6 points, over a 12 month rolling period, will result in termination. (other employers in area use 6 or 9 points over a 6 month period, and allow excused absences for extreme events/sick callouts, etc) Company will go though waves and waves of mandatory overtime, with the most common being a partial shift picked up on a off day, however they are also running long shifts, which means 12 hour shifts instead of 10 hour shifts. so, for anyone with a commute and responsabilities during the day, your workday could explode from being 10hours ofr work (and 2 hours of commute) to 12 hours of work (and 2 hours of commute) whatever stuff you need to get done during your offtime, (the remaining 10 hours) and then back to work. which destroys any work life balance you could of had. Hope you don't need to take the kids to school after (or before) work, or have engagements. Filthy work environment- Now this one isn't really anyone's fault. as the coolant is esposed to the open air. It's aerosolized..ie you will be breathing if. Anywhere in fabrication. It will get in your nose..on the walls. on your clothes, your boots, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. You may be required to clean or even "dust" your area(which are grimy, again from the aerosolized coolant..thats a sticky liquid...and doesn't dust), but it will be filthy again in 2 days and now look worse as it's..streaky. paperwork...so much, freaking, stupid, asinine, paperwork...for making knives...literally, some trays can be done in 15-20 minutes...and then you spend 5 minutes FILLING out paperwork for that tray to say you did it, then you feel out your own paperwork saying you did that tray...so someone else can FILLout paperwork say X employee did Y tray...and this is after...you signed said tray into a computer and signed it back out as now complete....
