Pros
1) Healthy pay for field managers. Salary + stock/bonus for high performers. I was marked in 2018 as a high performer and was paid very nicely for my time sacrifice. 2) Promotional opportunity ever 1-3 years
Cons
Cons of Working in Field Operations: 1) Poor work life balance. Field managers work 90+ hours on road territories and are on call 24 hours of each work day. Terminal managers work 55-70 hours per week however they are fighting fires every minute of it. Its not just the hours that create the poor work life balance, it’s the stress. When you get home you are so on edge about your operation you can’t unwind. 2) Culture: this is the biggest con by far. The company expects you as a manager to be a authoritarian dictator. I have a collaborative leadership style which is quite opposite of the authoritarian. I tried to lead my way and eventually you have no choice but to play their game and lead their way... otherwise the other managers who do lead their way will shine well above you and you will earn a target on your back. Their style over the years has instilled a negative mindset into every agreement professional’s head and had burned out a lot of good managers. 3) Cost Cutting: Union Pacific is implementing precision schedule railroading which is effectively a major cost cutting effort. I believe PSR is good in a lot of respects. Everyone knows there is opportunity for our company to be more efficient with its money. Unfortunately we have cut too deep in key resources such as locomotives. I have trains I can move right now as I type this review and am unable to do so because I have no locomotives to pull the cars.