Comment An Honest Answer (Score 2, Insightful) 459
Maybe someone else actually answered your question, but I scanned the top-rate responses and didn't see it. So here goes.
No. Given your concerns - disorganization and mismanagement, merit-rewards and bureaucracy - non-military employers are, in my experience, always worse in every category.
This is simply the nature of the beast. The military loves to plan, and is allowed to. Its budgets are set ahead of time, its goals and standards are relatively well-defined and stable, its policies and merit system relatively clear cut.
The closer you get to a purely commercial venture, the farther away you get from all of those things. An aggressively company in a competitive market is much more reactive than pre-planned. Budget and goals can change instantly as management's perception of the market changes. One twitchy exec can wipe out a whole division in a heartbeat. Even when the business is stable, standards and policies tend to be ad hoc. Such standards and policies that do exist, exist only to make your life harder. If you try to do something new, you have to convince the bureaucracy first; but if something non-standard and anti-policy does get done, you will have to accomodate it: nobody is going to pay the replace a working dohicky with a compliant dohicky that does the same thing.
As for merits and rewards: while your supervisor may try to be fair (or may not), the bigger issue is that he can only split the pot he is given. If you do brilliant, excellent work for a company, (or division of a company, or product line within the division) which is not profitable "enough", you get nada. Conversely, if you are a lucky screw-off who works for a group that fell into and owns a particularly profitable niche, you can do pretty well even though you and everybody else are almost worthless. Whether that is good or bad, it's hard to argue that it's fair.
In my opinion, having worked for a range of employers, you will find the easiest transition at defense contractors or well-heeled acedemic institutions. They tend to plan and have stable budgets, and don't worry to much about competively pressures. If you are spectacularly brilliant, you might find that one of the big, successful high-tech companies you. They can be horrible places, but if they are big enough, rich enough, and you are good enough, you can be insulated against much of that horribleness. But, most important of all, stay away from startups - especially privately-held startups - double especially family-owned startups. The unfairness and disorder found there would leave you absolutely breathless.
Note to /.'ers: before you burn me, consider the class of issues that this guy raised. If you want to gamble on getting rich, join a startup. If you want to move into management someday, join a big technical company. But if you want organization, stable management, and merit-based rewards... good luck finding that anywhere. Sadly, IMHO, the best that this world offers, as a whole, are defense contractors and well-funded colleges.
No. Given your concerns - disorganization and mismanagement, merit-rewards and bureaucracy - non-military employers are, in my experience, always worse in every category.
This is simply the nature of the beast. The military loves to plan, and is allowed to. Its budgets are set ahead of time, its goals and standards are relatively well-defined and stable, its policies and merit system relatively clear cut.
The closer you get to a purely commercial venture, the farther away you get from all of those things. An aggressively company in a competitive market is much more reactive than pre-planned. Budget and goals can change instantly as management's perception of the market changes. One twitchy exec can wipe out a whole division in a heartbeat. Even when the business is stable, standards and policies tend to be ad hoc. Such standards and policies that do exist, exist only to make your life harder. If you try to do something new, you have to convince the bureaucracy first; but if something non-standard and anti-policy does get done, you will have to accomodate it: nobody is going to pay the replace a working dohicky with a compliant dohicky that does the same thing.
As for merits and rewards: while your supervisor may try to be fair (or may not), the bigger issue is that he can only split the pot he is given. If you do brilliant, excellent work for a company, (or division of a company, or product line within the division) which is not profitable "enough", you get nada. Conversely, if you are a lucky screw-off who works for a group that fell into and owns a particularly profitable niche, you can do pretty well even though you and everybody else are almost worthless. Whether that is good or bad, it's hard to argue that it's fair.
In my opinion, having worked for a range of employers, you will find the easiest transition at defense contractors or well-heeled acedemic institutions. They tend to plan and have stable budgets, and don't worry to much about competively pressures. If you are spectacularly brilliant, you might find that one of the big, successful high-tech companies you. They can be horrible places, but if they are big enough, rich enough, and you are good enough, you can be insulated against much of that horribleness. But, most important of all, stay away from startups - especially privately-held startups - double especially family-owned startups. The unfairness and disorder found there would leave you absolutely breathless.
Note to
