Pros
I was not a bus driver, but I worked in the Depot District/SLC site in a front-lines role. The pros are mainly for my specific role and department, the cons are mainly about the company. - Management - I really liked my manager. He was respectful and genuinely cared about his employees. I was treated as a person. I never had to fight for my time off here. You ask for your days off and you get them. I had a great team and never had forced overtime. From what I could see of other departments most managers were good folks. - Coworkers - Most people who work at UTA are awesome. There are some really cool people in every department whether that's bus ops, the mechanics/parts, or admin. Most people are friendly and welcoming. I had so many people who tried to get to know me when I was new and it was great. There are also a lot of employees so you'll always find someone to be friends with due to the variety of individuals working here. - Pace/Duties - Overall, the job itself was good and I didn't feel rushed. If you're sick of working jobs where you are worked to the bone then UTA will be good for you because most positions do not treat you like a slave (maybe not if you drive a bus though, I'm not sure). I had time to get to know my coworkers, but I still had tasks to work on. My tasks were fair for my level of competence and I never felt like I was being asked to do things that were out of scope for my job. I did not take stress home from work. In this regard, I highly recommend UTA. - Additional (non-benefits) perks - Free lunches and meals occasionally were great, but I think increased pay > free food. I like that you can do online trainings in-house to learn new things. Orientation is really good overall. It's 3 days and you really get to know the company. I wish more companies would do orientation like UTA.
Cons
- Room for Growth - First of all, UTA will tell you in your interview and during your orientation, "We LOVE hiring within! Join us in a low-level role and watch your career grow." This is a blatant lie. I rarely saw people move up/out of their department, and not without nepotism. If nepotism was the name of a newly discovered species, then it is UTA's spirit animal. I applied to dozens of jobs while working here, including GED only positions and entry-level internships which said they were for Bachelor's students, and was ignored and ultimately rejected by recruiters despite having a supportive manager and while excelling in not a Bachelor's, but a Master's degree for the relevant roles! Qualifications did not seem like they mattered and if anything I felt like UTA preferred hiring out of company rather than their own and I don't know why. - Communication/Fairness - Recruiters and many people do not respond to your emails or queries and everything moves very slowly at UTA. I very much had the feeling that there was admin and there was "not admin," and admin did not want your "dirty " blue-collar shoes dusting up their workplace by allowing you to switch over. - Board - The executives and board are leeches and receive free cars, free gasoline, 7 more days of vacation than everyone else, thousands of dollars in private lunches every year, and salaries exceeding $300,000 each while positions like bus driver and ambassador make unsurvivable wages and their managers are told, "It's not in the budget for your teams to get even a minuscule wage increase." All these activities and bonuses for the board are funded by tax payers! UTA will blow thousands of dollars on random stuff, but then squiggle out of the $1,000 sign-on bonus you were promised because, "Oh, you actually already worked here in the past, despite not having received a sign-on bonus ever before." Standards are strict for low-level employees but not high-level ones. - Environment - Little concern for the environment. UTA leaves lights on in giant facilities that are empty. Chemicals left abandoned. Busses idling. - Bus Driver Position - I honestly really feel for the drivers and would not recommend that position unless you are okay with constantly changing, chaotic, long hours. They really do work hard and are not appreciated enough by the company for it, because appreciation needs to come in the form of wages not free food and "motivational music Monday" emails, which by the way, were very uninformative and I would have rather seen actual information about the company. - Safety - Safety is just a joke at UTA. It's highly concerning and the safety department does try to fix it but the higher ups do not listen. I brought up so many things and none of them ever were addressed. I won't divulge them because it would only put people and the workplace at a higher risk but it was honestly shocking to me. Very much was a, "Wait until something bad happens then fix it," and "Let's just cross our fingers and hope for the best," environment. - Discrimination/Hate - I would strongly recommend you avoid working in the shops if you are LGBTQ+. I think driving would be better because I knew a few trans folks who were drivers and they liked their jobs. I am not sure for admin. Most of the mechanics in the shops are very conservative and I witnessed toxicity and people felt comfortable saying very politically inappropriate things at work which were both unprofessional and also hateful, racist, sexist, and homophobic. These comments were considered casual and normal. I also got tired of various conspiracy theories and people would play toxic talk-show videos without headphones.