administrative specialist

library assistant

laborer

administration executive

civil engineer

City of Seattle

I was a temporary employee working directly for the City of Seattle's own temporary staffing department.  I started in the parking enforcement section of the Transportation Department and they wanted to hire me permanently.  However they received an internal transfer from the street use section of the same department, so the manager recommended me to the Director of Transportation for the job the internal transferred employee vacated.  The parking job was very boring, but the Street Use position was extremely busy, although not difficult.  I was encouraged to help with the sewer counter's staff and was learning a lot there.  Our street use manager retired and the person in line for the position was undercut by a new hire.  This new manager seemed like he was going to be good for the department, but he ultimately was letting people go and hiring his friends and acquaintances at higher wage brackets for the same positions without going through proper channels.  I was one of about one-third of the staff who was let go and many others transferred out of the department.  I found out a  couple of years later that he had been fired only a year or so after I left, and had also been prosecuted for his behavior.  I would ultimately enjoy working for the City of Seattle again.  The department was very large and I worked well with everyone.  The mayor put on events were he explained that since people spend more time at work than they do at home, his ultimate goal is to make their working environment as pleasant as possible.  It is no wonder that most of the people stay there for a long time.

This is not a government working for its people.  It is a mix of activists trying to push their agendas as public servants, elected officials acting as executives that cannot make business decisions that work against their own self-preservation, and unqualified managers that have worked their way up through the system without proper education for their executive roles.  

The main lesson I learned as a City of Seattle employee is that the name of the game is creating more government positions that require minimal work, high levels of compensation, and your main job is to justify why your department needs more funding to study the efficiencies and positive outcomes you initially received funding for that you cannot prove were effective, even though the initial funding was contingent on tracking the same information and outcomes you promised would be delivered in the first place.  

When caught, plead ignorance, blame a staffer, fire the employees that outed you, get sued for civil rights violations and unethical employment practices, knowing you will get qualified immunity and a City Attorney's office that will spend millions of dollars defending you, so the taxpayers never have to pay the judgment (even though the City Attorney's office will spend 10 times what it would cost so that they also can avoid the shame), using legal trickery to hide the bad acts from the public, and allow the corruption to continue (being this also justifies their ever-growing positions and operational funding).  

Stay away, this career path will lead you NOWHERE AND FAST!!!  Not to mention it will suck the life out of you.

There are some really great people here. Director seems great and focused on the mission of making child care, preschool and out-of-school supports accessible to all residents.

Everything boils down to what team you're on. Seems like some teams have more flexibility with their schedules than others, depending on the manager. Most teams seem pretty swamped and understaffed and it often feels like there isn't great communication about what's happening at the organization. Some positions are paid really well while others are really not paid well for the amount of work. 

There can be lots of last minute meetings. There are just lots of meetings internally. 

Opportunities for hybrid or remote work.  Most employees are expected to come in two days a week, but not everyone does, so who knows how some staff don't have to while others do. 

A lot of staff are stuck in meetings all day or out in the field, so it can take a while to get a response if you have a question.

The fun part is getting to talk with and meet the nonprofits/organizations that we support.

There has been a real shift to focus on implementing project management principles and following being efficient, so that can be really stressful. 

Everyone is just focused on getting their own work done, so it can feel like you just have to figure things out on your own.

Things seem fairly low-tech so most work seems to be conducted by email, with some work done in databases that don't really communicate with each other. Lots of entering the same info into multiple Excel spreadsheets and Word docs.

There were things I loved working for the City of Seattle and things that were awful. Each department has its own culture so it's heavily dependent on where you end up and who your management is. I was in a department with an extremely poor leader who shot employee morale to pieces, and experienced much managerial turnover and and upheaval in my time there. Other, more stable departments thrive under better bosses. Take some time to learn about the department you're applying for if you can.

Technology is poorly represented and you have to search outside the City for really good training. If you have supportive management, you can usually get reimbursed for necessary job training. There is a lot of encouragement toward continued growth and learning. However, not much internal education to back it up. I received very little training or mentorship towards my position.

There can be a lot of office and inter-departmental politics, and there are a few remnants of the old boys club of yore still hanging around, although mostly it is a very progressive place to work.

Outside of a nice paycheck and great benefits, don't expect a whole lot of other perks. There's a lot of red tape around what can be done with government funding so you're not going to get the little comforts that the private sector offers. Even employee recognition is a bare bones affair. Which is fine, just know there's not going to be ping pong tables or free coffee. I did have a good work-life balance and seldom required overtime, which was great.

Being the only technical writer in the City was a joke.   Management doesnt get content management,  and its pretty evident once you navigate the intranet sites -  Content dating back to 2006,   no SEO whatsoever,   very immature business processes.   

Ambition is tempered with most of the full timers touting "what do you expect? Its the government....." Projects are often stalled because many of the army of program managers are clueless,  cant deal with ambiguity, and the social pecking order ended up feeling a bit like high school.    You can have zero experience and get hired by an insider who favors scoring a full time gig complete with managers who never put anything in email;  managers who have so many acronyms in their email signature your kinda left with the feeling of being around someone who thinks they are important but couldnt manage their self let alone other people.  

The open cubicle atmosphere is counter productive to accomplishing much as there are too many full timers who think their on stage and all of us cube dwellers should stop and take notice.    So  annoying that I often found myself searching for quiet spaces where I could concentrate without having some loud mouth break the contractual obligation to be respectful of others.

Worked for Seattle Parks and Rec as temp in community centers and Environmental Learning Centers for 6 years. I was able to work at other centers for more hours when available. Most centers are almost always under staffed or short staff so if your flexible. You can pick up a lot more hours but the catch is you are limited to 1040 hours per year. Though some temp employees are elegible for some health and 401k benefits. The pandemic has made temp work complicated in what hours are available and where. They are using shiftboard more often now to schedule employees for shifts that aren't filled by permanent full time staff and those are a first come first serve situation. Temps receive a premium pay instead of health and 401k benefits but when you work with so many kids and offer showers/bathrooms for the public it makes you question if you should be working 30-40 hours a week. Management does a bad job of relaying important information and does not always give full support to front line, center staff. Some employees are lifers with pensions waiting for them and some can have a bit of complacency. Can make for a mediocre environment if your not surrounded or lead by competent managers and staff. Also raises are based off of how many hours you have worked except for temps. 

A person who wants to be part of a team, or that wants to work for a place that understands excellence, will find Seattle City Light a disappointing career dead-end. 

The overal presumption is that if you are a craft person, you must not have a lot of ambition in the first place, or you'd have gone to college and done something that actually matters.

The city is putting a fair amount of money into apprenticeship, having found that craft people are becoming extremely hard to find. That's highly ironic, considering that the way they treat their craft people once they have them is so bad they don't stay. 

The "Women in the Trades" open house has to be staffed by men, because it's almost impossible to find women with anything good to say about the craft environment in City Light. It's nearly impossible to find men too, but they use people who are very new and haven't found out what it's really like. 

If you only want money, and absolutely don't care about anything else, you might possibly find City Light stomach-able.

 Anyone else should definitely pass on this place.

Seattle is an international leader in sustainability and advancing a green policy agenda.  As a member of the City of Seattle Green Team, Department of Planning and Development, I promote sustainable development within the City.  I work closely with City departments and Utilities, elected officials, and external stakeholders. 

We provide technical assistance in achieving the City’s sustainability goals in complex, high profile development projects.  This includes coordinating with other departments to ensure appropriate alignment of policies, codes and business practices with green building goals; and tracking and reporting on program activities and outcomes.

I provide advanced technical and policy expertise to City staff, managers and executives, and elected officials.  This position involves extensive contact with industry and professional organizations, community groups, and non-profits interested in advancing green building at the local, regional and national level.

Depending on your position, but generally if you are looking for a place where you will advance, and have an engaging employment, this might not be a good fit.  

A few cons: 
- Slow to implement new technological changes - it is literally taking almost 5-7 years for the City to agree on what they want their new accounting system to do, with no end in sight.  
- Quite a few managers make decisions about things they have no competency in.  This can be very frustrating to lower level employees
- Pay - Going in make sure you understand that 10.3% of your pay is going to be docked to fund the pension fund.  So if your position pays $50k, the actual pay is less than $45k before tax
- Parking - it is expensive to park downtown
- Operates in big silos - every department operates as if they are they own separate organization.  This can be a good thing, but also can be a bad thing. 

However, there are many pros as well:
- Job security
- Flexibility (many scheduling options are available 4x10, 9x9, etc)
- Decent benefit package
- Predictable

I worked in two different departments and my experiences were very different in each. However one common thread was that my colleagues were consistently working more than 40 hours a week to get the work done, paid or unpaid depending on whether they were salaried or hourly. I work late nights and weekends just to try to stay on top of deadlines, and I'm still behind. This is why I'm leaving the organization even though the mission, compensation, and many of the people are great. This was not a sustainable workload or healthy environment for me in the long run, and it was impacting my family. 

Do your research on the division culture and reach out to people doing the work when you get contacted for an interview before accepting a job offer. Decide on your deal breakers, and ask penetrating questions about them. I've learned my lesson the hard way.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Administrative specialist 23 salaries reported	$37.88 per hour
Library assistant 21 salaries reported	$35.10 per hour
Laborer 24 salaries reported	$38.42 per hour
Administration executive 16 salaries reported	$45.81 per hour
Civil engineer 15 salaries reported	$63.29 per hour

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