maintenance person

administrative assistant

senior service associate

customer service representative

correctional officer

State of Missouri

Your job can disappear at a whim, if there's a pandemic and the state is trying to save money. You'll end up with months of comp time, sick time, and annual leave you can't use or cash out.  You can't ever make plans for evenings; there will always be an emergency that will keep you working hours past 5...or even all night.  That on call schedule? Check it daily because it will change with no notice.  Don't make plans for weekends either, for that matter.  Got kids? A spouse? Hobbies? Not anymore.  You will only have a career. Be sure to stay a peon, because the higher you move up, the more replaceable you become. You will be set up for failure daily, given impossible tasks, and have smoke blown up your rear with support and appreciation that is all words and no action.  At some point, you will be the only worker.  You will be promised help, but please know it takes 4 months minimum to hire and train that help.  You will be guilted if you take time off for anything, and grudges will be held when other people have to take on your work because they are drowning too. Don't make friends, because they will quit and you'll end up with their caseload. A big deal is made over people reaching 1 and 2 year anniversaries because few make it to 3 years.  Expect to be trained by people who don't know what they're doing. Expect to be retrained every time the state invests in a new program, even when they insist that program is permanent.  It's never permanent.  Expect to deal with angry lawyers and judges who don't have employers to hold them to the standards you're held to.  Expect to be sworn at, ridiculed, and made to feel stupid without being able to defend yourself.  Hold your temper, your tears, your personal and medical problems, because nobody cares. Dream about a different job, if you must, but know that you will have a meeting or court or an emergency pop up the day you have an interview scheduled. Prepare to have your family feel betrayed when you have to cut vacation short, answer phone calls during date night, and reschedule your kid's birthday party.  Expect to put a lot of miles on your personal vehicle, and expect to argue for every cent of reimbursement. 

Let me begin by stating that my overall feedback regarding my dissatisfaction about compensation is not directed at my entity in particular, but the state government of Missouri. I think the state needs to encourage the review of yearly performance to be followed by annual increment of wages for state employees base on performances and cost of living. 

Secondly, I think the state's decision to pay its employees bi monthly is unfair and only benefits the state, not its hourly workers. Let's take for example, some months have five weeks. Bi monthly payment does not provide any opportunity for employees to earn additional benefits for the fifth week for those months with 5 weeks. This assertion is made based on my salary. I am an hourly worker but my bi monthly salary does not change whether the month has 4 or five weeks, usually 84 to 88 hours and sometimes up to 92 hours per pay period.

In a nutshell, given the above mentioned, I think the government needs to give two sets of annual raises to its employees. One for job performance and another for cost of living or infliction if you will. Secondly, I think it needs to change its payment method from bi monthly to every other Friday to not only afford hourly workers to reap the benefits of the fifth week for those months with five weeks, but to also be on pal with private entities operating in the state that pay their employees every other Friday.

I currently work here and I applied weeks before I graduated from my technical school and I was open about wanting to have a job lined up for when I graduate. There was a group setting of who my supervisor would be, my supervisors boss, and one of the other technicians that works in the same building as they were hiring for. It wasnt a difficult interview, but there was test questions to measure knowledge (like questions you would ask a customer if they report their printer stopped working, etc.). The job is fantastic and I've always wanted to work in IT with a government employer, but it always feels like whenever I am eager or happy to say I love my work the atmosphere generally met with groans or scoffs. No one is really happy to work here, and I work by myself as a on-site tech support for departments I am assigned to handle. The stress is 0, theres always breaks and there was mandated walks the state gives all its employees to take a walk out of the building and get some fresh air. People are very upset these days because Remote-work option has been axed, due to the new governor Ashcroft. So sometimes you just have to be hired at the exact right time and be lucky to have a great boss who supports your developement. To me, this job is my dream career, but to everyone else around me, its a job and thats barely something to smile about.

The job requires long hours and traveling all over the State.  There are endless paperwork forms that have to fill out and data entered in the computer.  
I learned there are numerous types of family styles and forms of communications.  Every case was a learning experience and full of usable knowledge.  I learned something new with every case.
Benefits are good. However, there is no overtime pay.  There is compensatory time, which means straight pay to be used at another time.  If you work 60 hours in one week, you get paid for 40 hours and have 20 hours to use at another time, that is put on your books.  The job is so demanding that it is difficult to find time to use the compensatory time off hours.  
The most enjoyable part of the job is when you are able to get a family back together, healthier and happier, then when they came into Children's Division services.  As well as finding that forever home and adoptive family for a child or children that are not able to return to their biological parents due to abuse and neglect.
The hardest part of the job is the enormous demands on your time  and trying to attend to all of them in an 8 hour shift, so they don't interfere with your own family time, which is even more important.  Balancing time and schedules is the most stressful part of the job.
Worker burn-out is the most common reason workers leave, due to the endless demands on your time and the long hours required of the job.

Working for a government is different from a corporation or legal office. High ranking officials are generally appointed by the current governor; thus the various divisions are generally overseen by middle management and long term employees. Favoritism and cronyism abounds. 

As an accomplished legal administrative professional, when I joined the ranks of the clerical staff, I imagined that my skills would be appreciated and utilized. I soon found out that was not so, only State tenure was appreciated and valued toward advancement. It also mattered if you had connections with higher management officials. Top paying positions were generally already determined prior to mandatory publishing of recruitment.

Generally, the rank and file were unhappy and felt persecuted. Most had been State employees for many years due to the lack of other employment in the area and the attractive pension package. However, the State of Missouri's pay scale ranked last in the US recently. There are divisions within the State of Missouri where full-time employees gross less than $25,000 per year. 

Had there been more opportunities outside of the State in the area I was living, I would not have continued my employment with the State of Missouri.

I did enjoy working with my supervisor until he retired. And the benefits package was generous.

My experience at this workplace was very challenging. A typical workday often required overtime, and declining additional hours due to personal commitments was not well received. Work–life balance did not appear to be a priority, which created a stressful environment for employees. Management practices were difficult to work with, and there was limited guidance or support when it came to important matters such as requesting ADA accommodations. Communication from leadership was often unclear, and workplace policies seemed to change frequently without clear updates. Asking questions about policies or procedures resulted in negative responses rather than helpful clarification.
The workload was also very demanding, and many employees felt consistently overworked. The overall culture could feel discouraging at times, as there was a lack of collaboration and constructive support among both management and staff. New employees were often expected to figure things out on their own rather than being provided with structured guidance or training.
Because expectations and rules were not always clearly communicated, it became difficult to feel confident in meeting workplace standards. Overall, my experience left me feeling that improvements in management communication, employee support, and workplace culture would greatly benefit the organization.

The work itself is not hard and pretty easy. 

You learn a lot about what it takes to be a licensed professional. There are times where you also learn when Board's don't take action and it causes yourself frustration. In the end of your frustration it teaches you how to shelf your personal opinions and let it go.

Management is horrible. Or at least that was my experience. In my time here, I only found a handful of good directors to work under. Unfortunately they either had no positions open or, as in my case, I was "red labeled" by other directors because of the director I worked for. They would not hire employees from certain directors if an employee was under that director too long. I understand the reason was so they could protect the peace in their Board from potential learned behaviors from the board director they worked under. 

Workplace culture depends on the Board you work for. Some culture was good, and some was not so good. Even in the same suit, some culture was good and some was bad. There was some workplace bullying when I was employed here. I'm not sure if that was ever resolved or not. 

The hardest part of the job is office politics. Just like any state government agency. 

The most enjoyable part of this job was making life-long friends. I guess that happens when going through the trenches with someone. 

My typical day on the job is to report to my office cubicle, stay on the phone and productive without chatter and through breaks and take late lunches, then leave at the  end of the day with little  satisfaction. I have learned quite a bit about working with the public one-on-one and feel more comfortable when defusing hostile situations.  Most of my coworkers make interoffice changes difficult as most are not fluid to the changes needed for the overall good, which makes work for the rest of the agency more demanding.  The hardest part of my job is in order to go on with my day after work, I have to leave the strain of the office politics at the office.  I have also found myself caring about the clients who participate in the State and Federal Programs more than the average employee and I get frustrated that other clients may not be treated with the respect they deserve.  The most enjoyable part of my job is when dealing one-on-one with clients.  Some are so thankful of my assistance and quality of care I show them, they have wrote me specific notes in the mail at the office address to thank me with a good news update. Helping society is what I wanted to do, not feeling stuck in a cubicle only doing data entry on information received online.

My typical day at work would be getting to work at 1:45 pm trying to find what I'm going to make for my consumers for dinner that night taking the three consumers that I am responsible for to the bathroom then go ahead and lay out their bed clothes so they will already be ready for after shower time. Then staff and the consumers usually go to programming which is work for the consumers and we stay there till 3:30 pm and then return back to the home and start making dinner which the consumers set and watch television or listen to music and when supper is done around 4:30 or 5:00 pm the consumers eat and then go and get their showers done. After showers they normal watch television again or listen to music while the laundry is washing. When laundry is done staff members fold and hang up clothing of the consumers and by 8:30 pm staff has the consumers go use the bathroom and the consumers go to bed. The med person of the day gives the consumers their medication at 4 and 8 pm everyday. While consumers are in bed staff members take trash outside and do book work such as charting on the consumers and tell how their day was and how they have acted for that day and what they did for that day. After charting staff wait for other shift to come to relieve them from work and at 10:15 pm I go home and then repeat it the next day.

A typical day of job duties is not bad at all, provided that you actually interact with one of the few staff that care to teach you. The academy in Jeff City was very helpful and prepares you for lots of things that might happen while at the institution. TCC itself has lots of staff politics and definitely judgmental towards women working in the department. You will constantly be told to not "know" offenders but a lot of the job is knowing the offenders by name so you can make sure they are following the rules (kind of a catch 22, damned if you do damned if you don't). The Supervisors and other CO's can cause intentional problems. Often feels they like to pick on new staff, which the turnover rate is horrible, so you would think they wouldn't do that. Overtime does get mandated resulting in 16 hour shifts but a lot of staff like the overtime so maybe that's why some of them don't mind running off new employees. A good part of the job is that it's not a hard job, the duties themselves are simple. It's sad that staff members not only have to worry about offenders but other staff members as well. The rudeness is at an all time high and as a new CO you are often talked down to as if you are an offender, which gets old. Some of the CO's who have lasted admit there is a problem but say it gets better overtime. I question why staff treat them like that in the first place...Be prepared and forewarned.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Maintenance person 553 salaries reported	$42,344 per year
Administrative assistant 380 salaries reported	$38,558 per year
Senior service associate 333 salaries reported	$48,113 per year
Customer service representative 290 salaries reported	$36,885 per year
Correctional officer 250 salaries reported	$20.90 per hour

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