Growth in every sense of the word - Anonymous employee National Aviary Employee Review

Having the animals around was fun!

This position has a lot of late nights and weekends.

The birds and other animals are amazing. It's incredible to be able to work so closely with so many different species-- most of the hourly staff are really passionate about their work and care deeply.

There is an environment of secrecy which makes relations between departments complicated and at times neglects communication for the purposes of "looking good". There is an air of unchecked entitlement in most salaried (i.e. higher paid) workers that leads to a great amount of frustration and unnecessary consequences for hourly workers and sometimes animals. Those who are passionate about this work are not paid enough to sustain themselves or to put up with the toxic environment. For a nonprofit who prides itself on institutional knowledge and staff wellness, there sure seems to be a revolving door of hourly employees. Also, as a supposedly progressive and diversity-focused facility, there are recurrences of ableist practices and misgendering of employees (probably more that I don't see) with no consequences-- contacting HR is fruitless in most capacities. There is very little room for career growth, with the only promotions I know of being managers being further promoted-- hourly employees are asked to do more work and put more time in for tasks with no reward. Any open job positions are the remnants of someone's dream job that they were strongarmed out of, not new opportunities.