Avantages
My 5.5 year stint with Toole Design was a real blessing. On the professional end, I came to Toole Design as a long-time editor who had no experience in engineering or planning . I got wide range to edit everything from proposals to client memos to final deliverables; full-throated support from leadership as I led writing trainings and presented to technical staff; and encouragement to dip my toes in new forms of communications and planning work. Toole is full of hard-working people who are willing to consider new ways to add polish to what they do. Also, the vast majority of Toole's people believe in its mission, and you feel that in the day to day. On the personal end, some really big changes happened in my life while I was with Toole. My father died, I moved back to my hometown, I got married, and we bought a house... and my managers supported me through all of it. They were flexible about my workload and hours, receptive to my requests, and open to finding ways for me to get what I needed while maintaining a relationship with the company.
Inconvénients
It's consulting. There are times when tasks can add up, projects can get overwhelming, clients can be thorny, and management can ask a lot. From what I know, that's par for the course in this industry. Also from what I know, there are more paths to mitigating it at Toole than there are elsewhere.
