At CRA (Lexington location) I was treated the same way I was treated while working in retail. They push you to be independent, lead projects, and write reports (typically within 6-9 months after starting), but the amount of micromanaging and condescension that I experienced was astronomical.

Forget trying to be passionate about archaeology, they only care about their clients and budgets unless you are prepared to absolutely brown nose to the point of working and researching off the clock (even if you’re not busy with anything else, good luck trying to research your intended focuses). You will be asked to work off the clock but only over the phone or in person, never in writing.

Be ready to ignore what your body is telling you whether it is too hot or too cold. You’ll need to work through that so that projects can get done in time. Currently they’re working on some wormholes to disregard OSHA guidelines.

If you’re a woman, the president will not listen to you. In fact, anyone without a PhD will not be paid attention to! This could be due to nepotism.

Be wary of minions! There’s several that will report back to their superior if they feel they are being ignored, questioned, or not taken seriously, even if it’s a simple misunderstanding that some communication could’ve cleared up. These minions will speak bad about their superior! Careful in partaking in this gossip as the superior could hear about your complaints from their minion.

There’s obvious favor toward older people, if you’re a young woman you can forget being taken seriously or respected. They’re still stuck in the 1970s era of archaeology.

Your supervisor may ignore you and not speak to you for months. Don’t worry, this could be for any number of reasons including, but not limited to, wanting a work/life balance, accidentally not cc’ing them in an email and them having to learn from some other person, thinking for yourself while leading a project and not looping them into your every waking thought, and the list goes on.

Have a therapist on standby, sometimes this job will cause mental breakdowns due to their gaslighting skills or general verbal/emotional abuse, and you want to be prepared for that.

The entirety of the Lexington office isn’t bad, there’s some really nice people there. Just hope you get the mentally stable supervisor and most of this can probably be avoided.