I used to work for Orbital as a NASA contractor. I never dealt with the business end of things, but the margins were small and very stable so long as there was work to be done (i.e. a giant (sub)contract on some huge NASA project). It wasn't exactly a pressure cooker of a work environment. The government stuff was a very different atmosphere than the commercial side.
I too am a former Orbital employee. I worked on the sounding rocket program. It was very much a pressure cooker because of the incessant pressure to work more overtime and do more missions in less time.
I always heard that other parts of the company were far more laid back. Wish I had worked in one of those parts.
Yeah, I worked there for 6 years, mostly at Goddard on the HST project. It was very relaxed - to the point of boredom at times (that's why I left, despite the insanely cool work). The guys in Virginia (where I worked about a year or so, but still on NASA stuff) told a different story about the Orbcomm and other commercial rocket businesses. I have no idea what it's like today though.
