I.T. department is a bad mix of bureaucracy, old technology, and consultant domination
Pros
The best things are the PTO (4 weeks a year from day 1) and reasonable work / home balance.
Cons
The amount of bureaucracy in the I.T. department is truly mind boggling. To make one change to a piece of existing software, you need to file 3 separate tickets with a large amount of documentation tied to each one. You spend about 20% of your time writing code and 80% writing documentation and filing tickets to deploy it. Blue Shield are also very slow to upgrade their software and introduce new technologies. As an example, in April 2011 they are still using Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6. In addition, the I.T. training budget per employee is currently only $500 a year, which is barely enough for a brief online course Finally, consultants from Hewlett Packard dominate the I.T. department and have the power to overrule most Blue Shield employees on technical matters. Current rumors suggest that H.P. will soon be replaced by another consulting firm, but don't expect the power structure to change significantly anytime soon.
