Pros
None really come to mind. I suppose it paid the bills for a while, and I suppose it made me aware of all the politics, fiefdom building, unfair favoritism, and management self-preservation that can occur in a workplace.
Cons
CannonDesign is a workplace of two classes: the "protected" class of insiders that receives the profits and benefits of the labor, and everyone else - the much larger unprotected class of production and support staff that is considered expendable and treated as such. How to become part of the protected class? Hard work and technical knowledge does play a role, the same as it does for the rest of us. But the key difference is that those of the protected class must possess a sociopathic ability to lie and to bend or discard ethical concerns where convenient. People who have the ability to lie to the production staff, to the clients, and to the contractors, coupled with the ability to use mealy-mouthed statements and an extremely short-term memory so as to always weasel past their own lies will quickly rise in the ranks at Cannon up up up into management and protected class status. What I have said is probably true to a certain extent at many companies, but at CannonDesign it is very, very, very true. What is said elsewhere here is also spot on. CannonDesign has trouble competing fairly for work due to a bloated protected class (during the recession only the non-protected production staff was laid off, creating a top heavy company) that has to be paid and receive regular raises and bonuses, plus there are the cost-center "I am the future of design - take my hand" clowns and sideshows like Third Teacher's arts-and-crafts hokum. My experience at "annual" performance/salary review time, which only occured twice during a 5-year tenure, is that despite the company's glowing annual reports painting nothing but sunshine, my lying bosses explained that the company was apparently just barely staying afloat due to "the market" and that there was no money in the budget for raises that year. But, they continuted, if I just kept working hard and kept putting in the overtime that better times were perpetually "just around the corner". Sorry guys, but the market is doing much better and you are still hopelessly stuck in your malaise. Look out your windows at all the construction, Chicago. It isn't always the market. If you are thinking about working for this company do your self-respect a favor and look elsewhere.
