Pros
Paid bank holidays, the standard corporate benefits (paid vacation, health insurance, 401k). Decent facilities, well marketed image.
Cons
The doctrine of CYA is practiced religiously here. Though there are bright spots of individuals who accept responsibility for their actions and those who they manage, most look for who is to blame, rather than how to solve the underlying problems (of which there are many). Patience is also often in short supply. It seems to me that what they really want at all levels are robots to man the machines and produce, rather than people working together for mutual success. The culture is also very dysfunctional with a lot of conflict within groups and among groups. On top of all the above, there is also a lot of change underway which has exacerbated all existing issues--more confusion, less patience, more volatility. Lastly, spend a lot more time and energy nurturing new employees and training them. The prevailing practice here seems to be to drop new employees into the ocean and see if they sink or swim. The costs of mistakes are high, and yet training still seems low on management's list of priorities. New employees should (but all too often don't) have the opportunity to shadow an experienced peer for months, slowly being given more and more responsibility. Instead they're left to their own devices to figure out complex and monolithic systems, processes, and policy.
