Pros
I'll be fair and list some pros. First, here are some that were genuine: I got to help people with tech issues, I kept busy and earned my paycheck and my raise every year, I trained new employees in IT and excelled in my unit all the way until I left, I worked with some really great people, got some free training, ate a lot of free food and had a fun time with the festivities. Also the benefits were pretty good.
Cons
The whole "teammate/village" nonsense- this is laughable. It's a nice "Gesture" and great in concept but really, the tech departments, specifically desktop, network and server support with Davita are click-like "good ole boy" clubs, meaning, if you were in the same fraternity, or were in the military, or really kiss a lot of crack with upper management you may get ahead a little bit. Otherwise, that ceiling remains very low. They don't care about your performance, they don't care about your feelings or desire to grow, tech management is a little mafia mini-government where they get tons of perks (trips to Tahiti/Hawaii, holidays bonus, awesome pay raises etc) while the people "on the front lines" doing the hard work, getting praised by all the customers, breaking all the records etc get a "good job" email at the very most. When I told management about this shortly before I flew the coop they got all offended. One time, I drove 90+ miles (from Los Angeles) to go above and beyond my duties to assist a lab in need of urgent tech help and didn't even get acknowledged, didn't even get my overtime or my gas mileage refunded. Things like this really kills the spirit of a hard worker. I can site a bunch of other issues, but this is the core: management simply hires and fires, and when people leave, hire even cheaper replacements. All that free food, mandatory training, free beer parties where people get smashed in October and holiday drunkenness, that's not because they love you, it's because it's tax deductible and a cheap way to keep you there- cheaper than giving you the raise you deserve. I'm much happier now at my new gig- I get paid what I'm worth, get a fat bonus for my performance, and there's room for growth. If I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn't have worked so hard. because they use you up and then spit you out. Culture and values? You might be fooling the Davita cult of managers and your share holders but you're not fooling me (same for most of the people I worked with- that's why most of them quit).
