Pros
Good benefits, decent pay for some types of positions, discounts for things like MS Office for home, home security systems, gym membership reimbursements, near stuff like that.
Cons
I work in the Oregon satellite office which had been 2 self-contained companies which SWBC acquired. The atmosphere is... strange. It was 2 small companies that suddenly went corporate, with a lot of silly rules which may fit for San Antonio, Texas, SWBC's HQ, but really not a normal fit here especially with the "keep Portland weird" and laid-back sort of mindset here. SWBC is the most personally invasive company I've ever worked for. Hundreds and hundreds of pages of company policies you have to sign off on, and you have to sign many times that you understand you can be fired at any time for any reason, or for no reason. Very controlling policies, sometimes to the point of being laughable. Strict dress codes based mostly on time of year, no eating at your desk, heavy restrictions on what personal items you can have on your desk and walls, no using company equipment for any personal email or anything else personal, no social media use (but then they send out emails telling you to "Like" something on Facebook for the company or something that's personal for one of the higher managers), no use of any thumb drives or the like, no storing of any type of personal files on your computer or of course the network. Sometimes a higher-up sends an email (or 6, just so you don't forget) asking everyone to support a cause that's important to them or their friend, there is a lot of pressure to donate to the United Way, "suggestions" on political candidates to vote for, with unsubstantiated claims made against the opposing party's policy and legislation and allegedly ridiculously huge (but no one will discuss it with you or show any evidence) resultant financial cost to the company. One of the company policies you have to sign off on is, no soliciting via email or other means, for help with any kind of *anything* personal - so our yearly food drive had to stop, but the things mentioned above and more continue from HQ. Managers have to spend a lot of time on endless administrative tasks that come down from Corp HQ. It's often impossible to get a phone call returned or email reply from the large HR dept, middle and upper-middle mgmt show no interest in the employees and lower mgmt who are the ones doing all the work. In more than ten years I haven't ever gotten a pat on the back or "good job" even though my performance reviews are great. Since being acquired by SWBC, only one time did our visiting mgr say hello to me, and that was because I went up to him to say hello. Local mgmt in the Oregon satellite ofc has little to no formal or real-world knowledge about successfully managing employees or workload, so they ignore problems with the work until things become an emergency. They didn't think they had to worry about it when we were just 2 small companies coming up with things as we went along, so they didn't pursue gaining that important knowledge. I can't figure out what their priorities are other than their own needs, but employees and doing good work sure aren't high on the list. Don't let them know if you're trying to do your work really well, unless you don't mind being criticized for it both privately and publicly in meetings, eyerolls and all. It's a strange place to work.
