Quiet Stumbling Giant Eating Almost Anything It Happens Upon
Pros
Good for interns. Nine-to-five honeymoon period after acquisition. Great for lateral moves by region or country.
Cons
Half-hearted, symbolic, surface gestures are costumed for a wink-wink "we're all in this together" management strategy right out of Office Space. A make-believe COMMUNITY smoke-screen is cultivated for media and stockholder consumption and protection. The company seems to be still figuring it out, which is strange for a company of 15,000+. For a public company in the acquisitions phase, it is not a surprise that those at the top have lost their moral compasses and any sense of irony. For many, the acquisition and resulting bigness isn't even about the money but becomes a game or ego challenge, about prestige. It certainly isn't good for the 99%. Public corporations have many faces: public, employee, shareholder, insider. For disciplines that involve such passion as architecture requires, these make for strange bedfellows.
