Cisco

Cisco Systems is a great place to work, and it is getting better. It's a huge company, so it's not all perfect, but when you take it all together, you come up with some pretty compelling reasons why leaving the company would be hard to do.

Specifically, if you perform well and work hard, you'll be rewarded well. In recent years, it seems that managers have directed more of the rewards to those on the team that contribute more. This makes working longer hours worth it.

Also, flexibility is a huge benefit at Cisco (remote work, flexible hours, etc.). This depends on you and your manager, but if you are trustworthy and self-directed, you are afforded much flexibility.

If you want Cisco to be a fun place to work, you'll need to create the fun. I'm not saying it can't be a fun place, but it'll be up to you to organize events and get teammates together.

This advice might be local to my specific team, but I would like to see managers have a higher expectation of performance from each individual and for those employees who are there just for the paycheck to be managed out faster.