General Motors

Vacation time and sick day policies are good.

There seem to be two different GMs in terms of IT. There are those that achieve management level and those that get pushed hard to do all of the work.

Those in management tend to make it into that level based upon their ability to become friends with their current manager. If you do a good job of kissing up to and becoming friends with your current manager, then there is a chance you too can become a manager in a couple of years and attain higher pay, job security, and have no real work to do.

These promotions are never based upon potential management skill level or previous job performance or respect level from your peers. This is an extreme source of stress for the 90% of the IT workforce that is doing the actual work.

Basically, you could work at GM for years and do a great job and add tremendous value to the organization, but if your pay increases too much, you will be let go if you have not had a friend in management that moves you into a management role.

It is quite stunning how this two-tiered cast system of managers and those the managers push to continuously work harder is pervasive throughout GM. It is the cause also of great inefficiency and poor planning because managers are in place that should not be in those positions.

Those workers see how bad the managers are at doing their jobs and also see how those managers have less work than them. It is the cause of great stress and job dissatisfaction.