IBM

Great coworkers Good managers Ability to work on multiple technologies Relatively decent work/life balance Great 401k match

Life at IBM certainly isn't boring. You will spend a lot of time listening to long-timers about the good old days when they rewarded people and had fringe benefits. Just ignore them. It's about enjoying your team and the projects you are working on.

People at the company are overall great, and there is a lot of keen enthusiasm. There are fewer diva programmers than most places, and a lot of knowledge to acquire if you pay your dues. There are so many technologies to dip into, and if you hit up someone from another business unit and offer to help, they are more than happy to offload some tasks for you to learn with. People just enjoy sharing here, and it's more difficult to not let yourself spread too thin.

• Low morale due to resource actions
• Lingering stacked rating system issues
• Almost no appealing benefits

IBM is a big company and has the same problems as any big company. I'd caution you to give only as much time as you feel good about, because bonuses are rare, acknowledgement is thin, and overall promotions and advancement are up to a roulette of factors. Basically, those extra hours you put in are for your own self-satisfaction because IBM can't reward the top behavior of anyone but sellers right now.

Get back to focusing on employees as people, not assets on a balance sheet. The constant rearranging of business units in the last few years has created more chaos than good.