IBM

The best reason to work for IBM is the people. Generally, within my organization, the technical team is first-rate and highly skilled. If you're lucky to work for a manager who is technically competent and can convey your accomplishments to the rest of the organization, you'll do fine. Pay is average, as are general benefits. Pretty much all I want to say, so I'll run out the clock here.

Management lies, and as a first-line manager, I know. Indeed, my management chain requires me to lie to my team—people I trust and respect. Lies and misrepresentation are the IBM family values, particularly for personnel issues and business metrics. That is the biggest downside; you never know when you're getting the straight story. For example, the PBC system is a ranking system. A first-line manager is told what their "skew" has to be. The company advertises that a first-line manager can use their own judgment for differentiation between team members, subject to some oversight to ensure equity. In actual fact, managers are told what to do and are required to lie to their team members so that the executives can make their metrics.

There are many other examples, and I see them every day. It always comes down to managing the metrics rather than the results.

Get some integrity. And don't confuse results with metrics.