IBM

Work hours and schedule were quite flexible. As long as I got my work done, I was allowed to work from home (or anywhere else) 3-4 days a week and set my own schedule.

The projects are pretty interesting if you are a naturally curious person that always wants to keep learning.

Tons of smart, interesting people to meet and learn from. You can make connections and working relationships with people all over the world.

There are free online courses or e-learning sessions that you can add to your resume. There is always new stuff to learn, and an endless supply of subject matter experts to learn from.

I got to use the company computer for personal use, like checking Twitter and Facebook, since using social media was part of my job. However, managers will come down on you if you abuse that privilege.

The work was extremely challenging, and there was an endless amount of work to be done, especially with layoffs. The company would lay off a person but still expect the same amount of work to be completed, so you have one person being held responsible for the workloads of two to three people.

Everyone is expected to work insanely long hours, all the time.

Disheartening. I never felt caught up or accomplished at the end of the day. I never left the office feeling like I had done a good job and was prepared to come back the next morning. Even if I made a lot of progress one day, I knew that everything could change overnight and I could wake up to a huge shítstörm in my inbox.

Everyone's inbox at IBM is a nightmarish hell. Time management, productivity, and efficiency are major problems.

Bizarre work hours due to the "I" in IBM - International. Some weeks I had to work from home in my pajamas and sign on at 8 p.m. and work until 6 a.m., then sleep all day, so that I could have phone calls with China and Israel.

Take care of your young employees and your old employees? I don't know. The management at IBM is so diverse: some managers are amazing, some are terrible, some are average.