IBM

Working at IBM, there were many opportunities to learn new technologies and a wide range of jobs available if interested in moving about the company.

HR and corporate IT were competent and professional.

Managers were typically well-trained in their roles (e.g., strong focus on communication and coaching).

Coworkers were usually sane, intelligent, and amiable.

The business focus was driven entirely quarterly. There was a very bad vibe coming from middle management, who didn't care about their professional employees. The atmosphere felt cold and chronically stressed out. Upper management was aggressive about rolling back employee compensation, for example, by shifting focus toward younger, shorter-term employees who could work insane amounts and burn out. It was easy to become pigeonholed in a bad role or division. Managers could block you from seeking different jobs within the company and did exercise that right during horrible projects or in bad teams, most of which were.

Feedback and ratings were based more on gaming the system than on actual employee contribution. For instance, to limit bonuses or raises, there could only be one, maybe two, excellently rated employees on a team; the rest had to be average.

Most importantly, moving up in terms of leadership was only a doorway into some weird political arena where you were more responsible for gaming the arbitrary metrics defining success than for actual accomplishment. This means you did whatever it took to affect some meaningless improvement in a spreadsheet.

It's an OK place, but don't stay too long, or it will rob you of the skills needed to survive outside the company. Lots of people in their late 20s talk about their big ideas outside the company but get comfortable and never go anywhere. The company is ruthless now, so realize from the day you join, your days are numbers. Always keep exit doors open so that when the time comes, it's for the betterment of your career rather than for the sake of whether your division exceeds or underperforms its quarterly target by one percent.

Take your big money and buy a small house in the Midwest. Throw your computer in the garbage. Spend the rest of your life meditating on this question: Who moved my cheese?