Company: J-P-Morgan
Date: 2009-03-03
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former

It wasn't bad for what it was.
Pros: The best reason to work at Washington Mutual was that it was one of the largest companies in Seattle, giving employees opportunity to move among departments and disciplines that were large enough they were staffed by experts in those areas. At a smaller company, you might have to be jack-of-all trades or rely on people who were largely self-taught. There was some opportunity for staying with the company even if you had to move to a different geographic area. As is often the case, if you were a newer employee, your salary was probably market competitive. The benefits were better than what many small companies can afford to offer.
Cons: While it was a Fortune 100 company, there were too many second- and third-rate managers and executives running the place. If you stayed there too long, you might think some of its corporate pathologies were normal. Also, the longer one stayed, the more their pay would fall behind market competitive rates and the compensation system made it nearly impossible to fix that unless you had a manager who was willing to go to bat for you. Certainly the biggest downside was that the company's banking operations were seized by the FDIC and sold to JP Morgan Chase, which resulted in many employees losing their jobs.