Company: PwC
Date: 2009-01-06
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current

Great place to work if you don't want a life outside of work
Pros: Great place to start a career, learn valuable accounting skills, financial reporting, infinite learning opportunities, great training programs, dynamic/fast paced environment, interaction with top management at clients from the start.  A very nice perk is you don't have a direct manager so you can often do your work on your own time.  I laugh when my friends have to stay till 5 every friday no matter if they have work or not.  If you don't have anything to do...which is rare, but still, you can take off without anyone knowing or caring.  Ample time off if you can take it, 22 days after 2 years and since I've been with the firm they have given us 4th of july week or xmas week off and sometimes both.
Cons: Work life balance is terrible, not sure how many more busy seasons I can take.  Colleagues often don't respect time off..i.e. they call you on weekends and when you are vacation.  The more effective an employee you are the harder you are worked.  Compensation is not inline with how many hours you work, bonus / overtime hours is often less than minimum wage.  Management is a bit out of touch with directing the practice, I just don't think career accountants make good managers.  Specifically things are always changing, I'm not against change but when you are doing the same thing a different way it makes tasks more time consuming