Company: IBM
Date: 2013-12-11
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Confirmed

I'll Never Put On A Life-Jacket Again
Pros: Work-life balance is spotty and intermittent (depending on week/assignment), but, in general, the 'virtual workforce' telecommuter arrangement helps more than it hurts.  Benefits are average (possibly just above-average, though they shrink a little each year).  The company is huge -- as in bigger-than-most-military-forces huge -- which means there are many nooks and crannies to explore (new different projects, new different teams/divisions, possibly new different jobs/managers, if you play the transfer game shrewdly).  Almost any expense is reimbursable, so long as it isn't blatantly fraudulent, and so long as you cultivate the right relationship with your level-one and level-two managers.  Despite all the "company X is leaving" and "company Y is suing" news-traffic, the IBM name does still seem to carry reputation and weight on your resume.
Cons: Employee morale is as bad as I've seen it.  Barring (very) occasional chats with one's immediate supervisor(s), an IBM employee basically stands alone within the organization.  There is little or no assistance available to find clients or work-placement.  There is little or no assistance to meet revenue/utilization targets.  There is little or no budget for tools or training.  There is little or no 'human element' whatsoever, as higher-management has become laser-focused on short-term financial results to the exclusion of all else.

These 'isolated-by-myself' factors have combined with the '400,000 employee size' dynamics to yield some strange cultural behaviors.  Bureaucracy, of course, is rampant;  IBM boasts an unending series of you-must-go-to-this-webpage and you-must-fill-out-this-form and you-must-get-this-manager's-approval obstacles, all of which are frustrating, some of which are impassable.  It is also possible to 'out-of-sight out-of-mind' yourself into unemployment, if you're not careful (must stay visible, must initiate communications and work-placement(s) so others don't forget your name/face).  

Thirdly, and worst, a distasteful herd-of-sheep mentality has manifested:  a sort of I'll-keep-my-head-down, I'll-do-the-absolute-minimum, I'll-stay-two-steps-up-from-the-bottom reaction, in the hopes that "it's a big company, they'll find someone else to fire" or "I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun the slowest member of the pack so the bear will eat him/her instead."  To follow my Quint-and-the-USS-Indianapolis title above, employees are waiting while the sharks circle, never knowing when the next sailor will be bitten, never knowing if/when they will be rescued (or outsourced), no longer holding their heads up high, no longer daring to hope.  I fear THIS will eventually kill IBM as we know it today.