Company: J-P-Morgan
Date: 2008-10-21
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current

Great employees, great brand, lucky JP Morgan Chase
Pros: Definitely the people.  There are so many good, talented, and knowledgeable employees found throughout the company, that it's easy to find a mentor or someone you can learn from.  
The size and breadth of the organization also allows for employees to transfer from one area to another in order to experience another side of the business.  I've had three such moves in my years here, which has allowed me to broaden my background.  
The compensation is reasonable for the work and geographic location.  In my experience WaMu certainly isn't a company that believes in paying its employees as little as it can get away with. They generally pay what your skills and experience are worth.
Generally speaking management is very supportive of a work/life balance and flexible schedules are possible if work isn't negatively affected.  This can vary from department to department and manager to manager though so shouldn't be taken as a given.
Cons: Besides senior management's over exposure into the world of sub prime mortgages, which led to WaMu's downfall? 
Inconsistent answers as far as benefits go is a large downside.  WaMu has outsourced many benefits and you can call and get three different answers on three different occasions and when you finally are in the middle of the scenario, a fourth answer is the one they go with.  
Getting IT help is a terrible ordeal.  Again, this is outsourced to India currently, so there's a language barrier first off.  As a remote VPN user, I have to call frequently for help, and the call center employees are ususally eventually able to help after, on average an hour.  Before outsourcing the exact same issues could be solved in under 10 minutes.  The remoteness doesn't allow for familiarity with how the networks are set up locally and any variances that are built in for specific businesses.  It's one of the most frustrating things about WaMu.
Come review time, management is told what the bell curve needs to look like, so there can only be x number of high performers within a group.  If you are lucky enough to have more star performers on your team, you have to adjust (fudge) your scores accordingly to fit the curve.  This isn't unusual in corporate america, but it's a downside.  Internal transfers/promotions are limited to a 15% salary increase, even if that means your pay is then below the salary range for the new position.  To get a meaningful salary increase you really have to leave and return to the company.