Company: IBM
Date: 2010-08-03
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: former

IBM - Big Blue - Hunting For Bargain Basement Deals
Pros: Very flexible in working remotely from home for many positions - just be aware that that sooner or later your job / position will be off-shored to a cheaper 3rd world country, no matter how great of performer you are or how dedicated you might be.

This is a good company for any fresh-out-of-school job hunter that wants to gain some standard 21st corporate world experience.  The pay is not bad for the fresh-out-of-school job hunter. For more experienced workers however, IBM is very limited. Executive management's not-so-secret agenda is to layoff as many "high priced" USA-based employees (and in other developed countries) and off-shore everything possible to the 3rd world. Any gaps are theoretically back-filled with the "layoffees" as contractors, assuming they can't find work elsewhere.
Cons: IBM is not a place where job hunters should apply if they are seeking long term employment.or stabilitry.  One day an IBM employee may come into work as he/she has done for the past 20+ years and be taken into the manager's office to be told their position is being Resource Actioned (IBM does  not like to use the words "Laid Off").  The soon to be EX Employee will then be required to stick around for the next 30 days.  This 30 dats period is so the soon to be EX Employee will have tyhe privilage to train their  India Replacement staff member.  Once the 30 days is past and the training is complete the EX Employee will no longer be needed and will be thrown out like yesterday's garbage.

You'll have lots of exposure to different technologies at IBM. Unfortunately, a lot of what's forced on you is either proprietary, obscure, or rapidly vanishing outside the world of IBM (think Lotus Word Pro, Lotus Notes, Domino, etc). Many US-based jobs at IBM are "tenuous", so the workplace feels a lot like dining under the Sword of Damocles. Since your co-workers know that the end could come at any moment, and their survival depends upon how well they rank compared to you, the result is reduced information flow/share, cooperation, participation, and general workplace camaraderie among your co-workers. 

On the subject of "how you rank", the PBC system (performance reviews) at IBM is a TOTAL FARCE. It's basically a random system of ranking by the managers. Worse yet, you usually already have a performance number assigned before the evaluations ever begin -- based on who the manager's favorite employees are, how many people in the dept the execs said will need to be laid off in the next year, etc.