Pros
The people are not any more exceptional than any other company, but there are a lot of them which means there is usually someone who can (and will) help. IBM does have a lot of processes and procedures still in place from the 'good old days' so there are flexible work options and supportive time off policies for family crises. There is lots of training on offer (but see below). Pension contributions are better than average (but see below). Poor management actually means you can be left to use your initiative quite a lot (but see below).
Cons
Training : almost all e-training now, much of what is on offer is poor quality video or audio recordings of people not skilled in presenting material. Embarrassing how often these internal training sessions lose the network or can't transfer sharing the screen to someone else; or (worst) feature some executive with absolutely nothing to say, but taking 40 minutes to say it. Often these latter are mandatory and of course everybody switches them on and goes and makes a coffee. 10 years ago IBM had a planned annual process where you agreed training with your manager, obtained quality training (because it was in your plan); now you are presented with HOURS and HOURS of mandatory dross put together cheaply to let our CEO think we are all being trained in the latest technology. Pensions quality has been driven down and down (court cases still being heard on this), so although it is better than average, don't expect it to stay that way Everything that can be sold or cut seems to have been in a desparate attempt to hit Sam Palmisano's ill-judged promise to hit $20 by 2015 revenue. It was obvious to most people a while ago it wasn't going to happen. Executives took a loooooooonnnng time to wake up and cancel that impossible dream. You have a lot of leeway due to hands off management; but this is largely because no manager seems to want to say/write/do anything that they could be judged for later, so they sit on their hands stay silent. From all of the above you might not be surprised to learn that morale is lower than low. New starter graduates might find it quite an exciting environment, most will move on when they fail to get a rise for 5 years. Redundancies are now an annual tradition, a big re-org this year is mostly moving the deckchairs on the Titanic I'm afraid and has had the effect of freezing any decision making process for several months as no manager wants to be responsible for deciding anything they might be held culpable for later.
