Like being in an abusive marriage
Pros
Great team building outings, lots of work to do if you like working long days and weekends, the best set of coworkers you could ask for. Although there is plenty of red tape, the IT department provides great equipment and there is lots of great software to make life a little easier. Babsons wallet is fat, but you have to schmooze the right people to get a decent wage (i.e., be in the boys club). Charlotte is where all of the career opportunity is at and there is lots of it.
Cons
Management has driven the morale and culture of the company into the ground, with the exception of for those at the top. They fly all over the world, wining, dining and schmoozing other rich people, and amongst themselves. There are some really good leaders there, but they are the old blood and on their way out. There is plenty of money to go around, unfortunately it is mostly circulated to those in Charlotte, or to those in the boys club. The good individual contributors who aren't in the club can do ok, but it's hardly generous. Employee evaluations are not at all tied to compensation and are an utter waste of time. HR has zero input in the process and your mgr knows how they plan to compensate you without you filling out the evaluation form. Regardless, your comp will go through multiple levels of review before it settled, therefore people who barely know your name will decide how much you get. Moving on... My manager acted bipolar, (like Jim Carrey in that myself and Irene movie), and would treat people poorly or like they didn't exist most of the time. Often he would verbally belittle people. For some reason that behavior was perfectly acceptable, or partially my fault (um, right), as I was told. He has berated his team or individuals on several occasions in front of his manager, but that was not a problem for anyone above him. He was the straw that broke this camels back, but not the entire reason I sought other employ. That management style is not typical at Babson though. Most of the supervisors are really good, but are absolutely powerless above themselves. Managing directors for the most part are out to make themselves rich. Those md's are in a constant power struggle, pushing each other around and slicing each others necks open. To say its a political culture doesn't begin to tell the story. They are a very lazy company when it comes to employee development. Your development is when they give you a ton of work to do, and no direction on how to do it. Basically you sink or swim. Hr is just an understaffed shell of a division that only exists to process promotions for those indoctrinated into the boys club.
