Pros
For young male computer enthusiasts, it is code camp and a star trek convention rolled into one.
Cons
The UK business is going through a period of "transformation", intended to convert it to a modern, agile-adopting technology business (LN has been trying to change from a publishing outfit to a "technology provider" for at least 10 years, with little enthusiasm from customers who just want to be able to see their stuff). So out goes legal and editorial expertise, and in come ping pong tables and grown men (management!) wearing T-shirts with cartoon characters on them. Tolkien facial hair is de rigeour. The CTO has declared that flexible working is no longer an option - so overnight a huge chunk of the workforce (eg mothers of young children) are no longer welcome. Simultaneously HR have announced a policy of hiring "enthusiasm and potential" over experience and skill. Again this looks like a not-so-veiled effort to favour the young. Managers try and solve problems by bringing in friends, each of whom is better paid and more jaw-droppingly incompetent than the previous. One memorable chum of the CTO’s arrived for a couple of months, bellowed down the phone relentlessly about his boat, tried to demand that the global organisation move to Ohio, and promptly disappeared. He now describes his time at Lexis as a “career break”. Now, grown up employees find themselves logistically unable to work here, and are admonished for complaining because “look how FUN everything is!”. Admittedly this is not coming from a place of unkindness – the business used to be a kind of refuge for unemployed Oxbridge graduates of English Literature, and there was always a need to modernise. But instead of calmly setting out a strategy and implementing it, the SLT bring in a succession of Alphas who just undo any progress that had been made before them and quickly move on. It’s not that the company is lacking friendliness or enthusiasm – far from it – it’s just no longer a place to have a career.
