Pros
Working for WDI can be very rewarding. When we decide to make a good product it shows. There are plenty of smart people working here. Free cereal. Good benefits and perks. For people looking for internships here, it will be the best thing of your life. You are covered on an overhead number, rather than being project based like everyone else, so filling your hours is a non problem. You get to float just about anywhere with zero obligation to produce anything and never get called out for not doing anything because "they're just an intern". Yet if you accomplish even the smallest thing, people will praise you like a legend. You'll probably be given authority over people who have worked for the company for 15+ years, even though you have no idea how the project structure of this company works. Also no one will guide you how to figure that out, so you get to make it up as you go. I think that internships here are a joke, but if you're in one, you should be pretty set for 3-6 months or 6 months to a year.
Cons
Budget: Disney like many large companies have lots of internal problems. The biggest one for Disney is that they keep trying to cut costs. If you work here, you'll get emails every quarter telling you "We're making more money than ever, everything's great...... thanks for all your hard work". Then you'll go to a company wide summit and be told, we want to cut costs across the company by 20%. This happens just about every year. They want more output from their employees than they are willing to pay for. Additionally, every project tries to low ball. Every estimate or conversation you have with someone prior to a project starting begins with, "So we want to...... oh by the way, we have very little money" Disney is notorious for taking the lowest bid on projects then complaining when things don't work out. This is why most vendors/mom and papa shops in the Burbank/Glendale refuse to work with Disney. Especially because no one holds to the schedule. Efforts will have 3 schedulers, yet no one is ever held accountable to those schedules. Management: The company is now run by very fiscally cheap individuals, which tends to mean that projects are underfunded and no one takes risks. The milking of beloved stories is very common. What could have been a stand alone film will regularly turn into a multi movie franchise. While I will admit sometimes it's not a bad thing, most the time it is. Middle management is rarely held accountable and "bosses" act more like friends than a boss. Very few people are reprimanded for messing up. My assumption is that everyone is just to politically correct. If someone screws up they should at least be told they screwed up, maybe not fired, but at least notified. What is considered constructive criticism tends to be viewed as railroading or picking someone out for other reasons. While I agree we shouldn't be afraid to fail, we do need to address a failure for what it is. Technology: If you work here, you'll most likely be told we are "cutting edge" and up to date. That's a complete lie. Be prepared to use 2-3 year outdated software, lack the tools you need to accomplish your job, and also be ready to work on Windows 7. Also this company is big into renting stuff like software licenses, and sometimes there are not enough for everyone. Coworkers: This company is divided into 3 main groups: Young people with no experience + no guidance : 25% (Rising every day) People who do the bare minimum because they can: 50% People who know their craft/job and strive to make the company better: 25% Sadly the people in the 3rd group have some of the least input, normally because they are making up for the other 75% of people who just come in for a paycheck and fly under the radar. These 25% of do'ers are also the people you will see late at night going above and beyond or in on the weekends. Most everyone else are entitled "I'm an Imagineer, I can do what I want" type of people. People regularly leave work early for no reason. If you work in an department without a strong manager people will abuse the system; it happens all over the company. Very regularly now 3pm rolls around on a Friday and the entire place is like a ghost town, people just leave. Also too many fan boys/girls. People who LOVE Disney make bad Imagineers, they're too focused on new stuff they want to fan about rather than doing their job. Hiring/Firing: This is probably the worst part about WDI. First off NO ONE gets fired. In the 5 years working here I have never seen/heard of someone getting legitimately fired. The general things that happen are, "They are no longer with the company" then you never hear anything about it again. People are asked (told) to resign, so they just close their mouth and walk away. Or you just never get called back. This is most likely the case, and this happens because fewer and fewer people even work for WDI. Disney now sub contracts just about every position, this allows them to dump people whenever they want by simply saying "We don't have any work right now, take a few weeks off and we'll call you", then they never do. This is the absolute worst part about WDI, contract workers (green badges) have next to no loyalty to the company. They know they are being paid less, and have to work with an outside temp agency, while fully knowing that they can be dropped at any time. This then leads to the unmotivated workforce that exists. Pay: Across the board it's low for the industry that we work in. Honestly how WDI/ Disney was labeled as the "Company people want to work for most" is beyond me. Everyone I talked to about those articles laughed and thought it was a joke. All that said, these things are all fixable with the right leadership and if we choose to stop putting profit margins over quality.