A family environment full of intelligent and innovative thinkers.
Pros
There are few things a person spends more time on than their job. The place and the people that you spend most of your days with are more important than some people seem to understand. Anyone that has ever looked forward to going to work on Sunday nights knows what I mean. At Miro we worked hard and sometimes long hours but we had very low turnover. Most of us had offers for more money but stayed put. Why is that? Miro was a home away from home. We had friends and projects there that we cared about. We felt that our input was accepted and that we made a difference. These things seem intangible to some but to us they had a real value. A leadership that listened and accepted input and respected employees turned out to be a company that people wanted to sacrifice for. We stayed for years in a post 9-11 economy without pay raises because we believed in our company.
Cons
Miro was purchased by Boeing and folded into Tapestry Solutions. The sudden bureaucracy slowly wore away at the heart of the smaller company. There is a lack of leadership there, no identity and no sense of direction. Mandates and policy changes imposed with a sense of hostility and lack of regard for people or ideas is ruining the company. We started getting responses from the new managers like, "If you don't like it then you can leave." And so the intelligent ones are leaving. The politicians will say the company carried too much overhead and the reduction in staff is self correcting. The problem with this type of "correction" is that the talent is leaving and the lesser contributors are the ones that remain. You end up with a lack of talent, lack of personality and a culture of "policy equals profit". Policy does not equal profit. Talented people with apt leaders and good direction leads to profit. The company now has a quality problem and is missing deadlines.