They really do have a machine in RI where they painfully suck years of your life away. If you can work in one of the satellite offices or remote, it's much better, but RI is the Pit of Despair. Where do I begin?
The culture embraces chaos and lack of security as a virtue because it keeps people on their toes. The place is basically run on the backs of the young and passionate because they don't know any better. It perpetuates the lie that if you're a musician and passionate, you're giving up if you get a 'real job' in another industry, when in reality, for most, InMusic is just a job, and a union janitor probably makes twice as much as most of the rank and file.
Embrace the 'at will' part of your employment. DO NOT RELOCATE for this company, I've seen it burn many, and the RI job market is not one you want to be dumped into. Performance does not equate job security. If you have any kind of experience whatsoever, management will basically pump you for all you know, use your expertise, then replace you with a poor kid making nothing from Tech Support or QA to implement the plan your expertise got off the ground (this, shockingly, doesn't always work out). They actually recruit people, then pump and dump them on a regular basis. There are those who have managed to last, but it takes a very specific kind of person, and you have to be associated with the right brand.
The place also prides itself on its agility, which is actually a good thing, except when the decisions are not based on metrics, but gut feeling or palace intrigue, and on complex projects, that just inevitably leads to crazy delays. The CEO is the epitome of a micro-manager, and the company is too big and diverse for this to be really effective. May the heavens help you if you're on a software project, it will change eight times before being re-scoped and changed again.
When you're out and are able to look back at the culture, any ill will you may have had turns into a kind of pity, because there really are good people there, toiling in a just incredibly unhealthy environment that turns you so far around in circles, you don't completely realize how unhealthy it is until you are out. The few lifers there who have never really experienced a different culture, or can't remember, are truly the ones to be pitied. The only reason InMusic isn't more notorious is that they're in the same industry as Gibson, and a star of disfunction will always be outshone by a supernova.
