Pros
I’ve been working at the Barclays Investment Bank for 8 years now. There’s been a lot of changes over these years but these have only been gradual. As Barclays continues in its slow death-spiral into irrelevance it’s becoming harder to justify working here. Work Life Balance - you can "work from home" most days of the week because the Bank is saving money on office space. Sure, you can be sucked into working 18 hours a day but you'll quickly realise this is pointless (more on that below) and end up doing the 9 to 5 like a normal person. You’ll probably have to work a weekend every month though (no overtime paid). People – the ones that are left are clever, talented and, above all, human (if a little bitter) and have a wealth of experience that you can learn from. Because most of the employees have given up there is an atmosphere of capitulation that makes for a day full of acerbic jokes and swearing.
Cons
Career Progression – there are no promotions by design. The HR rules mean that you can’t be promoted in the same role. You have to move department to get a higher grade. The side-effect of this is, of course, that there is no incentive to do well in your current role. And as you’re not learning anything new you end up just doing the minimum and do the 9 to 5. You can only become more specialised sitting in your current role and therefore even less employable by another department. Office – because of the cost-saving you don’t get your own desk so your first hour every day is spent trying to get the desktop and monitors to work. You’re packed in there like angry chickens. That’s fine if you like close body contact but bad news if you’ve got a noisy or smelly neighbour. IT Infrastructure - this is decades behind the real world and programmers spend most of their time trying to keep creaking servers running. You’re not going to be working on any new technologies for sure. As teams have been fired their systems have stopped working. Sometimes this can be a good thing – there is no database for tracking holidays so it’s a free-for-all. On the other hand, you’re going to have to pay for getting company emails and conference calls outside of the office. Management and Culture –the current atmosphere of anarchy is amusing but doesn’t help the less aggressive employee. The only attempt at fostering a company culture is the occasional “newsletter” from the senior management. It’s filled with fake good news so, yeah, thanks for that but I can read the press about the latest fine we’ve been slapped with because of some board members’ behaviour. It’s so anodyne that both the person sending it and the person reading it thinks the other is an idiot. I realise that managers are restricted in what they can do (there are no promotions allowed, after all) but the failure to engage with their employees is either cowardice or contempt.