1. If you weren't prior-military working on this particular program, you'll always be an outsider (I've been here 7 years and am still very much an outsider). It's populated with retired military on both contractor and govt sides who have always known (and sometimes always hated) each other.
2. Atmosphere is decidedly non-collegial. When seeking out information from another person you will be greeted as if you are probably an enemy who will cause more work or some trouble for that person. Phone calls aren't returned, email conversations end after 2 exchanges maximum. (1 if exchanging with Finance.) Generally unfriendly atmosphere.
3. Meetings rarely begin with introductions and it's easy to be sitting in a meeting and discover 20 minutes in that you are in the wrong meeting! (at least for the first few years)
4. The overhead associated with accomplishing anything at all is staggering. One example is the performance evaluation system- Goals for the calendar year must be turned in by the end of March and results turned in by mid-October so as to give "the system" time to process the inputs. This means your heroic sacrifices for the company during the major holiday periods will go unreported and you're being cheated out of 6 months of evaluation because the HR system overhead is so slow.
5. Internally developed systems for dispatching help or reporting broken stuff is slow to non-functional. If you really need something, you need to know who does the work and go see them directly. Bring donuts and all will be well.
6. Training consists entirely of "compliance training." This is annual repetition of such things as how to fill out your timecard, what constitutes conflict of interest, export controls, workplace harassment, and all the hot-button HR stuff that a govt contractor has to do. Actual work-related training courses are listed in the catalog but never held, or never held where you can attend. You can earn another university degree - on your own time of course if you want some training.
7. Conversation with management is decidedly one-way. This is where the Talk is Talked. There are efforts made to have "skip level" communication sessions with 2nd level and higher management but no trust has been earned beforehand so one must pick one's words with great care. I never attend these sessions because I fear that once I got started that I'd be leaving the very same day (note all my Con points ). They aren't hard to avoid - they are scheduled once a year en masse.
8. Social engagement tools are advertised by the company recruiters but they have decayed into "info wanted" postings from the business capture folks. No honest, meaningful dialog is happening because of likely negative consequences. No resemblence to newsgroups or usenet.
9. I expect this will be my last job before I retire to rounding up shopping carts at Wal-Mart because my pre-LM job skills have atrophied and I have gained little that's marketable but Office 2000 Excel skills in return. (yes, the company tools are antique)
