Pros
Working with other teams in other offices who enjoy their work. Some flexibly when it comes to WFH although that was changing as I was leaving. Choosing to leave was a huge relief.
Cons
Seeing effective change or receiving promotions, recognition, and overall respect varies from location to location and generally requires the ear of a shareholder. Over the course of the 6 years I was at Anchor, I watched our office go from 30+ to less than 10 people. Their (and inevitably my) departure was the result of mismanagement of people/projects by some questionably competent senior managers, lack of communication, and incredibly high project load leading to stress and burnout. A few years of heavy travel and long hours led to some promotions, but at the end of the day utilization is one of the few metrics used to determine value. I found that the better job I did, the more I was asked to do with little to no actual reward that made it worth sacrificing my life for work. The company has a strict safety culture but struggles to adapt in a way that doesn’t simply put all liability and responsibility on junior field staff. The company does very little to actually bolster the voices of minorities - just look at the demographics. Patterns such as people leaving in waves, declining workload, and sexist behavior prevailed in my office. Despite efforts to confront and resolve this with HR, things boiled over when a satirical book about sexism in the workplace found on a random shelf in a back office resulted in a women’s only “intervention” with HR. Every woman (most of whom were unaware of the book’s existence) was scolded for letting this book exist. After a 2 hour long, very difficult conversation, HR was finally convinced that there might be a problem, and they regretfully agreed to continue the conversation. There was never any follow up from this conversation and there is simply no accountability for change.