Extremely political, obfuscation is common, and life-long employees make for low motivation & skills
Pros
The benefits and compensation are pretty great, but I did not find it was worth the stress and politics.
Cons
I found that most employees at Merck have been there for decades. This unfortunately results in many people who have not learned new skills and seem to be unmotivated to change themselves or their workstreams, which resulted in industry best-practices not being followed. It honestly felt like people at Merck operated in a bubble that was 15 years behind in digital marketing (saying this even taking into consideration legal pharma issues). I found it was nearly impossible to move anything forward in an environment where there is so much bureaucracy, hierarchy, politics, and sensitivity. Co-workers often seemed to justify their jobs by strangle-holding their workstreams instead of collaborating openly and without ego. It often feels like everyone is trying as hard as possible to not do anything, but still trying to appear as if they are doing something. The feeling of obfuscation is overwhelming. The physical building culture is also not ideal - in an era where many offices are going remote, the Merck UG campus building remains something straight out of Office Space.
