I spent nearly 8 years of my career life at VMware and I made many friends and poured my heart and soul into the company. For the first few years it was the epicenter of innovation, but soon too many laid off employees from Cisco came over and changed the culture. It evolved into a place where everyone was jockeying for a promotion and the team environment soon dissipated. Sadly, some managers purposefully make it a mystery how to progress in one's career. I loved VMware and was sad to leave, but leaving and going to my current company was one of the best decisions I've ever made.