-No career path
-No opportunity for training and promotions
-The officially stated "meritocracy" does not manifest at all
-The yearly performance reviews lack objectivity, performance and creativity/innovation are not recognized and awarded
-Too hierarchical, lack of cooperation between various IT sub-departments
-Business-driven IT environment, as opposed to a technology-driven one. In terms of technical solutions, mediocre approaches are chosen instead of better ones. Fear of adopting other technologies.
-Too Mainframe-centric IT environment. The MF guys are considered the "kings" and the rest of the people (Unix and Windows people) count significantly less for the purpose of allocating new projects.
-Inept senior management. Too many changes of direction, from year to year.
-Recent offshore initiatives are destroying the IT departments. A lot of layoffs and the offshore devel teams (coming through TCS - Tata Consulting Services) are not delivering sub-standard quality.
-A "watch your back" work atmosphere, sink or swim
-Officialy, it's supposed to tolerate the English and French languages equally, but a bias exists towards French (and the quebeckers tend to form their own "nest" and "circle" and the English spealing peers from the same team feel excluded, marginalized.
-A sort of protectionism is manifesting between the various IT OUs - especially between US and Canada. The Canadian teams come up with very good solutions and infrastructure projects, but they are ignored and only US dictates.
-Too much interaction and reliance on IBM as technology partner, and not having its own data center
-The use of Lotus Notes/Domino infrastructure instead of something more user/Microsoft friendly.
