Job Title: Director
Location: Falls Church, VA
Submitted on: 16-Aug-03
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CSC is a very big corporation, now made up of more than 90,000
employees. In the United States, it is basically divided into two
groups, Government and Commercial. Each of these has layers of
subgroups and departments. On the Government side, it's Defense Group
and Civil Group. On the Commercial side, there's Consulting (CSI),
America's Outsourcing (TMG), Financial Services Group (FSG), and Global
Transformation Services (GTS - this is really the IT applications
development group). There is also a global group known as Global
Infrastructure Services, or GIS, whose role is to provide the
operational support to both commerical and government clients (these
are the folks who are "in the trenches"). There used to be separate
healthcare and chemical/energy groups, but they were absorbed into
America's Outsouring last year in an attempt to cut costs.
At the Falls Church location, much of the work is done in support of
Government clients, so there is a lot of "old boy" networking going on
(retired Generals and the like). However, Falls Church is also the
headquarters for the TMG.
The culture is strongly cliquish. Though corporate headquarters in El
Segundo espouses a "One CSC" philsophy to the marketplace; in reality
there is very little cooperation between groups or around the globe.
Rather, there's much infightng and jockeying for political position.
There is some diversity, but not as much as you'd expect from a company
this large. All the senior executives are white males. Those females
(who are also all white) who are listed as Vice Presidents and above,
have almost no influence. They're there to appease the EEOC.
In the commercial outsourcing side, there's strong preference for
former General Dynamics employees. In fact, inside the company this
group is known as the GD Mafia. These folks are a very tightly knit
group and rarely let "outsiders" into their secret society. Many of
the top management and executive positions on the commercial side are
held by these folks.
There is no stated dress code. It's basically business casual; but
almost everyone still dresses business (ties and coats) so they're
perceived as being someone worth noticing by upper management.
There is a small cafeteria in the basement at the Falls Church
location. The food is okay but nothing to write home about. However,
the staff there are very friendly. On paydays many folks leave the
building for lunch. Otherwise, they walk across the street to the
foodcourt located in the Marriott hotel.
The opportunities for advancement vary greatly depending on what client
you become associated with and whether or not you get accepted into a
management clique. In order to achieve the highest rating possible on
your annual performance evaluation, you must be willing to travel at
the drop of a hat or relocate (sometimes without compensation). It's
intersting though, this requirement is not stated on the evaluation
form or written down anywhere. Rather, it's an unspoken requirement
that discriminates agains employees whose spouses also work and those
with children in school. I personally overheard one vice president say
they would not consider a certain candidate because "they have kids and
that automatically rules them out".
For the most part, mistakes are tolerated. In some cases, if you're
part of the right clique you can even be promoted after screwing up.
For example, one of the current V.P.'s on the commerical side was
actually debarred from doing business with the Federal Government
because of accounting irregularies. Howver, because he was in a group
of "protected" individuals, he is still employed and was promoted to
boot.
The bottom line is that you must sell your soul to this company
and "live, breath, and eat CSC" in order to survive and progress.
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