I have worked at IBM for just over 7.5 years. That's 1/4 of my life.  I started as a contractor for Kelly services, a company that they use for 'disposable employees' all over North America. 
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When I started they told me I was on probation for the first three months, and that I would have a raise to the 'regular pay' after that if they decided to keep me.  4 months later I asked my boss about it and she laughed in my face. I had done nothing to deserve a raise, and nothing in my 'contract' garunteed I could have one.  My rep at kelly services (that lying bitch) said that she never promised me anything. 

There were about 15 of us on that helpdesk, 10 contractors and 5 IBM'ers.  in the first six months there I saw 8 of those contractors 'fired' (of course they never fire you, they just call you up and tell you to not bother coming in tomorrow). WIthin two years they were all gone except for me.

I put my time in. I had heard rumours that a 'contract' was on ly for two years, but I was never able to confirm this, and never able to see this mythical 'contract'. Two years quickly came and went, and on my last day they offered me a permanent job.  Now this is fairly unusual, and I have found out since, the only way someone gets hired is if someone else leaves, which is precisely what happened.

My first two years were great. They used to send all new hires to Toronto for training (the big joke was you'd come back with an IBM tatoo), so they sent me and it was great fun... except for the fact that they screwed up my paycheque, and I didn't actually get for the first two months I worked there. My credit cards were maxed out & I had to borrow money from my parents just to survive.

Really I worked for more years on the same helpdesk. In that time, on a helpdesk of 15, I saw another 40 people come and go, including 4 managers.  Again at this level IBM uses almost all Kelly contractors, so it's really easy... the manager doesn't like someone, they call Kelly and kelly tells them not to come in tomorrow... send us another one.  The helpdesk slowly dwindled down to the point that there were only two people taking 5 calls a day each so they moved me to a new helpdesk.

This new heldpesk was much more interesting. Busy and lots of things to do. The crappy thing... you had to be on call one week out of maybe every 6, but they didn't pay you for it. Up until now, overtime had been strictly forbidden. Not to say that they didn't expect you to stay until the work was done, they just wouldn't pay you for it. This changed on the new helpdesk, all overtime was pre-approved, woohoo! I nearly worked myself to death for the next two years, literally.  The guiding principle in IBM seems to be always do more work, with less people, for less pay. Through attrition we slowly lost people, but a few of us were working to make up for that... for some reason we had dedication to our jobs.  I've never gotten a raise more than 4% in a year, but last year, I made an extra $15,000 in overtime! (but no pay for being on call once a week every month and a half go figure).

3 years of this, and I can't really say this without sounding full of myself, I carried that helpdesk myself. I did the crap work other people wouldnt. I worked 60 hour weeks for months at a time. And what did I get for it? Well I'll tell you! (not fired that's for sure)

The team lead position came just over 6 months ago. I applied, and really I was far more qualified than any of the other applicants (which isn't to say that much). During the interview I find out, the job isn't just team lead for this helpdesk, but for another helpdesk as well (total 18 people). Oh well I figure, it'll be a ton more money so it'll be worth it.

So of course I get the job and start shortly after. In typical IBM style, they don;t actually tell anyone, I just start the new job and people find out as time goes on.  Two weeks later, after I have started the job, my manager takes me in to discuss my pay.  As a helpdesk analyst, I am in the top of 'band 4'. Now because I'm in management, I'm moving to band to band 6. What does this mean in actual pay increase? I'm hoping for another $10,000 at least, which would be in the low range of what I should be expecting. Now let me say something that should be completley obvious to everyone NEVER ACCEPT A NEW JOB WITHOUT KNOWING HOW MUCH THEY ARE GOING TO PAY YOU! I got a kick in the teeth. They gave me less than a 3% raise. If I had stayed on the helpdesk, I would have  expected a bigger raise. Less than $2000 for the year... with taxes I am actually making slightly less and NO OVERTIME.

now starts the real rant, please keep with me
A month later, what do i find out? They are now paying for pager duty. Between this and no overtime I TOOK A PAYCUT TO JUMP UP TWO PAY BANDS AND BE THE TEAM LEAD FOR 18 PEOPLE. During this time, Kelly contractor on another helpdesk who sits right next to me gets converted to full time, HE HAS TO TAKE A PAY CUT TO WORK FOR IBM. I'm still working 60 hours a week but no overtime pay. First one heldpesk and then another is in crisis. Phone switch outages, power outages, one of the helpdesks blames us for a huge incident IN THE NEWSPAPER. 

In the meantime contractors are jumping ship left and right. We can't hire new people, and are so desperate that whenever we interview someone we hire them... no matter how crappy they are. My boss is getting yelled at by the CEO of the company

Which brings us to today. Me and someone else are trying to convince our manager to spend $130 on a DVD burner and some DVD's so that we can make ghost images, instead of having to spend all day reloading machines. No dice. We can't spend $130 on a dvd burner and I WORK FOR THE BIGGEST IT COMPANY IN THE WORLD. I had to yell at someone because his job delivering newspapers is interfering with work at IBM. At least 1/2 of the people on my two teams have second jobs.

Over the last year, I've converted both helpdesk to 'remote'- that is, everyone is working from home. It'll easily save over a million dollars in the next year in office space, and yet, they had to take their PC's and 19" monitors home with them. Somehow we can't afford $40,000 for IBM laptops, despite the fact that WE MAKE THEM (well, Lenovo does now, but we did when I first asked for them). If their home internet connection goes, down, they have to come into the 'mobility centre'... this is of course at our new building, right on the edge of a terrible neighborhood downtown.  So picture this... -30 (celcius) weather, walking two blocks from the parking lot to the building (past the homeless people and drug addicts lined up in front of the soup kitchen) carrying your PC, 19 inch monitor, and bag of cables.  What does my manager say? He hopes someone will injure themselves and compain to HR, so that we have justification to buy our laptops!

AND NO MATTER HOW BAD A JOB I DO THEY WONT FIRE ME.  I've told my boss twice already that I hate my job and it's everything I can do to bring myself to come into work every day. I'm running at about one 'sick' day per month.

Anyway, my job sucks, IBM sucks. I don't have the balls to quit and they don't have the balls to fire me. So I've given up. I'm going to show up for my 40 hours a week, and I'll maybe even work a good 30 of those hours. I'm going to pursue my own intrests, at work and after work, and as long as IBM wants to keep paying for it, that's great for me.

disclaimer: the above represents my own personal opinion and in no way represents the opinion of this site or anyone else on it. If you work for IBM and feel the need to retaliate, FOR GODS SAKES PLEASE FIRE ME!