Avantages
They provide a paycheck. You can surf facebook at work. You can wear jeans. On-site health care at the larger sites.
Inconvénients
It is difficult to move up. You can make lateral moves from one dead-end position to another and work as hard as humanly possible, but your chances of moving up are slim. Managers are constantly in meetings, "team-building" with each other or learning how to manage (or coloring pictures, who knows), but they are RARELY there doing any actual team-building. The atmosphere is like a third-grade classroom with silly contests, decorations, etc, which would be great if they didn't also treat you like you are in the third-grade. A lot of really talented people start there at a young age, but Progressive has no interest or method to identify these people and retain them. Most of these people languish in lowly, monotonous positions because you have to have supervisory experience to become a manager. That's difficult if you start right after school. All of the reasons I was happy at the beginning -- great benefits, relaxed atmosphere, belief in the company philosophy -- faded away completely. I started there deluded that Progressive was a place to work for your whole career, that I would have opportunities to move up and do great things, that Progressive would remain true to its core values. Well, I was wrong. When I left, morale was at all time low, but from what I understand, it's still on the downward slide. You are a number there. Until your number is up.