The biggest cons was their ability to look you straight in the face and lie to you right from the beginning of the interview process. The biggest challenges were the extreme gossiping, lying, harassment, bullying, etc. These people cannot tell the truth if hit them in the face. You never know if the entrenched staff are being honest with you or using you to get to someone else. The immediate constant games the entrenched staff plays was awe inspiring. They're very unprofessional in every way possible with rude jokes, pranks, derogatory comments, subtle threats, and no-one is immune there. Just try and keep your head down, it's like they see weakness and attack like piranha.
If you look around when you get there, you'll see a few that have been there a long time. These covet their positions and will do just about anything to discredit you or demean you in the eyes of others without a care in the world... as long as their position is secured, and you are no longer a threat to them (no matter how small or deluded they think that threat may be).
In their eyes, you're just fodder to use or destroy against others within company. So much darn subtle infighting is rampant. When you walk around you will hear the subtle comments from others in their cubicles, and god help you if you get pulled into their latest manipulations against someone else, or even yourself.
They expectations are for you to forego your family and life and live there too. There are a lot of employee that have lost family when they came to work there. You would think that you could work a 40 hours a week normally, but no. They never tell you until you hired in, but then they not so subtly tell they expect 55+ hours a week. Any less than that and you get chastised. Especially by those who work 55+hours a week religiously and have lost their families and friends.
The entrenched staff are very hard drinkers too, and go out almost every night and hit the bars together.If you do not go you are chastised and put on the "hit" list. They can recite liquor combinations at the drop of hat, and know of all the best bars in town and where ever they travel. If they sense you do not drink or drink very little, you become an outcast and these drinkers feel threatened/paranoid by you in their deluded minds, even when there is nothing there to be threatened about!
They have 1/2 hour weekly meeting with your supervisor, to "pump" you for information on others in the department, that they can use against you or others. The supervisors have learn to be "endearing" to ask a lot of personal questions to gain your trust. But whatever you tell them, gets around in the office real quick. They have no trust in any information you reveal or tell them.