Pros
In a company like this, the benefits are good. In my department, there are many very bright, high-level technical contributors who work extremely hard and try to support other team members. Technical excellence is a goal. There's a ton of work to do, and each person's contribution is needed and valued. At least in my department, there is no fat to be trimmed. Everyone is encouraged to contribute to idea development and building solutions to problems.
Cons
First of all, it's important to note that this review comes from the perspective of a person who works in Network Operations. Different organizations within the company may have completely different issues. In my mind, the cons in Netops are all connected to issues with executive leadership. As others have mentioned, Charter leadership is trying to run this mammoth company in the style of a much smaller business. Even 2 years after the merger, they have not recognized the need to invest in a comprehensive, top-down integration initiative, and they bog down progress with micromanagement of spending. Each vertical organization is building processes and tools to support its own operational vision, while leadership is not directing those efforts toward an integrated goal. Leadership is very clearly focused much more on immediate, quarterly profits than on building a strong organization positioned to grow and compete over the long term. Netops teams are forced to implement band-aid solutions to meet delivery dates that were not built on proper planning. This approach leads to additional work at best and self-inflicted outages at worst. Leadership also neglects its responsibility to clarify vision and priorities through well-considered, purposeful communication (when everything is priority 1, nothing is). Vertical teams are forced to deliver complex projects through organizations with missing or broken processes/tools and are not given a budget to address those issues. The resources responsible for delivering network initiatives are also expected to fix process and tool problems; therefore, processes and tools don't get fixed, and the pain persists. There are insufficient resources to support the magnitude of work, so resources are significantly overworked and expected to continuously sprint a marathon. Upper-level leadership preaches an open door policy but doesn't honor it themselves, and that authoritarian-style approach prevents them from understanding what's really happening in their own organizations. They also don't lead problem-solving efforts; rather, they tell others to figure it out and chastise them when they struggle.