In a large enough company, you get subcultures. Working at a national lab in California, I found that my group was very relaxed and informal. Several of us wor

In a large enough company, you get subcultures. Working at a national lab in California, I found that my group was very relaxed and informal. Several of us worked in a large 'Unix Room' area that was also the group's common area. We would frequently get together there to discuss programming problems, languages, and whatever else was of interest to us. The managers weren't overly strict about regulations (except important stuff) and were really good people to work with. However, some other groups, for example the IT department, had terrible cultures. The IT department was full of combative people who fought against every other group tooth and nail over anything. Some groups were just extremely anal about hours, dress code, etc.