Prior to my life as a self-employed contractor, I was employed by an American mega-corp, EDS. In England, as far as I can tell, relatively few people have heard of EDS, despite the fact that they are a mind-blowingly colossal computer services corporation that have several mega-contracts with the British government. Worldwide, EDS hires enough people to fill my hometown of Newport (Shropshire) twelve times over, and Newport itself is big enough to support eleven pubs and even a nightclub.
EDS is the only dysfunctional company I have worked for, before or since. The faintly amusingly named and less winningly inept CEO Dick Brown's reign closely coincided with my employment at EDS. Dick was fired after investors halved the corporation's market value. His reward for being one of the worst managers in history? An obscenely gargantuan golden parachute. Dick made approximately 90 million dollars in that time. So perhaps he was not so inept after all, but did what it takes to make money (for himself, not EDS investors of course).
EDS have consistently consumed billions of tax payers's loot on poorly managed, failed projects, yet are awarded further contracts because they are adept at dealing with the abstract grind of government contract application.