Most big employers consider GPL unusable and will only allow Apache, MIT, BSD, and other permissive patent-free licenses.
So they don't let you use grep? Sounds like hell.
Yeah, caution with GPL is understandable if you're shipping it or making it a part of a hosted service. But internal use is not the intention of GPL, so a blanket ban like that would put that shop at a disadvantage, like the other comment said, that basically rules out all kinds of things.