Pros
A living wage and decent benefits for a single parent. Decent work environment compared to many call centers Some degree of job security as long as CS operations are not outsourced to Canada Union provides good protection against the constant nit picking of managment and there constant attempt to fire workers for unjustified reasons Opportunity for overtime during severve storms and power outages
Cons
Union and managment relations could be better The number of low paid contractors used here and managment's previous plans to shut at least one of the call centers means DTE's eventual goal is to sack as many of the union call center workers and outsource as much CS functions as it can get away with. This does not create loyaly or a positive work environment. Computer systems badly need updating and are constantly down at the worse times. Work arounds are cludgy and add way to much time when helping customers Constant monitering of work and being evaluated for unimportant things, managment obsessed with metrics. Lack of communication with anyone in managment beyond immediate supervisor Having to hang around a downed power line for days in a row because DTE disn't spend enough on tree triming and won't upgrade power lines to latest non-shorting power lines