From Filet Mignon to McDonalds Values
Pros
The ABSOLUTE best reason to work as SDC is the ability to work from home; This allows control of your environment and prevents issues with co-workers. It obviates lots of travel-related expenses (gas / transportation charges, vehicle expenses,) which is helpful. Another good reason is that when you fix these (mostly simple) issues from your customers, they feel wonderful and are usually very grateful about what's been done. Although it can be arduous to deal with, these are, at the end of the day, simple people who are grateful for your assistance and appreciate your efforts even if you can't fix it. After pay, there's no greater gratification than appreciation. Most of your co-workers here are just like you are; A little geeky and introverted, a lot of similar interests are shared and they will almost always have your back whether its in a discussion or when asking about policy. It's a shame that so few of them are or ever will be in a position of power.
Cons
The worst downside to working at SDC is the absolute lack of responsibility management feels towards its employees. Concerns and complaints are met with deaf ears, unless they choose to tell you simply to suck it up and work. Policies are changed surreptitiously behind the scenes when they counter management's edicts (such as when they subtly changed the online employee manual after the manual was shown to prevent mandatory overtime) without any acknowledgement that they have done so. Promises made to the employees upon hiring, throughout their career, such as raises when the company is profitable (denied raises, differential was cut, CEO pleaded poverty then immediately cashed out over a million in stock options, while getting quarterly bonuses for simply doing his job,) or never outsourcing work (most of our work is now outsourced, and despite being promised multiple times that break-fix work will not be outsourced, it is now currently being outsourced supposedly because of our clients' wishes,) and always putting service first (we were always told our primary goal is to resolve the CX's issues and now we are shackled by timers,) these were all broken, and, with the previously stated tendency to edit policies in an Orwellian manner (behind the scenes edits with no disclosure that things have changed coupled with outright denial that things have been changed when directly asked) makes the management at best seem untrustworthy and at worst like it is specifically trying to cause chaos and havoc amongst the employees (such as when Voluntary Time Off (VTO) is available and it gets thrown out first-come, first-served now, causing hard feelings between people, while it used to be doled out via the Supervisors, who could then decide amongst their teams who should / could get.) Part and parcel of the lack of responsibility is the lack of uniform policy to deal with X or Y. We are taken to task for not knowing that policy has changed or been updated (almost always without notice or information.) Alerts often come days or weeks after changes have been discovered and disseminated to us through our work chat rooms. If a change requires us to do something, we are rarely given more than two days notice to accomplish tasks, despite possibly being unavailable and/or on time off. Be expected to take on more and more responsibility and learn new things without any recompense. You will be told how valuable you are to the company while they increase your workload and do not provide even the most basic cost-of-living raise to your pay. Despite the fact that they are using YOUR utilities, YOUR internet, YOUR equiment, YOUR furniture and facilities, they will continue to take from you and expect more of you while giving nothing more than the basic compensation they started you at. Training at this company is barely worth noting. Initial training is paid, which is nice, and is fairly easy-going and informative, but does not reflect actual work environment. Subsequent training involves watching a video or, on the rare occasion a trainer can be spared, listening to the trainer talk about his rig and/or pop culture and/or relative connection speeds with little to no time spent on actual fact or necessary information, other than what we are already assigned to read / watch on our own. This also includes that many are expected to fix systems and devices they have little-to-no training or experience with (Apple, mobile devices) or that are not yet considered suitable for use with work (Windows 8 OS.) How are we supporting things that we are encouraged not to use or cannot use? Things that we don't even have virtual demos for? It's strongly implied, however that you should seek these virtual boxes on your own and assume all personal risk and responsibility therein. Metrics are based on easily-gamed numbers and denial of service. One of the pros of a job like this is to fix what's broken, whether out of loyalty to a customer or the desire to overcome an obstacle. I understand there needs to be limits regarding this. However, now it is strongly encouraged to ignore obvious problems that are unrelated to the customer's original problem (e.g. you see the CX is woefully out of date on several commonly-used programs, but that has nothing to do with the adware that's slowing their system down, so just ignore the possible security risks and conflicts.) Also, we are strongly advised to not service or even speak with customers and build rapport, so we can eliminate more time. Finally, metrics goalposts, which are part of their new pay scheme, are constantly shifting upwards.
