Pros
The people that were training me were really cool, laid-back people. I don’t really have much against them. They were very understanding that a lot of the information being thrown at me was a lot to process and that it would take me time to get the hang of things. I don't blame them for the horrible time I had, rather I blame the upper management for speeding me along through the onboarding/training process to throw me on the phones as soon as possible. Again, the upside was that I liked the people I worked with. I feel like I would have become good friends with them outside of work.
Cons
TL;DR: I was given roughly a week's worth of training, when the recruiter told me I had 3-4 weeks to train. No shadowing calls. They Info dumped everything I need to know to do my job during the onboarding process then threw me on the phones as soon as they could. When I was hired the recruiter told me that I’d have roughly 2-3 weeks of training before being let on the phones with customers. This was my first help desk type of job and i’m pretty tech savvy but I had no real experience in tech support. I had a willingness to learn every aspect of their company and the software they were working with and that was good enough for them. I pick up programs fairly easily so I thought it wouldn't take me too long to learn their system/software. However, they sped me through the onboarding process and training so fast I could hardly grasp all of the information being thrown at me. I told them I was ADHD and that I learn better via doing or visually watching someone else go through issues. I was given no mock scenarios to have them help me through, no one to shadow, and by the time 4 days had passed I was already working with customers via text/instant messenger. Which i’ll admit was easier because I I was being watched, but the problems our clients encountered were far fetched and not the run-of-the-mill kind of problems. I was stressing out about knowing everything about their business and I really wanted to know how their programs worked/what they did so I could better understand how to fix the issues, but they dismissed those questions simply stating that it wasn't something I really needed to know. Perhaps they were right, but I was still struggling to grasp how the dots connected to fix XYZ issue. My first day on the phones came around and I was scheduled for an 8 hour shift of which my trainer was assigned to me on his day off, so to compensate him upper management said he could do a half day. My first call was horrible. I had a caller who had a very simple password reset that I had practiced several times off and on through the week, but I went to the wrong password reset guide. My trainer was directly messaging me information and the guide but at the same time the caller was becoming impatient, saying things like “this issue is usually solved pretty quickly” and “Is there a way I can get another representative on the line to help me who is more knowledgable?”. My trainer said no, we aren't allowed to do that so I repeated him, and she hung up. I was aware that we’d get mean individuals, but I was no where ready enough to be on the phones yet. As I mentioned, I never even got the chance to shadow another employee answering calls. Oh I should also mention the computer they give you is a piece of trash. How anyone is expected to get anything done on them is beyond me. They’re slow, and the first Laptop I got the dock wouldn't work.
