Horribly Stressful Corporate Customer-Facing Job -- Beware!
Pros
-Pay is strong and benefits are unbeatable (especially if you don't have a degree, or for some reason very much love customer service. -No physical labor at least.
Cons
-The company never has your back. Your performance is make or break based on customer surveys. Literally I've had bad performance months because of kids chatting in on their parent's accounts, and becoming frustrated because they parents refuse to authorize them to make changes. You take the blame for that, and management doesn't care. -Incredibly stressful. Myself and many other employees have had significant stress-related medical leaves. -Management not held up to same attendance standards as regular employees. Expect to see managers take months off in total every year while normal reps get trashed for attendance issues. -Management NEVER listens. Horrible, horrible changes with systems. Major systems to handle customers will receive probably about three very negative changes for each positive change. -Systems are EXTREMELY slow and EXTREMELY buggy, and IT doesn't care in the slightest. It's not uncommon for people to have multi-month crippling issues and IT will take forever to fix them. Our department could literally not pull up any bills for customers on a two month period. -Stripping away freedom from the job (can't go into specifics, but don't expect to think for yourself in this job. -Sexist. Flat-out sexist. I've heard many horror stories from coworkers and I fully believe them. As a white male I never personally encountered this sort of stuff directed at me. -Very political, gossipy, high school like environment. -Promotions aren't based on performance, but rather who you know. People weren't kidding when people would sleep around for promotions and advancement. -Company never puts customers first. I've seen entire accounts closed over $15 bill disputes because escalation teams refused to take an escalation while supervisors suggested that you do something that could get you fired (circumventing systems to issue credits above limits). -HR doesn't help. Good supervisors quickly get demoted and/or fired, bad supervisors rise the ranks and get promotions. -Horrible, unhealthy food selection in the "mini mart" areas. Inconsistent selections as well. Cafeteria prices have risen so much a good meal is hard to get for less than the price of an extra large pizza. -Job responsibilities recently doubled/tripled in my department. -Morale is consistently at all-time lows and very few people are happy. -Extremely hard to actually use your vacation unless you take single days off here and there. Good luck scheduling any weekend off without it being many, many months in advance. -Employees (non management only) harassed for using bereavement and FMLA time. -Promotion outside of customer-facing positions is near-impossible, even if you're in the top 5% nationwide of performers for years. -Benefits are eroding on an annual basis. Dozens of minor benefits lost in the years I've worked here, and several very large benefits have been lost.
