Career progression is something of a joke. There are lots of places to “move” to within the company but almost everything is a lateral move that comes with a small pay bump. Even if you get selected for a special position chances are it’s just some version of glorified phone technician who tries to get other people to answer more phone calls.
Training leaves a lot to the imagination. The scope of support is extremely broad, and nothing really separates outs your duties other than your level of training which even then a lot of times you will be asked to just work on things you have never been trained on due to call volume which is very rarely low enough to handle things as intended anymore. This is just one of the things that will contribute to you be overwhelmed, overworked, and mentally exhausted at your job daily.
Supervisors cause more problems than they solve. This may be handed down from them but generally any attempt to fix anything just boils down to squeezing every drop of efficiency they can out of every person and when you burn out the blame will be flipped on you for being a bad employee using underhanded sneaky tactics. I have seen supervisors snap and tell people they are on their own for things they absolutely had no business working on for their certification level. I have also seen them abandon technicians with no guidance on how to handle an angry customer. Their general plan of action seems to be focus on getting calls answered and set everything possible aside to deal with later which only causes people to call in more and even angrier because no one is working on the issues they are calling about. The one thing that seems to hold true no matter what is that no one in management will ever acknowledge there is a problem in support. When complaints are raised the general reaction is some nice words about how great something else is or distract with things like a room with arcade games no one has time to use. Lastly if you prove you are even semi-competent you will be rushed through training and you will basically be taking every call for your team that amounts to anything other than the simplest of tasks.
The pay is something comparable to a scripted call center job with minimal skill required. This support section is not like a normal call center where you must follow a script. One call you could be doing something as simple as helping someone change a password and the next you could be troubleshooting something that requires reading advanced wiring schematics. It’s not necessarily a bad thing if you are looking to obtain new skills but the pay does not reflect that. Even compared to other point of sale companies that offered me jobs or interviewed with me the pay was significantly higher and a fraction of the responsibilities and skillset required to accomplish the job.
The longer you stay at the company the less valuable you will feel. It only takes 2-6 months for anyone to realize that they are going nowhere with this company and recognize the fact it is time to start looking elsewhere.
The rating system is complete nonsense. The rating system was recently changed this year to include “core values”. This change was made 2-3 months before our actual reviews and there was no warning about if improvements were needed regarding these “core values”. Core values are part of the review that are added into your rating that cannot be measured in any meaningful way. For example, one core value is “having a passion for the mission”. You can be marked down on this core value if you apply for positions WITHIN the company. Keep in mind that if you get needs improvement on ANYTHING then you are ineligible for promotion or that yearly raise.
Team player culture. Essentially there is too much work to be done and not enough people who know how to do that work. The answer has become pushing people to do things outside the scope of their normal responsibility or training. This is treated like some prize or something to shoot for, but it comes across to most as a way to shame people into doing more work and causes more problems for everyone.
Management likes to boast about how great the culture is at the company but, that is a façade that falls away after about a month or two of being there. If you talk to almost anyone from top to bottom of support in an environment where they are not afraid of reprisal there are only a handful of people who aren’t actively seeking employment elsewhere, I should know as many of them have asked more for help finding other opportunities and when I brought this to my supervisors attention I was told “people talk don’t worry about it”. Management and HR seem purposefully ignorant of this and seem to rely on the fact that people are afraid for their careers to speak out and for good reason.
There are plenty more that could be mentioned but bottom line is if you are looking for something that is just a quick job to pay the bills or get your foot in the door for I.T. this will probably work well for you but if you’re looking for something to keep you going for longer than a year look for something better. This company likes to sell the job as it is a great place to work but it is just your run of the mill poorly managed call center that can’t keep up with the work it creates for itself and the lowest level employees pay the price.
