Pros
-good training program -fun office games and holiday office party's -professional dress was optional -work hours as Skip Tracer were better than as a Collector
Cons
Where do I begin? -Unless you are aggressive, assertive, cold-hearted, resilient to rejection, a great negotiator, and love collecting money and making commissions, then working as a Collector is not for you. In addition, working as a Collector means you have to contact people early in the morning, after normal working hours, and sometimes on the weekend. The Skip Tracers like myself only had to work the standard 1st shift with the option to stay late or come in on weekends to make up lost time. Working as a Collector is a heart-wrenching job as you are dealing with people who have financial problems. I felt bad for most of the people I had to collect from. -From top level management down to the bottom feeders there was ongoing unprofessionalism and belittlement to other employees. Office gossip, profanity, disrespect, and harrassment were rampant. In other words, the firms policies were ignored. Office morale continued to decline. -Very poor and little communication between the bottom up to senior management. From time to time I heard the management at my office complain about this. It is very difficult for a business to function with this major problem. -Favoritism was common and there was no question as to how others collected more than you or the next person. -Raises or promotions were non-existent as employees would wonder why they didn't get raises or promotions after having high performance. I remember my coworker trying to keep me positive about my expectation of a promotion since he saw how productive I was, yet I knew it was delusions of grandeur. -Aside from the absense of raises and promotions, what was worse was fear of loosing your job if you did not make your collection goals as a Collector. Not getting commissions was okay, but management made you think you were easily replaceable if you did not make you goals. Thank god I was transeferred into the Skip Tracing department because there were no collection goals, although we did have a minor quota to fill that easy to meet. -The pay was insulting to us all. I was given less than my previous job and when I questioned why I wasn't given the pay on the high end of the pay range the manager offered. The manager told me I had to prove myself. Apparently, a four year degree plus related experience was not enough to prove myself from the start. I found out an employee with much more experience than I had was only making a dollar more than me. Another employee at my level had been there a few years and only made the max they were offering new employees and that was nothing. The commission structure made up little to nothing of the pay scale. The most I heard someone collected in commission was an extra pay check for the month. -There are some other gripes about this place, but I think so far one would get the picture and understand why not to work at this firm.