Pros
Good benefits! I loved having PTO! I was originally a full time employee but switched to being part time due to school. They thankfully allowed me to be a part time employee. I believe they only allow 2-3 part time employees per office (of about 40-50 employees). My coaches & supervisor were easy to work for. They appreciated hard work and quality work. I liked working for them. There were many opportunities for advancement. If you do good work, usually your supervisor/coaches will notice you and can recommend you. If you're bilingual and the company needs your language, you get compensated more! I think I made $2 more an hour than my fellow employees. There are also opportunities for pay raises. If I remember correctly, there are annual pay raises. And then based on your work, you can get to a tier 2 or tier 3, and that also means more pay. By the time I left, I was making $13.90 an hour (which was not bad, considering that I was just 3 or 4 years out of high school). Company has great incentives to work hard! They'd offer anything from extra lunch time, free half day or full day of PTO, free lunch, gift cards to stores and restaurants etc. Probably half of the time, if would just be in our MN office but the other half, we'd have to compete as individuals against other employees in other states where there are offices. It was great when I won prizes! On slow days, the company allows employees to go home early. You can choose to take PTO for the rest of the day or just take it as unpaid. It's usually 4-5 employees the max each time it happens (and it doesn't happen a lot). It usually happens just right before the holiday or maybe right after. Usually the following business day or maybe until Monday, then the work picks back up. Paid holidays!!! Although I was a part timer, I didn't get to experience this! :( The office usually shuts down for the major holidays. It is still opened on the "eves" though (christmas eve, new years eve). However, only 5-6 employees will work (employees sign up or if not enough sign up, then they will draw names). The company wants to maintain a good team morale and camaraderie so they hold annual company picnics (although I never went).
Cons
Maybe my vacations were just too long, but because I was a part timer, my PTO accrued much more slowly. Work was HIGHLY REPETITIVE. I dreaded coming to work every single day. When one of the coaches (team leads) asked me to do a task for them that allowed me off of the phones, I was thrilled and accepted the task right away. Some of the callers were decent. There are other callers that are just rude and really need to have a thing called respect and decency. I've been cursed at, yelled at for doing something I didn't even do, there have been threats against me... But that's just part of the job. BAD VIBE in the workplace. Employees are ALWAYS complaining about callers, even though that is against HIPAA (health information portability accountability act). Supervisors/coaches sometimes takes part in the conversation. Supervisors/coaches should monitor employees when taking breaks, bathroom breaks, during training breaks etc. One lady next to me took bathroom breaks maybe about 3-5 times a day for 5-10 minutes each time. The issue I have with this is that I usually see her socializing with coworkers on their break or their lunch break (in the break room next to the bathrooms). She may have an incontinence problem but I don't see why she should be getting paid for talking to coworkers. Mondays and the day right after the holiday are usually VERY BUSY. Mandatory overtime is usually assigned to full time employees, anywhere from 1 hour to 2-3 hours in addition to your usual shift. But these usually are just that 1 day, maybe 2 if a high volume of calls is anticipated. On busy days, we usually have to resort to taking down the name and calling them back when the call volume has died down. Work space is a little small so you're right next to coworkers and can hear them in their conversations. If they're dealing with a difficult caller, they may get into yelling matches and may even hang up on the callers (which is okay if the caller is swearing and warning has been given them. I usually just take it and try to quickly finish the call). It's not so great if your caller hears them. Sometimes the system would lag and scheduling medical trips would take forever to be scheduled. IT usually fixes the problem in 1-3 hours. Sometimes, transportation vendors can be rude on the phone with you or just not as knowledgable as they should be. For the most part, they usually are okay though.