Pros
The Trevor Project is one of the most beautiful spaces I have ever been in terms of cultivating this culture of openness, compassion, intense empathy and connection. I walk in to a volunteer shift and if I know my co-counselors, they give such a warm hello or even a hug. If I don't know them, they introduce themselves and ask about me and we get to know each other. This is a sisterhood/brotherhood/siblinghood that I've never seen anywhere else, it's like soldier in the trenches but we are warriors of the heart on a hotline. Every time you answer, it's a Russian Roulette (excuse me if the metaphor is less than PC but i have a point) in the sense that, you don't know if you're answering someone who wants to say "You've changed my life for the better!" or someone who is a little down, or someone who is pranking you, or someone who is in serious danger. It is scary to reach for that receiver sometimes! But with this culture of empathy and connection, the fact that I can turn to an operator I didn't really know before and feel safe and secure in saying, "Hey, that last call brought up some hard memories for me, do you mind if I..." or "can I talk to you for a second?" -- it changes everything. It makes me excited for that next difficult call, because I have a team of superhero lifesaving angels around me IRL. They've got my back, so I can have the callers. And that is the truest kind of team work that makes me feel brave and determined, instead of being afraid to answer I actually want to catch that danger call so I can catch that person's crisis. So i can tell them, as Trevor co-counselors tell me, "It makes sense for you to feel this way given what has happened, and you didn't deserve that to happen." (A message much more succinct and healing than "it gets better" which is nearly synonymous with "shush.") This is the beautiful work they do unlike anywhere else. What they taught me as a volunteer is so valuable, I'm applying it to my full time mental health workplace because they don't get it like Trevor gets it.
Cons
I don't need to go into this because so many other commentators do and probably understand it better than I. SENIOR MANAGEMENT, EXECUTIVES, PEOPLE WHO ARE HARD OF HEARING AT THE CORPORATE LEVEL: If you don't understand what is going on, what all of these people mean by "THE GAP" then you're the person who needs to be fired because you've created that gap in your concept of 'reality' (classism). And if you can't see it, you can't fix it. If it is like water in a fishbowl to a fish to you, then we need to dump your tank so you understand what the water is. Readers, I've been a volunteer for not yet two years and I've seen the ENTIRE training team (the only people I'm close to as a volunteer) turn over TWICE. All three left at once last year. Two of the three left just this summer. They all tried. I see it in the bags under their eyes and the creases of their frowns, They really wanted to stay at The Trevor Project. But you can only take so much ignorance, so much disappointment, so much disregard when you can hardly eat on what they pay you. They even tell volunteers "we don't have that much money you know so we can't do this great idea that would benefit the callers and counselors incredibly." The Trevor Project, sadly, isn't isolated from the greed of the world (which in turn creates so much of the world's grief that causes people to call us in distress). It’s funny that someone tried to say that “The same person is posting mean stuff about executives” because 1. Glassdoor probably disallows that. 2. You just made it so much worse for your argument that “they really do care” or whatever. 3. Why don’t you quit? Like, idk, what if, maybe, you just, found another place to work? We can help you look. What’s a good work place for someone who feels like they’ve done something productive by covering up a visible problem, like throwing a curtain over a smoldering pit? Sweeping the termites under the rug? Hmm… OMG I can actually think of so many places you’d just love! For starters, the federal government has much better benefits.