The systems, equipment, and support. The end of my employment with Verizon is a lengthy story, but I feel it's necessary to understand the cons of working for this company. Due to COVID-19, no one was fully prepared to make the switch to working from home. The system problems at Verizon run rampant, though. For a telecommunications company, it is embarrassing how bad the problems are. The systems constantly crash, calls drop multiple times a day, and error messages appear more often than not. When I would reach out to the IT team, I would receive messages requesting that I take the same steps repeatedly with no resolution, even after I provided screenshots and updates stating that I had completed the necessary steps. I was offline for three weeks due to these problems. And when I was finally able to start taking calls again, another system error prevented me from assisting customers. I expressed my frustration with this situation professionally but was told that I just needed to have a more positive attitude. I felt utterly brushed off by management and the IT team at this point. I had started seeking new employment by this point and put in my two weeks' notice. My manager accepted my resignation and allowed me to continue working the rest of the day. About an hour before I was supposed to leave, I got called into a meeting. My management team then tells me they accept my resignation, but they want me to log out immediately instead of working the entire two weeks. So if you're relying on benefits or that next paycheck from Verizon like I was, I highly recommend not giving them a two weeks' notice.
Other Cons include the high-stress environment. Taking back-to-back calls with no break in between is intense, especially when the customers are angry and have been holding for an hour to speak to someone due to understaffing.
The company states that they operate with integrity. This is contradicted at every turn by policies that are anything but decent, like the fact that if a customer wants to transfer service into their name because an account owner died, the customer will lose all discounts, trade-in values, and promotions on the existing account. I always felt extremely uncomfortable with this policy and provided feedback countless times.
The tuition assistance policy does not benefit disabled employees or anyone who may get sick and need leave. I had to take short-term disability leave in 2020 and was utilizing tuition assistance. I heard nothing from Verizon until I went to sign up for tuition assistance in September 2021. I was told that I had a balance owed to Verizon for tuition assistance for $2200 because I was out on short-term disability for a portion of the time I was enrolled in classes.
While initial training was excellent, there could be better training provided to existing employees. We would occasionally receive online training and rarely class training. However, some aspects were not thoroughly covered, such as transfers of service to small businesses. This became challenging when speaking to small business customers. The lack of thorough training also contributes to customers receiving incorrect information frequently, leading to a less than pleasant experience when speaking with said customers.
