Pros
The colleagues Weekly free lunches Great Sports & Social Club Benefits are quite good
Cons
Despite the fact that I made amazing friends in the year that I worked there, and despite the perks and benefits the company offers, I absolutely do not recommend working at Ancestry. For starters, the job ad did not state that this is call center work, so the disappointment was rather great when I figured out what this job actually was, and I was not alone! It took me a good few months to notice it, but management absolutely does not have your back. Everything you do (every call you take, every email you write, every minute you may spend away from your desk) is monitored and then thrown at you in 1-1s where you need to explain why you may have forgotten to offer something to the client (even though the job description never mentioned sales) or why you have spent an additional 3 minutes to go to the bathroom. I don't know how many verbal warnings I received for the smallest things. After calling in sick, you are to meet with your manager and then have to state the reason for your absence and sign a document promising not to be sick in the future. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not be treated like a criminal each time I'm moving around the office. The job is not easy to begin with as you often deal with frustrated customers, and when you know your manager won't have your back, it makes work all the more difficult. One of my favorite moments was being yelled at by a customer for verifying her account. Insisting on the company policy and data protection, I had to call the manager line a few times, where I was told to keep insisting on the policy. When said customer was finally put through to the manager, she was all of a sudden able to get what she wanted WITHOUT the verification of her account. It's nice to see that one frustrating call could have been avoided, but I suppose it's easier when your employees are dealing with these calls. This is one of very many examples. I'm very glad those days are behind me.
