Pros
During my 1 year at Bold Penguin, there has been a lot of wonderful aspects to the job. - The pay is decent, with opportunities to make more. It starts at $15/hour, but with OT, Split Shifts, and the future possibility of working Saturdays to make more money, there is a lot of ways to make a decent wage. There is also monthly bonuses if you scored well for the month based on their standards and expectations. - They offer to pay for you to receive your Licensure for Casualty and Property Insurance. They pay for the class and the test. - The coaches do a wonderful job of trying to help and be involved whenever something happens. - Slack usage for messaging with anyone in the company, means that I can ask questions to anyone and try to receive feedback, growth, or just general help. - It is a growing company, which means that internal promotions are possible, both in the department you're in and in other departments. - If you're a fan of swag, they send out rain jackets, t-shirts, or other random bits and baubles, every couple of months. - The ability to work from home has been great. They provide equipment for you to do your work, and if there are problems, they're great at getting it handled in a timely manner.
Cons
There are some downsides to working with this company: - The job is repetitive. You ask the same handful of questions to every prospect, then move on to the next. - In order to promote through CIC, you must have your Licensure (from what I'm told). Other departments don't state it as a requirement, but it is recommended. - Communication can be challenging. Though everyone is at your fingertips, it's hard to get direct answers to things sometimes. Something as simple as a yes or no question can take days, if not persistent about. - The Employee Handbook has many sections where it states discretion can be made by employers for multiple things, which means that you don't always have a strict understanding of the rules sometimes. While this is good to play the system a little, which I'm sure some have, this also means that your performance could be worse off and you not know it. - The bonuses you receive is partially based off a ranking system. Two of the things in the ranking system aren't in employees' control. You can't guarantee that a person who calls in will want insurance. People will sometimes call looking for something else. Some people hang up or just don't answer the phone. It makes the ranking less about performance, and more about luck. - PTO is abysmal. If you want 4 hours of PTO (the max, and only amount, you can receive in a month), you must be present for every shift, with no late/tardy days. While I understand their expectations towards being on clock and on time, it's very improbable that you won't receive any. - It's the same as retail work in a lot of ways. You get some great prospects, but you also get some terribly rude ones as well.