Pros
This is an excellent entry-level job for people who are looking to become 9-1-1 operators, or to work in telecommunications in general. The requirements for the job are pretty low and we hire a lot of people who are fresh out of school. Very flexible scheduling that is good for someone attending college, or who has another job, a baby at home, etc. They also reimburse you for college tuition (to a certain extent). Management is not as hands-on as in a lot of entry-level jobs. You get to work independently, and at your own tempo. No one is breathing down your neck and there are no quotas to meet. Lavish holiday parties. They have choreographed Broadway performances, people dancing on tables, actors running around. It's pretty awesome. They do an award ceremony and spotlight employees from across all departments. There's a lot of overtime. You can work eighteen hour shifts every day if you really need the money, and they send out mass texts when they're busy so you know when you can come in. This is an emergency call center, so there are days when you save lives. I have dispatched for people having strokes, experiencing home invasions, etc. It's not a daily occurrence, some days you're just doing data work or doing testing, but when it happens it makes you feel important.
Cons
Despite the amount of overtime, we aren't paid to industry standard. We take calls where people are literally dying on the phone. We do the job of 9-1-1 call-takers, but we aren't paid like 9-1-1 call-takers. They don't train us in how to handle these situations either! We are constantly yo-yoing between being overstaffed and understaffed. We never have enough seating because we refuse to purchase a bigger building to work in, we're essentially shoulder-to-shoulder in this cramped space with close to a hundred employees in the same room at the same time. When we're understaffed, we're drowning and management just yells at us. There's a high turn-over rate here for a reason. If you decide to go on medical or maternity leave, this company is notorious for messing up your paperwork. People are not getting compensated until AFTER they've come back to work. So if you live pay check to pay check.. welp. No room for growth. Once you reach a level six there's no real opportunity to move up in the company, and positions for management don't open up very often. Our shift supervisors have been here for 5+ years. Our senior managers have all been here for over a decade. Our management has really gone downhill since I started there. I used to look forward to going to work and now I dread what manager is on duty. There's a lot of nepotism, and a lot of opportunities given to people who don't really deserve them but are receiving them because they're friends with a manager.