Pros
The people I worked with were sincere, committed and passionate about their work. Faith-Based Communicators bonded over an informal communicator-led worship service held in the break room on Wednesday or Thursday evenings. We read passages from the Bible, sang hymns and prayed for one another. We prayed for the success of the programs before each calling period. The programs we called for deserved all of the time and attention afforded them. We called for programs that clothed the homeless and fed the hungry. You could easily become lost in a script and focus solely on the emotional aspects of reaching out to a hurting world. Volunteer recruitment also supports worthy causes. I spoke with families and individuals directly impacted by devastating diseases. I will never forget the way I felt after I spoke with a grieving father. He had recently lost his 14 year old daughter to an aggressive form of leukemia. The script I read seemed bland and dull before I spoke with him. It's easy to forget there are faces behind statistics.
Cons
Where do I begin? *A lack of trust in employees. I wasn't feeling well during a calling period, so I took a bathroom break. A supervisor came looking for me after a few minutes. He became suspicious because he had bad experiences at another InfoCision location's call center in Ohio. The InfoCision call center in Ohio was located near a prison, so many of the employees were former inmates. I believe he realized I was ill. but he didn't apologize for his actions. *Low pay and long hours. *Working at least one weekend day. I usually ended up working both weekend days,so I missed out on family gatherings and outings with friends. *Emotional labor aspect of work. Physical labor is demanding of the body; emotional labor strips the soul. I can't count the number of times I walked out of the building with my heart pounding and tears in my eyes. It's difficult to not have a sense of self-loathing when you feel as though you've taken the last cent from a needy person to line someone's coffers. *Lack of recognition *Shredding call lists. Calling the same donors over and over again for donations. *Politicized work. Faith Based programs frequently mixed secular politics with religion. *Small raises, if any *Revolving door of employees. Doesn't retention matter? Shouldn't a business go out of its way to keep high-performers? *Blase attitude about objections. So what it they're on a fixed income? You're on a fixed income too. You're not getting a raise. Difficult to say to a potential donor with nothing to eat for Thanksgiving except a can of peaches. *Second and Third Attempts to overcome objections. Why doesn't No mean No?