Pros
-The culture is amazing. I always felt included and valued by my office even though I was the sole support staff person in our office. -Perks - a lot of catered breakfasts/lunches. Get to go home early the Friday before a holiday. -Great PTO that starts right when you do. Benefits also start on your first day as well. Vitality (a health and wellness benefit) helps you lower your medical benefits costs by over 50% if you're willing to put in a little effort. -The people - seriously. This is why people stay here even with any and all cons. They hire really great humans. -Fairly easy to advance- if you want to move out of a admin role and get into insurance - they will help you do so. They will pay for classes and materials (if you pass the test!) and they will help you grow your career if it is something you're looking to do.
Cons
-Management. There is a whole novel here but for Support Staff - at least in my district, there was a lot of misdirection. The manager of the reception pool is incapable of doing his job and then gets upset when other people can't do theirs. A lot of "out of the office" notices from them as well. Never responded to emails. Everyone in the management pool sits in LA so getting support in any of the other Cali offices (and now Portland) is really difficult. -Expectation to do more than your job. This ended up being okay for me at first. I loved wearing multiple hats and learning a lot of new skills. But eventually I was doing reception - which for my office included being the only mail person and handling all office manager work like inventory, all IT work went through me since everyone in IT worked out of LA and would try literally everything in their power to get out of coming down to do something (I now know how to install an entirely new computer to a cubicle station), and being the Executive Assistant to 3 producers (calendars, expense reports, organizational charts, client correspondence, spreadsheets, etc.). That is a lot to expect of one person. And a lot of the back office roles are like that because they are trying to pay as few people as little as possible... speaking of which: -PAY - I had no idea how severely underpaid I was until after one of the other ladies in support told me what she made. I do not - however - think that this is a company wide problem and more so a talking point of the manager and district I worked in - but make sure when you tell them what you made at your last job - instead tell them what you would like to be making with them - bump it up a few bucks - they can certainly afford it.