Pros
- This is a enterprise helpdesk on steroids. The helpdesk supports 74000+ end users with 4500 different software applications. UHG through all sorts of mergers and acquisitions likely has every platform known to man - Unisys and IBM mainframes, every flavor of Unix, Windows servers, Cisco VoIP phones, Cisco VPN, etc. Last I heard the company processes 1 billion claims/year. This company probably has more data bandwidth collectively than many nations do. This is a heavy-duty factory of computing that cranks out a lot of product! - You handle something new and different everyday. Every day you learn something new or handle something new. It seems kind of daunting but is rather fun. This is a large company with every kind of discipline possible: claims processing, network management, underwriting, sales, IT, legal, advertising/marketing, finance, accounting, statistical analysis, doctors/nurses/counselors, etc. You will talk to people ranging from entry-level claims processors to Senior VPs in a given day. I learned a lot about all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes which makes a large health insurance company function. You can't learn every application there. But if you ask the right way most end users will happily explain how an application or process works. Some are simply glad that someone in the IT department wants to know more about what they do for a living. - Company is not going anywhere. This is a large, solid, dependable business. People will always need what they provide. Sure they have hiccups here and there depending on new healthcare legislation but this is a company with a lot of diverse businesses. And the helpdesk was insourced from a contractor a few years ago which many levels of IT management seem to be thrilled with. - The IT department generally seems well put together. Processes are well-designed, documented and executed. There seems to be a web form, tool or application for EVERYTHING. Very little done on paper or without automation. - 23 days of annual PTO to use. Days off granted on a first come, first served basis. - 99% of calls are from internal customers. You are very rarely dealing with the general public so you don't have to deal with people screaming in your face. Supervisors will generally defend you if there is a problem with a customer.
Cons
- This office is the epitome of "Office Space". Everything is sterile, boring, soulless and in the middle of austere suburban surroundings. It is full of the same meaningless corporate cliches as you see in the movie. It doesn't feel like an IT department. You feel like you work in a customer service call center. You might as well sell magazine subscriptions. The people are boring and lifeless. Everyone and everything is so overly PC it is inhumane. There is very little social interaction. You are very unlikely to ever see your coworkers outside of work. If you do all they talk about is their little universe of resetting passwords for a living. All of the restaurants around this locale will fatten you up quick. - If you have any kind of personality this place will stifle you quickly and/or they show you the door in no time. They want "yes men" and quiet robots. Granted most of the corporate world is like that but this place brings that concept to the extreme. - There is little pride here. Someone else on Glassdoor said about UHG, "There is no pride here. Everyone wishes they worked somewhere else. They are all here only to put this on their resume." How true. - If you like to use your natural creativity and tech-mindedness to solve interesting problems this place will burn you out fast. You very rarely get to delve deep into problems, your job mostly consists of writing tickets and sending the issues to workgroups. The company wants first-call resolutions but fails to let you do the work you need to do so. The company wants 8 minute resolutions to things that can't be done in 8 minutes. To some people - customers and management alike - all you are is a professional ticket-writer and are treated like such. - The lower and middle-level management are not very competent. Most of them have never done this kind of work and are not very qualified to tell you how to do your job. They often have very poor social skills, issues with communication and horrendous writing skills. They don't handle any kind of escalations and you can't go to them for help in the middle of a call. All they really appear to do is tell you what you did wrong and gab amongst themselves while you have 40 calls in queue. They do their utmost to rub it in your face that they are a notch above you. I've rarely received any help from management types at this place. I am not saying this because I have some general dislike for management, in fact, I truly seek out managers whom I can respect and learn from. I didn't have one at this job. They are all a bunch of dead weight. - Supervisors try to mask their own incompetence through rampant micromanagement. If they can make some case that their employees are all incompetent and need to be continually managed then it makes them look superior and/or justifies their job. - Everything is about ridiculous sets of metrics. Everything. Again this goes back to the customer service vs. helpdesk issue. They care more about how long you were in a call than if you were able to do something to get this person up and working. Show up from lunch a minute late and they will complain about it. Go over 8 mins. in some call and a crazy supervisor will have a fit. They care more about call handling stats than people fixing problems. I always thought helpdesks fixed things. - EVERYTHING you do is recorded, both your phone audio and your screen video while in a call. It is so 1984 it is ridiculous. Call audio is one thing but the video is just to stalkerish for me. Never do anything that doesn't involve your job. I've never seen such a level of micromanagement. - Nobody talks to each other in person or on the phone in the office. It is all done through an instant messaging tool. Sometimes I need to talk to someone face to face. Don't get caught using the IM tool while in a call or you will hear about it. - You are chained to your desk the entire day. All you do is answer phone calls. You will forget what it was like to actually repair a computer. You will forget what it was like to walk. There is no face-to-face interaction. You will put on some pounds. - Your social interaction is all with people far away. West Coast, East Coast, Texas, down South, even India and the Phillipines. Let's just say you will meet a lot of nice folks but never ever get to have a drink with them. - The coffee in this place is the worst coffee that has ever existed. I don't see how it can be legally sold for human consumption. I understand it's free but the nearest real coffee stand is way too far to make it to on a break. - They will paint some bright portrait of career advancement. Get in the door and you will find out it was all a pipe dream. You may get out of there but only if you make absolutely ZERO waves and only if you treat your master exactly how they want to be treated. - UHG's health benefits, for being a HEALTH INSURANCE company, are pretty lousy. You could work at STARBUCKS slinging coffee and have better health insurance. - If you like learning what is happening in other parts of the company look in the newspaper. Granted the place is huge but I saw more current news about UHG in the newspaper business section than in my own internal communications. - Your CEO makes more in an hour than you will make in an entire year at this job. - Raises and bonuses are a joke. If you were "lucky" to receive a raise it was less than inflation. Bonuses? I made more in bonuses at manual labor jobs that I had in school than I did at this so-called "professional" job.
