Pros
Competitive pay for the area. Good insurance including healthcare, vision and dental. Depending on your position, you are offered a generous service discount.
Kontras
This is by far the most disappointing and misleading position in my working years. The job posting itself itself is misleading - when I was applying to this job, I did not realize that it is a call center position - in fact, they discourage the use of the term "call center" in this department, however, that's exactly what it is. If you accept the position of IT Service Desk with T-Mobile, 100% of your time will be devoted to working on the phone. That said, most of the phone calls you receive will be from retail employees who are experiencing issues completing a transaction within (very poorly supported) point of sale system. After being transferred to various Customer Care extensions, they are generally referred to the Service Desk - only to be told that (due to inability to influence or assist with customer account information in ANY WAY), they will be very upset to find that you will only be able to file a ticket for them. We then file tickets to inept, understaffed and unresponsive application support teams (which are almost completely offshore) with an SLA of 3-5 business days. Most of the tickets you file will eventually be closed out after being inactive for a month or more, with no response to assist customer or otherwise. Calls received that are non-retail are generally people with hardware, software or web-based applications that are not working properly - however - you will not be able to assist them either as the training provided for this position is minimal. Your role will NOT be to provide technical assistance, but to accept as many calls as humanly possible and deflect inquiry about immediate assistance. Realistically, after your initial training period you will be provided little to no training moving forward. When new products are released, changes or made or a process is implemented - you will be lucky to receive an email stating the change. You are then expected to review the knowledge articles that they have posted during your calls and figure it out as you go. There is no training time or effort involved from your management. Most of the information provided will come from your callers as they have an issue for a service or product that you've never heard of, which is frustrating for both parties. Due to the unbelievable turnover rate of this department, we are constantly understaffed. Our incoming call queue is almost completely unmanageable due to being chronically short handed - which means that you will experience back to back calls for the entirety of your shift without any reprieve besides your scheduled breaks. Regardless of the issue, you are expected to keep your call under 10 minutes or you will be pestered by lead specialists or room runners due to pressures from management to improve this departments dramatically poor call response and resolution times - even if you you have to ask your caller 20 questions for the ticket you are filling out - even if you are SURE you can resolve this issue for the customer. Additionally - you are expected to fulfill a quota of resolving or routing offline tickets during your shift, regardless if every single minute of your scheduled shift is taken up by accepting incoming phone calls. If you do not satisfy your offline ticket quota you will face disciplinary action from your manager. Due to being chronically short staffed, I should add, you will only be allowed a 30 minute lunch break (regardless of the amount of scheduled hours you are working, which are 8 hours or 10 hours), and will be FULLY EXPECTED to contribute to "mandatory overtime". This policy has been in effect for 17 months, possibly more. You will be EXPECTED to contribute 6-8 hours of overtime. If you do not, you should be prepared to explain yourself. For this department, above and beyond is a requirement. There are no thank yous or pats on the back - especially since your manager will be almost completely invisible. To be honest, the management is probably the worst part of this job. In my career, I have never felt as undervalued, disposable and forgotten. I have worked in this position for 2 years and I can count on one hand how many times I've had a face to face conversation with not only my reporting manager, but the 3 other Service Desk management. I do not even know how to pronounce my manager's last name. If you attempt to engage them in conversation face to face, send them an email or message them via the instant messaging service, most of the time you will be deflected, put off or (most often) completely ignored. 2/4 of these managers are well known to be direct cause of high turnover rate, as they are blatantly rude and aggressively without compassion. I will stress again, I have never experienced turnover as in this department and I would attribute the majority of this issue to lack of leadership. If you have questions or concerns, do not expect your manager to address them or to help you. The only correspondence I receive from management are regarding KPI data (call times, call resolution and usage of the online knowledge management system). 1/4 managers currently employed at the Service Desk is actually a caring, compassionate person who will actively listen to your issues. The opportunities for advancement in this position are non-existent. If you are a high performing, competent employee, you can expect to be completely overlooked and stuck in your position. Since they are unable to establish a strong base of workers, your contribution to this departments good numbers will also be your undoing. On the whole, I am sorely disappointed to work at T-Mobile. I am a hard-working, committed and competent employee. During the few times that I have had a face to face conversation with my manager, I have been told that I am one of the best employees on my team. I was really hoping to build a career with this company, but after years pass and thousands of calls taken, I am effectively defeated. I experience daily panic, anxiety and job related stress. I do not experience any job satisfaction from my position, and any hope that I have had to move up or into a position has been stomped on by unrealistic corporate expectations, inattentive/avoidant management and a turnover rate that you would not believe. I joined T-Mobile thinking that it would be a different experience as they push diversity, inclusion and a progressive workspace in their external image. You will be disappointed to find that this corporate structure is no different than any other. Nepotism rules any promotions that become available regardless of technical skill or commitment to your position - and statistically, if you do make it past training for this position, you will be stuck on the phone taking calls in this environment until you quit of frustration.
