Dell Technical Support - A good place to get A+ Certification, but that's all.
Pros
Long paid training which includes 2 weeks to get A+ Certified. Decent starting pay compared to other employers with similar positions in the area. Gain more knowledge than you ever wanted about Dell computers. Close to freeway. They claimed it was easy to get promotions, but it didn't seem that way. I do miss some of the coworkers I had, but mostly I am extremely relieved to be away from Teleperformance. Nice pay increase once training is completed.
Cons
Absolutely no real benefits. No Paid Time Off for 1 full year. Only earn 4 hours of Unpaid Time Off per month. No medical benefits whatsoever (unless you're a supervisor or trainer). Only paid for time you're logged into the phone. No assigned seating. Cubicles. Highly stressful environment and extreme micromanagement. Very crappy, uncomfortable, old chairs to sit in. Poorly designed and slow internal tools. The keyboards used are the cheapest Dell offers and are not suited for Tech Support use. The user accounts on the computers are the most limited I've ever seen, even more limited than the "Guest" account in Windows XP. The accounts are so limited, you can't even use the calculator built in to Windows! You can't right click, you can't use the Windows Start key, you can't use "alt" in a key combo (like alt-F4"). You can use Internet Explorer, NotePad (but you can't save any files), and their internal crap tools. They had us setup an iGoogle page and add a calculator and "sticky notes" to it (amongst other tools). Very bad policies. Not a company I ever wanted to admit I worked for. They still use Internet Explorer 6!! Most employees are friendly, but many are also extremely immature. Agents have to get supervisor appoval for almost everything, especially when sending replacement parts to customers. Some employees like to smoke right by the entrance, which is against Utah law and smells awful. The trainer I had was nice enough, but he frequently gave inaccurate information about PCs, such as the meaning of "native resolution" of LCD monitors and the meaning of certain icons in Device Manager. Another trainer there treats new employees like toddlers. Supervisors are very unhelpful on difficult issues and are generally hypocritical. Employees are generally treated like criminals that can't be trusted. You can get fired at the drop of a hat. No job security. They wanted an average call time of about 22 minutes, which can be very difficult to keep. If a customer you helped called back with the same Service Tag number within 7 days, you'd get a mark against you even if the customer had an entirely different issue or just wanted to praise you.
