Vantaggi
Overall, benefits are very good except for the absence of sick leave. The employee share for the premium for individual medical and dental insurance is zero and the insurances have fairly low copays and deductibles. In addition to two weeks paid vacation, I get 7 personal days which ordinarily must be prescheduled and cannot be used to call in sick when I am ill. Verizon appears to have little risk of going out of business or downsizing, except for traditional copper wire phone and Internet services.
Svantaggi
Verizon is disrespectful toward customers and employees. The Communication Workers of America habitually ignores ongoing major and minor violations of CWA contracts. Working in a call center providing technical support for fiber optic phone, Internet and video services, I am repeatedly subjected to verbal abuse from customers over order issues, chronic repair problems, and Verizon's missed commitments for installations and repairs. Verizon requires me to be continuously on calls for all but two 15 minute breaks per 8 hour shift and expects me to "read" about one hundred emails per day but not while I am on calls. In 22 months on the job, I have had mandatory overtime except for about eight weeks total. Usually this is 10 hours per week. Right now I am working 5 hours mandatory overtime per week. Management is aware that the automated call response system enrages customers and customers often must hold for 45 to 60 minutes to speak to a human agent but chooses not to address this.