Times have changed and not for the better.
Pros
The benefits are outstanding. Great health, dental and vision for full and part time employees at a great cost (although part timers do pay a bit more). Verizon does honestly have a great product that you can definitely stand behind. I absolutely loved my job as a retail sales rep for almost the first 3 out of my 4 1/2 years employed at Verizon Wireless. I had great managers who always had my back and who were fair and genuinely understood that everyone has a life outside of work and they really did try to accommodate that as much as possible. I really felt that the company was all about doing what was best for each individual customer and not ALWAYS about selling the customer the biggest most expensive calling plans and devices.
Cons
Over time I grew to absolutely despise the job that I once enjoyed. As technology progresses and new devices, calling plan and internet access become available, the company has definitely shifted from doing what is best for the customer, to "how can we sell this person the most devices, accessories and calling plans as well as get them to sign up for any and every other service that we now offer". Sure, there are people who need/want the biggest, baddest, newest devices and who do benefit from each product/service that they sell, but the quotas for what you are required to sell on average to every customer regarding new services is ridiculous. Not everyone or even half of everyone you talk to, needs or could benefit from or would even use a tablet, for instance. A little old lady or small child, really doesn't need an internet phone with an outrageousness expensive data plan. But Verizon Wireless's, attitude is that if the customer says they don't need or want something, that just means we, as sales people, haven't done enough to prove to that customer that, they DO have a need for the service/product. Verizon feels that if we, as sales reps, did our job well enough, that we could find a need in any persons lifestyle for every single person to need every one of our products/services. Truth is, yes there is a need for most, if not all, of their products/services, however, not every customer out there, necessarily has that need. We had to sell everything to everyone and the quotas became increasingly ridiculous. Store managers and upper managers became less in touch with what really goes on on the front lines and on the sales floor. Store managers rarely leave their offices and district managers and corporate big wigs, most of whom, have never been a sales rep (or the last time that they were one, they were still installing "cell phones" directly into vehicles), are sitting up in their offices, completely out of touch with reality, coming up with better and more effective selling strategies and raising sales target for those of us who actually do the selling.
