Pros
Free snacks—that may be a pro to some, but for others, maybe not because you might gain some weight ;) also free coffee. Wayfair is involved in the community, which is nice.
Cons
I came to Wayfair for the growth opportunities, but could not stand to work here long enough to grow. I made it here 7 months. I was in Customer Service, and they have three different “skill” levels; Skill 1, 2, and 3. For starters, you’re not eligible for a schedule change when you’re Skill 1, so you’ll be stuck with whatever schedule you’re offered at the start of employment, but even when you up-skill and you become “eligible” you still won’t get what you want, IF you get anything. I was on the 11:30 AM - 8 PM schedule with Wednesday’s and Sunday’s off, and I up-skilled to Skill 2 so I could at least get consecutive days off, but it all depends on your metric ranking as well. So if you’re not one of the top reps, you can pretty much guarantee you won’t get anything. I was ranked top 20% for the combined three months, and was denied a schedule change based on “company need” and had to wait until the next shift bid which was three months after. That’s a joke to me. Work-life balance is so important, especially for draining customer service jobs like this. They will tell you that it’s easy to change your schedule, but I’ve heard people having to shift bid six times until getting something they want. Definitely didn’t want to wait around long enough for that. It truly makes you feel like the dirt of the call center. I found that there’s plenty of jobs that have similar pay with much better scheduling. In addition, you’re not allowed to apply for any internal roles until you have six months to a year of experience in your current role. So don’t expect to have opportunities right off the bat. An opening I had prior experience in opened up, and my metrics were great, but because I had only been there for five months I was not even considered. It was a bit demotivating. The job itself is very emotionally demanding. I had experience in Quality Assurance so I definitely knew the key ingredients for a good customer experience, but this job definitely got overwhelming and made me feel like I was going to snap. Along with the schedule, it took a major toll on my mental health. It’s back to back calls, with no wrap up time. You’re automatically put back in the queue after a call ends. In Customer Service, you’re obviously fixing problems all day and dealing with upset people and that’s hard. You’re supposed to have call and email time throughout the day, and most people look forward to email time because it’s a nice break off the phones, but after you up-skill to a 2 or 3, email time is basically nonexistent. You get 40 hours of “unscheduled” time to use if you need to call in per year, but it’s divided up by four quarters. That equals 5 unplanned days off. If you’re more than five minutes late one day, thirty minutes of that unscheduled time is automatically deducted even if you’re only late by a minute. (That adds up.) If you use up your 10 hours within that quarter and you go negative, you get an occurrence which takes 90 days to fall off. If you get three occurrences, you’re fired. They do not accept any excuses, no doctors notes, nothing. It’s their “no fault” policy. You also have ten days a year of UPTO. Then you have your average PTO, which you earn about 5 hours per check. You have to schedule time off in advance, which is to be expected. However, you have to plan heavily in advance, especially for weekends as those are the most sought after. If you really need a day off in short notice, you have to look at how many available hours the company has left to give for that day. If they’re in the negative, it’s automatically denied. You work all holidays except Thanksgiving and Christmas. They also have a black out period in November where you cannot request time off for the rest of the year. Black Friday is mandatory. Overtime is mandatory during peak season. You’ll also probably change managers A LOT. They’ll move you around to different teams with no explanation. If you have social anxiety, this is going to be a nightmare for you. Starting over with a different manger and team numerous times a year makes for a very unstable work environment. All in all, CS is very emotionally demanding and the schedule ultimately made me seek employment elsewhere. I was holding out of at least consecutive days off, but after I got denied I knew I couldn’t handle the schedule I was currently on with my personal life and goals, and I didn’t want to wait until I got something I wanted because I didn’t know when that would be. Everyone has different thresholds of what they can/cannot handle. These places have high turnover for a reason.
