Pros

Have some flexibility in hours, but it's at the cost of giving up personal life. Tons of resources to use and learn from to help you advance your career and knowledge.

Cons

You realize the people that get out on time have learned to off-load as much work as possible to other people. The reward, if your lucky, is almost never worth the extra effort of taking on additional work and the personal time sacrificed. Good performance only gets you so far, therefore you have to make sure you meet the "right" people in order to get a good raise at year-end.

The fact that you can only get promoted at year-end is ridiculous. HR has no clue what the client service people do. Their role is merely to pay you as little as possible to keep you happy enough. If they allowed for promotions to take place at any time, then it will motivate employees to work harder for them. It's tough telling an associate that hey, you got hired on such and such date, therefore it's basically impossible for you to get promoted even if you're the best performer ever. I mean really?!!

Advice to Senior Management

Reward your outstanding performers and stop being so stingy. We can see straight through your so-called "straight talk" sessions when you talk about the economy b/c all you ever talk about is top-line attrition, but HELLO, you've axed a ton of employees which is your COGS. Therefore, don't tell me about top-line attrition (revenue), tell me how much profits have changed and then, THEN, I'll be satisfied (or very dissatisfied b/c it's obvious why they haven't shared this) that my pathetic raise, if you got one btw, is in line. Do a better job at balancing work-loads among your employees. Very frustrating to see the same employees leave at 5:00 and then like i said, to not be rewarded for the extra effort you put in.

Promote employees at any time. When someone is ready for a new role, then promote them. It's not a rocket science concept.

"If you treat your goof-offs the same as your stars, before you know it you're going to be left with more goof-offs then stars." - Unknown. I've witnessed a handful of outstanding co-workers leave the company because of this simple mantra.