Pros
During my almost eight years with the company, I did learn quite a bit about the insurance industry. I made some excellent contacts who actually encouraged me to pursue my specific interests in the industry, which ultimately led to me leaving the company. For the type of work I was doing there, the pay was okay and it was difficult to find many jobs that did not require a degree of some sort that paid similar wages.
Cons
Until very recently (read immediately after I gave my notice), there were no formal employee evaluations given on a regular basis. I had not been given a real review in years. I also had not received any sort of a raise in three years, although the employee cost of their health insurance certainly increased. Several years ago, most employees were switched from hourly to salaried, but wages did not increase. Expectations for salaried employees are to work substantially more than 40 hours per week. Taking a lunch break is frowned upon (in some departments more than others), and I began averaging 45-50 hours per week, but it was never enough. So in essence, I ended up taking a huge pay decrease by going from hourly to salaried. This just compounded each year when insurance premiums increased, but my salary stayed stagnant. Management leads with a culture of fear. Meetings were conducted where individuals were publically called out for transgressions, which led me to feel like we were treated like children instead of adults. The takeaway from leadership is that everyone is replaceable, and if you don't like it, get out. Many, many good employees have done just that. It was no secret that I desired to move my career ahead in a certain aspect of the industry, which was an area that they could have easily accommodated. For a time, I was even being trained to do this very thing. However, after initially having this carrot dangled in front of me, due to staffing changes beyond my control, this opportunity was not fully realized. Instead, they hired outside the company for the role that I had been working towards, without mentioning this to me. I found out that they no longer wanted me to continue in this path via email, upon introducing the new employee. I knew if I stayed on with them, I would never move ahead, and would forever be doing the same job day in and day out. It was clear that they did not want me to do anything other than what I was currently doing, and it was also clear that I was miserable.