Pros
Any apparent pros of this job are likely just illusions. When the job is offered to you, you may be excited at the prospect of a full-time benefited position in this economy with a decent overall annual salary. Don't be. Much like a future abusive boyfriend will wine and dine and tell you that you're beautiful in order to captivate you in the beginning, this job masquerades as a professional, respectable position fit for a Master's degree holding bilingual intelligent human being. The reality of the situation is that you will become a well-trained, obedient monkey typing "A one-alarm fire has been reported in the area. There are no reports of injuries at this time." over and over again in a windowless room for 12 hours a day. If you are masochistic enough to want to work a tedious, monotonous, thankless job for a ridiculous amount of hours (often graveyard shifts) you can make some money here. Overtime opportunities are plentiful as they are almost always short-staffed due to high turnover. You will earn health insurance, but you may well need it desperately, as the physical, social, and emotional traumas of this job will break down and batter your immune system to create an ideal breeding ground for chronic, serious disease.
Cons
This job is the antithesis of intellectually stimulating work. Yet, in a somewhat sadistic manner, management consistently profiles for those who are highly educated, ambitious, and talented. These are the victims who will suffer the most from the work environment in the NIMC section of NC4. You will sit in a small, windowless room with many TV screens. You will be required to watch local news channels at all times and consequently will be subjected continuously to blaring, repetitive, nauseatingly cheesy commercials that you will likely begin to mindlessly sing along with as your NC4 career progresses and your grip on sanity slowly loosens. You will do this for 12 hours a day often 5 days in a row. As a new employee these hours will likely either be 8PM-8AM or 7PM-7AM depending on which center you work in. There will be times in the deadest, least human hours of the night that there will be no news options, and you will be forced to choose between Jerry Springer and infomercials. Very often, you will be alone. You will not use your voice to speak to another human being for the duration of your shift. You will not leave your work station during your shift, except for a one-hour 'lunch' break and you will be timed down to the exact minute on this break. If you need to use the bathroom or get a drink of water, you must first ask permission from your virtual work partner, as they must cover your work while you are away from the keyboard. Much like the abusive partner will turn you against your friends and family, you will become more and more socially isolated as the weeks turn to months. You will never have the same days off each week, and you will work exactly half of all weekends and holidays. While college friends are saying 'Happy Friday!' and going to Sunday brunch or Saturday beach days, you will be in that dark little room alone. During the week, while they are at work in their comfortable 9-5 jobs, you will be sitting at home, looking for something to do. The work-life balance in this job is non-existent. I went from feeling completely overworked during my 60-hour 5-day stints to feeling unemployed and sloth-like on my days off as I attempted to recover from my shifts. As if the working hours and content of the work aren't already enough to lower your self-worth and decimate any remnant joy in your life, management will treat you like dirt. You will be subjected to their constant scrutiny and chastised if you come back 5 minutes late from lunch. Minor spelling and grammatical errors will be documented and if you're not in the favor of the capricious and arbitrary whim of management, you will end up on a 'performance improvement plan' which is a slow, deprecating, and insulting road to being fired. The very intellect for which you were hired will be constantly questioned. Much like the partner who once called you beautiful, you now need to lose some weight and tweeze your eyebrows before you could be good enough for him to look at. You will hate NC4; it will make you feel detrimentally demeaned to return each day to complete your duties. But you will go back. You need the money and perhaps you signed a lease on a new apartment or purchased a car when you were starry-eyed at the prospect of being offered a full-time job in this economy. Subdued by the exhaustion of surviving this lifestyle, you will find it difficult to look for new jobs. You know it will make you feel worthless, but you keep going back despite how many times you've told yourself you'd leave. Through all this management may hound you about whether you're looking for new jobs, in a similar manner to how the abusive partner will accuse you of infidelity, I am now in recovery and it's evident to my new coworkers. They have gently reminded me that I'm free to get up and walk around, to talk to people. I'm no longer chained to my computer and I'm now respected for my ideas and my opinions, a complete 180 from working at NC4. But some scars are slow to heal, and I am still confronted by the lurking shadow of NC4 every time I wear my long sleeved shirts. You see, each one of these shirts has a small, yet distinctive hole in the right elbow. It serves as a lingering physical reminder of the trauma I have endured from years of sitting still as a caged robot with my elbow poised upon the arm of the chair, hand wedded reluctantly to the mouse for 12 hours per day. Job hunters are advised to seek alternate routes.
