Pros
Excellent benefits start on Day 1 - Medical, Dental, Life, & more. Employees receive discounted wireless service as well. The company really has a culture of excellence, they try to find better and more efficient ways to do everything. The pedigree of customer is higher than many retail jobs as a result, and employees usually find the customers are reasonable, nice people who deal with you professionally and respectfully. The company is also very competitive which makes it exciting to work for, while being challenged at work is not always fun, it does help employees grow professionally with skills that transfer to many positions inside and outside the wireless industry. Verizon Wireless was overall a great company to work for and I would gladly work there again in the future. Retail requires Sunday work but the company pays a shift differential which is a nice extra perk of working on Sunday, most retailers do not do this. Also this company has a great track record of promoting from within. In 3 years with the company I do not recall ever seeing anyone step in to management or supervisory role without rising through the ranks at Verizon. It is nice to have people in leadership that really understand the jobs being done by front line employees.
Cons
In retail channel the schedule is challenging. They company says they value work-life balance, but can be very rigid with scheduling and attendance. An example would be weekly meetings at 7am for employees who are also scheduled to work a 12-9 shift the same day, if you add a long commute (which many folks) have the entire workday spans 14 hours. That does not leave much time for sleep, let alone time for family and other personal business. The company give employees a fair amount of Vacation and Personal hours. These hours are very hard to use in the retail channel however. Sometimes there are legitimate business reasons to explain this (like Christmas holiday shopping), but in many cases vacation freezes are put in place for events that do not really generate any additional store traffic leaving the employee doubly frustrated, working in a store that is overstaffed with no extra customers and missing a vacation or other even with their family.