Pros: decent salary, good benefits, challenging
Cons: long hours, missed breaks, big workload, no overtime pay, poor management, unrealistic expectations, very steep learning curve, not motivating enough
I would first like to say that I never write reviews, so what I'm about to share is extremely honest and sincere.
I worked various positions within TD and, like most people, started out on the phones to move my way up. I have to say, each role possessed many challenges which made the end goal worth fulfilling. For the most part, as long as you had
– more... a vision of where you wanted to be as a next step, it really didn't matter what job you had. You just had to try and keep yourself motivated, push yourself to do well, and focus on your end goal.
With that said, I would first like to comment on the call centre environment. Although most co-workers were pretty friendly, just one negative encounter was enough to make an already difficult job that much more difficult to handle. By no means was being on the phones (in an outbound environment) an easy task, nor do I recommend it for people who wouldn't be able to take being yelled/sweared at constantly for 7.5 hour shifts on a 37.5 weekly work schedule. Working in outbound at the call centre was extremely fast-paced and often very stressful. When I was there, there were a handful of people who either quit, got fired (for not reaching their goals), or took prolonged leaves of absence due to the stress of being on the phones. I happened to be one of the people who took a leave for several months. However, I was also one of the lucky ones who managed to stick it out for a year and continuously perform.
Working as a Financial Analyst was motivating at first because it was rewarding to be at a higher level and be put into a salaried position at a young age. Unfortunately, however, as I gained some experience in the role, I discovered a few things. First, you work in an extremely small environment (a team of about 4 people, with the Finance department being up to about 10 people). The Analyst role is one of those positions where you have to do things to learn on your own. I found myself always having to take pages and pages of notes to remember things because the amount of work you had to do and what you had to know was constantly changing. When things changed, you pretty much had to forget what you had learned and start from scratch again. You primarily work with one other person and if that person quits or leaves for a prolonged period of time, you are responsible for learning/completing all of their work. This can become extremely stressful, especially if your manager doesn't even know how to do the work, yet you're expected to learn it and meet the deadlines.
Another thing that I really didn't like about the Analyst role is that often times, you constantly found yourself working ridiculous hours (over 10 hours in one day, by yourself) without being compensated for it. There are plenty of times when I missed my lunch/breaks and it would go unnoticed. When you would bring it to management's attention, they would tell you that you could take the time off as lieu, which would appear to be fine. However, I used to keep track of all the overtime/extra hours and sometimes management would disagree with my recorded hours, even though what I had was 100% correctly tracked and they were never around to know when I left the building. This became extremely frustrating because I never argued with management and just accepted whatever they asked, out of respect and for the sake of maintaining a good relationship with them.
Also, on a normal day, if you started your morning at say 7am and left work at the normal 3pm time (when your manager started after you), I found that the manager would look down upon you or make you feel bad about leaving work on time when they are still there. Meanwhile, if the positions were reversed and the manager started their day before you, they felt absolutely no remorse whatsoever about leaving on time and you staying there on your own (above your normal shift hours) to do work.
Needless to say, my experiences with management have allowed me to come to the conclusion that it was extremely poor. If you ever needed help with your financial reports, it wasn't as easy as being able to go up to your manager or co-worker and asking for help. Often times you had to figure things out for yourself if you wanted to stay ahead (in terms of how you are perceived in the department). If your manager chose to show you how to do something, they would do it in a way that would try and make you feel stupid about it. And I found the environment very cut-throat. You had one or two people working around you and I found it overly competitive and not fun at all. I even had to have a private discussion with one of the co-workers because of their negative treatment towards me. It became a consistent thing so eventually I couldn't stop myself from not saying anything. Anyways, after these experiences, I never asked for help from anyone and learned to do things on my own, which sometimes resulted in unnecessary overtime.
Because of all of this, just waking up in the morning at the thought of having to come into work and being around people like this was an unbareable task. I really didn't like who I worked with and that became the core problem of why I lost motivation in the job and why work was so unenjoyable. The negative treatment towards me is what forced me to isolate and absorb myself into my own work without the need of any outside assistance.
Although I worked extremely hard to get to the point where I was, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to settle working in a job just for the money. If I couldn't wake up every morning and feel content (or at least neutral) about having to go into work, then I wasn't going to put myself through it anymore. To me, it just wasn't worth it.
All in all, TD (as a company) is a great place to work. I think the compensation is fair, the benefits are awesome (I especially loved their wellness account for the gym), and the opportunities are endless. However, be very careful of where you decide to work and make sure that what you are getting into is what you actually want. Do your research, shadow departments, and get to know the people you are going to be working with. If you discover that the job is something you don't like, do not settle under any circumstances. Go out there and get what you think you deserve. – less
Dyan – January 29, 2013
I can tell you are freshly wounded and can sympathize having gone through the same thing a couple of years ago. I was let go just short of 25 years. I got a nice package but was angry and heart broken. However, I've come to realize that it wasn't personal. Competition is the name of the game and in order for these huge companies to survive, the old ones get weeded and the new ones get groomed! Try to focus on all of your great experience and find an employer who is more appreciative.