Pluspunten
- Very fun. I still tell stories from my time at Digistream to colleagues, much to their amazement at the crazy things I saw. - When your overtime and doubletime hours start accumulating, you can rake in solid paychecks, especially during the very active summer months (I made about $5,000 in June) However, you will be putting in almost 60 hours to achieve this. - The company provides every piece of equipment you need: car, camera, tripod, etc. All you need is the extras, like maybe a lawnchair for your surveillance vehicle interior, a cooler for food, etc. - If you get a good trainer, they can very quickly show you the ropes of the job in your first week. - Company is efficiently run (at least at the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento offices) and you feel supported by your fellow investigators and managers at the office. - The company will reimburse you if you need to buy food to blend in at a restaurant or buy a ticket to sneak into an event etc. - Great on a resume if you continue down the investigations, law enforcement, analyst, etc. career-path. Use the job as a stepping stone.
Minpunten
- Extremely intense work schedules. I had Mondays and Tuesdays off, and for the rest of the week, I was waking up at 3am to get to the surveillance location on time (which is usually very early morning). - Dangerous work. The most dangerous aspect of this job is the aggressive driving that you will have to do to stay on target as the subject drives around. This may involve high speeds, blasting through yellow lights, etc. Not to mention the occasional subject who lived in a very dangerous area, who will not be happy to find out he is being surveilled! - You will have no social life due to the extreme work hours. Use this job as a stepping stone. After about 6-12 months, you will likely be extremely burned out. Additionally, you do have to write your report and upload your footage once you get home and are no longer on the clock. This can take 30 minutes sometimes which is unfortunate, given you likely just clocked 10+ hours are are exhausted.