I've been looking for stories of people who moved abroad to escape student loans. Not many. It's the same stories I read the last time I searched for this shit. But yeah, every single story says that there's nothing they can do if you live abroad.

I was also perusing Glassdoor. I only worked at two companies on there so I perused general companies in my city. I found a listing for the Student Loan Company. Only a 2.5 out of 5 stars. By contrast, Asda has a 3.1 rating. Only 40% would recommend this place to a friend. Here are some negative reviews:

"Get yourself on the dole"

Doesn't Recommend
Negative Outlook
No opinion of CEO

I have been working at Student Loans Company full-time (More than 10 years)

Pros

Some nice people, all lower than management level.

Cons

1.Hideous pay which traps staff into a continuous need to attend overtime giving them zero work life balance. No overtime would mean having to leave as unable to live.
2. Team managers have never even worked a students application and are meant to manage these teams. This results in not being able to speak to them about complex work without a terrified look on their face!
3. The systems are tragic, fix on top of fix on top of fix which has caused multiple crashes.
4. Micro management, OPX is a spying tool primarily and a work delivery second.
5. Mental health of a lot of staff it teetering on the edge as a result of the above.
6. Staff churn is huge, stop gap for younger staff and experience is spilling out the door. New staff are now training new staff due to the exodus in Darlington.

Advice to Management

Stop giving yourself massive payrises and huge pension pots (17/18 annual reveiew data available)
Stop hiring managers who don't know the job because your reasons of hiring because of managerial or people management skills is also falling on its face. Do something urgently about pay before this place collapses due to no experience being left.

That's from somebody who's worked there for over 10 years. Gave it 1 star.

I wonder what OPX is. I guess some sort of software to make sure you're not using the internet or whatever. But with smart phones, I would think that the days of messing about on work computers would be over.

Maybe it's something to analyse how many applications you're processing or whatever. I'm reminded of the job I had where they brought in a Pakistani manager who ran the place like a sweatshop. So she was demanding that an ever increasing number of pages get inputted (or whatever). It was a data entry job.

Now, I was the only person on this three member team who even knew how to type. So I say to the one guy, "What do you think about this new manager? I'm not going to do all of these pages."

He said, "I don't know. I just met her. I haven't formed an opinion."

That prick was out the door the next day. She fired his ass. I was looking for some worker solidarity but he just wanted to play nicey nice. "Oh, maybe this sweat shop woman with no people skills will be good to us."

I ended up quitting the job shortly after. They begged me not to. I told them to suck a dick.

Here's another review:

Warning to all

ros

Flexi and holiday entitlement OK

Cons

Bad management in preassessment bullying and putting way to much pressure on staff, they pretend that change is coming in reality they never will

Advice to Management

Get rid of a few that have no heart or people skills at all and put the customer first not stats treat staff as people not slaves oh and done have a manager on a team who doesn't even know the job that their team does. Oh and stop hiring kids who take drugs hire adults it's not so much age its like a cresh in there at times. Oh wait that's so managers can bully the easier and without consequence buck up

That's somebody who's been working there over 8 years. I'm surprised by these numbers. Has England and Wales even had university tuition for 10 years?

I know what he means about working with young people. It can be awful. And as far as I'm aware, these former co-workers of mine were sober. The Student Loan Company apparently hires drug addicts.

Here's a long one:

"Thanking my lucky stars that I escaped"

Pros

Flexi
The people you work with

Cons

Pay freeze in its 9th or 10th year, very poor pay/next to no rewards.
Gross misconduct (rumours of numerous sexual harrassment complaints being covered up.)
Staff not being allowed to take annual leave and ultimately burning out.
Unfair sickness management.
Managers at all levels who have no clue what they are doing, and rely on the staff on the floor to get by.
A dirty and untidy office, thats only cleaned up when important visitors are due in.
A facilities department who seem to do nothing more than sit out the back sunbathing and smoking.
A broken air con system - staff have been told to shut up complaining about it as it won't be fixed. (Probably because it would mean facilities might actually have to do some work!)
You can only progress in the company if your nose is firmly wedged up a managers backside.
Could go on and on and on. If you don't believe what I write, why don't you start an internal investigation into this company? I'm surprised by the amount of reviews on here that hasn't already happened. The great SLC cover up continues! I have been lucky enough to escape very recently, I really feel for all the people still there, most if whom deserve a far better job than the one they are currently stuck in.Show Less

Advice to Management

Stop writing good reviews on here to make the company look better, no one believes them.
Wake up and start making SLC a better place to work for the staff still there who work hard for you and make you look good.

That's from somebody who worked there more than five years.

Is there really a nine or ten year pay freeze? I find that hard to believe.

And sexual harassment? That's something I've never seen or heard of in any job. I find that a bit surprising, actually. Maybe it's not as rampant as the media suggests.

Broken air conditioning as refusal to fix it, that's some real ghetto shit. Putting the sweat back in sweat shops.

I can sympathise with his feelings to his co-workers, though. You get shitty jobs like this and you just feel bad for your co-workers because most of them are decent people just desperate for work, same as you. And you all have to put up with this crap. Shouldn't have to. All workers should be treated with respect and dignity.

A lot of these reviews mention the low pay. It seems to be about £16,000/year. That's about what I made at these shit jobs. That's £8.29/hour, yeah. I made as little as £7.25 and top end was £10.50. £8.29 would not be at all unusual for me.

Of course, this was over 10 years ago. Have salaries gone up? Maybe. I don't know. Let me check jobs on Gumtree.

UP TO £8/hour for classroom assistant.

Office junior: £15,000/year.

Those are the only legitimate listings that gave the salary. So no, I don't think salaries have gone up.

There are loads of other one or two star reviews. Most of them give the same complaints: low pay, few opportunities for promotion, nepotism, incompetent management, very specific shit that only makes sense if you work there.

Here's an interesting comment, though. "Can't eat at your desk and not enough room in the canteen."

That's a legitimate gripe. It's this sort of petty stuff that really wears you down. There's no room in the canteen and I'm not trusted enough to not spill my lunch on my computer. Most adults are capable of eating near to computers without ruining anything.

And even if you did spill something on to the equipment, so what? It's going to be the keyboard. Let's say you spill some soda on there. It's not going to fry the computer. It might make the keys sticky and ultimately you might have to replace the keyboard but do you think they're using top of the line keyboards at this place? They're buying them in bulk for £5/each.

Wow, look at this bullshit interview process. First you fill in your personal details on the website and submit your CV. Then if they deem you suitable, you have to do some sort of online tests. Those aren't described. Then a telephone interview.

That's not all. If you pass the telephone interview, you then you go to an "assessment centre" with three other prospective job seekers. You have to introduce each other and do some bullshit individual and group tasks. So it's a group interview.

These scumbags don't even have the courtesy to give you a one to one interview.

Here's are some interview task that these scumbags required of prospective employees.

- Spot a panda among snowmen

- Make a shopping list

- You're stuck in the Arctic with 12 items. Work together to compile a list of the most important items.

Hey, anyone interested in skills and experience? Are we just playing children's games here? Where are the adults at?

Exactly the sort of bullshit interview I'd expect that bullshit job.

You have to go through all of this horseshit, an online test and TWO interviews for the POSSIBILITY of making £16,000/year in some shithole with no air conditioning where you can't eat at your desk and your sole task is to process indentured servants.

I've never had a job that required two interviews. I can't remember ever having a telephone interview. Any place that can't extend the courtesy of a one to one personal interview is not a place where I want to work.

And as for these group interviews? How about you ######s all gather around and suck my penis? How's that for team building? "What's the best way to get this guy erect? Bill, you work the shaft. Dave, you lick the balls. I'll be back here doing some light rimming."

Completely disgusting what these scumbags will subject desperate people to. The shittier the job, the more demeaning the interview.