Pros
- Flexible schedule - Company vehicle and gas card - Excellent low level management
Cons
- 2 paid holidays a year, Christmas and Thanksgiving - Pay is $10 an hour for administrative tasks like sending receiving emails, checking in/loading parts onto work truck, and any other administrative task assigned by DSM - No annual raises - Minimal training on equipment. A brief overview of SOME of the equipment is provided the first week, but no in depth training on any equipment. Most of the time you have to learn how a machine works and how to troubleshoot it on your own. There are many times when you walk into an account and are faced with a piece of equipment you've never seen in your life. Then you have to figure how the thing even works. From there you have to teach yourself the inner workings of the machine using a service manual (if you can find one) and a schematic. Then you can finally begin troubleshooting the problem. You can call other techs and various other employees for assistance, but you can't call most manufacturers for help because they will deny support. In all, you go into accounts very unprepared your first few months and have to depend on an unorganized app on your phone to provide you with service manuals and part numbers (if you can find one). - Dispatch can be overbearing at times. - Minimal support from the home office. Technicians are treated like the stepchild of the company despite being the product of the company that makes the money. It seems that people in the home office are always looking for ways that the techs can make their job easier, when it should be the other way around. - Communication between the home office and the field is lacking at times, so there are times when your DSM doesn't even know what the proper procedure is for any given task. - In the interview process, it's stated that weekends are not a usual occurrence but you could be asked to work weekends once in a while. Once your in, you are told you have to be available every weekend, and you can be scheduled any weekend at any time, so you have to submit an RTO (requested time off) to your DSM in advance for weekends you have plans and won't be available. A few times "Mandatory weekends" were announced, and all RTO/vacation days/personal days were canceled.