The first day on the job at this company (August of 2012) I was told a narrative of its recent fortunes. The story goes like this: a while back CompuCom buys this smaller outfit (Gentronics, I think was the name) that was servicing mainly registers and the like. Nothing high level just a lot of break/fix remove and replace stuff. Basically their field workforce was semi-skilled delivery people who could install a receipt printer or register monitor but not much more. And of course their pay reflected that. So as soon as they were bought CompCom says ”Hey guys, you need to get some training, get your A+, some vendor certifications, etc.” Well that doesn’t really sit well with the Gentronics guys and about two-thirds up and quit. But some of them stick around and get schooled up enough that they can run the lower level calls that CompuCom needs them to run. But they don’t get a pay increase to reflect their newly acquired skills. Now CompuCom gets the bright idea that they can just hire a whole bunch more low-skill folks and pay them less than the industry average and that will work out just fine. This from a company that has no formalized training program.
But wait it gets better. Now that management has had a taste of cost savings through lower pay they extend the pay cuts up the chain as well. So guys with 5-10 years of IT experience are looking at 30% pay cuts. Needless to say there was a lot of talent headed toward the exits when I was there. Those that didn’t take the severance package were pretty open about their plans to jump ship. I’d hear things like “I have two more classes to finish my masters and then I’m outa here” all the time.
As for me I temped for them for 5 weeks and just as I was getting comfortable in my role (able to order parts, close calls, familiar with the multitude of systems commonly found at older larger companies) I was let go for “something to do with parts.” This according to the recruiter at my temp agency. OK, guys, good luck.
TL;DR: File under “Dying Dinosaurs from the Nineties” after BestBuy.
