I observed what appeared to be a lot of preferential treatment towards a core few employees, in terms of the assignment of installation jobs done. Especially as work got less and less, the jobs I was given became more and more time consuming for the pay. I seemed to have been given jobs that were abandoned by other technicians and had to be redone - a lot. Specifically, things like 100 foot underground drops down a telephone pole, through trees and roots, across a (gravel) driveway, with an improper grounding needing a 10 foot ground rod hammered in, for 9.00. The job required 45 minutes with the customer, calls to dispatch for clarification, and Bright House before the scope of work was even determined. (It was an unusual installation). That was my very first call given to me when I went out on my own. Many (not all) subsequent installs were as much if not more difficult. Quality control failed everything they could. We were warned about this, as a result I did not take any shortcuts. This also took too much time to be remunerative. I also observed many shortcuts which were taken by previous (failed) techs that I had to redo myself or else get failed myself and not paid for. Things that would take a LOT of time to do properly. This was almost the norm - maybe 40% of jobs? My earnings went from about 700.00 a week (a great start for a rookie) to less than 200.00 a week, for the same amount of work. There were "fails" that I was not told about until my pay became sufficiently high so as to deduct the "fine" without going below minimum wage. For this I was docked 100.00 even though I did not over-bill - just made a mistake on a billing code. One Quality control tech was demoted. He felt he could cut in front of all the other techs waiting in line for their work assignments at 6:30 in the morning. When I (not impolitely) brought up the fact that he might need to wait in line with the other 9 guys in front of him, he got irate and actually told me he would take this outside the shop with me in a fight! This was on camera and in front of 12 or so people. I declined his offer and declined to bring charges against him or the company. I can't be bothered with any of this stuff. It feels good to write it up however.
