Disclaimer: I am posting this to get an account with Glassdoor. I have not worked for Terminix for two years, I am not bitter, have moved on, but want to try to persuade anyone who is considering employment with Servicemaster as to what a mistake it will be.
Where do I begin? I've been in sales for over twenty years, this is the worst job I've ever had, and boy, I've had some bad ones. Hours are ungodly. Would leave for the office/appts. at 7:30AM and get home most nights around 9:30PM. Then you had to work half a day on Saturday, which most of the time turned into a seven hour day, a weekend killer. Three to four sales meetings a week, a call night three nights weekly to current customers trying to set appts. (in the guise of a home inspection) to get a minimum of seven a day. A lot of customers already know what an inspection is, a sales pitch, and are quite rude on the phone. Astonishing number of no-shows for appts set (this isn't my first time in residential sales, wasn't a problem with my previous jobs). I'd say almost 40% of my appts. were not home. This was a difficulty for everyone in the sales office. I had to drive all over the map to get to these no shows too. I put 47k on my car in the year I worked there, spent about $200 a week in gas. All this so I could shimmy around crawl spaces and attics, cover myself in cobwebs, hoping to find some problem to sell.
The sales staff was a revolving door, more so than any other place I've worked. Seems each branch has a couple of lifers who tough it out, the rest come and go incredibly fast. After a year, I was there the third longest, after two reps who had been with the co. for twelve and thirty years. Checking with others I trained with who went to different branches, this was status quo. None of the half dozen trainees I kept in contact with stayed on for more than six months.
The company is also drug screen happy, MY CAR, MY INSURANCE, straight comm., but if management sees a scratch on your car, whether it happened when it was parked on the street while not at work, or if someone else borrowed it and cracked a tailight, pee in a cup time. I could understand Terminix's testing if you are involved in an accident of note on the clock, but off the clock, my car, it's none of their business. The Service Manager was tested because he put in an insurance claim to be treated for carpal-tunnel caused by repetitive pumping of the sprayer. A Tech was tested after a muffler fell off a poorly maintained co. vehicle (both passed). Why are these reasons to test someone? I've never seen a company so eager to fire employees.
I was on unemployment when I took this job. So was a co-worker hired the same day as I. We both agreed that we were making more on UC (no expenses) and made an error by taking the job. Pretty tough looking for another when you're working 70+ hours a week and time off is shunned.
I could go on about poor training, micromanagement out the wazoo, unethical practices, GPS tracking devices, etc, but you get the idea.
