Compucom

bgold87

Well things are going backwards in the way I want to progress at my current employer. Instead of me going forward they are dumping account creations and other minutia on me after repeated talks with them about wanting to advance. I have been getting recruited pretty hard by Compucom, but most of what I have found online has been negative, but I wanted to throw it out on here for some more valued opinions.

Thanks,
Brandon

neocybe

go for it. I started my career with them 12 years ago. worth every minute.

bgold87

neocybe wrote: »

go for it. I started my career with them 12 years ago. worth every minute.

Pretty good place I take it? What's advancement like?

neocybe

bgold87 wrote: »

Pretty good place I take it? What's advancement like?

I used it as a stepping stone, they are a manages services type company so lots of movement potential after "time served" like most organizations. They are probably attracted to your ITIL, HDI certs.

Mike-Mike

CompuCom is a great place to learn, PM me if you got questions

N2IT

One of the better MSP / Contractors to work for.

bgold87

Thanks guys!

CodeBlox

N2IT wrote: »

One of the better MSP / Contractors to work for.

Right... To work FOR, perhaps. To have them work for you is a different story... I was just telling my boss this evening before I left work that we shouldn't have paid them all the money we did to have them do a branch move for us. Would have been much cheaper and quicker to fly one of us out there to do it. :P Lots of unnecessary techs dispatched and many of which were just sitting around (When there was work to be done!!!). Work not complete. Way off schedule. Work not done properly. Give me a break.

N2IT

Sounds like 83% of all projects. Why didn't your company have a vendor/project manager out there managing? Sounds like your company dropped the balls well.

WafflesAndRootbeer

N2IT wrote: »

One of the better MSP / Contractors to work for.

No. Just NO. CompuCom is a disaster and I don't know anyone who has worked for them below the management level - which is where you actually DO work for the company and get treated like a decent human being - who could say they enjoyed working for them. Low pay, shady managers, cut-throat environment, and they try to get you to sign an agreement to give up over-time pay. The worst company I ever worked for was CompuCom and they are always begging me to come back because they can't find anyone who wants to stick around in their bad environment and I lasted half a year as a temp contractor, which is longer than most. CompuCom has lawsuits against it from former employees and tons of complaints by companies who are forced to endure their low-quality service because they low-bid on any contract they can get and can't provide the services they promise, because it would break the contract budget to provide the necessary resources that a service agreement requires. CompuCom used to be a decent company and then they got bought out in 2004 by an investment firm and went 100% private, which led to them becoming a low-balling sleazy service provider.

WafflesAndRootbeer

bgold87 wrote: »

Pretty good place I take it? What's advancement like?

CompuCom's current structure - which I can comment on because I am very familiar with it having worked there recently - is management up. On the bottom, you have field technicians and the like and then you have managers above them. To the right and left of the managers, you have those who work in CompuCom's "services" like data center roles and the like and they are treated far better than field technicians from what I've read but it's the field techs who do the majority of work on CompuCom contracts because that's what the company does, provide on-site tech support. The only way to advance in CompuCom is to last longer than a year and accrue as many useful certs as possible. When I worked for CompuCom as a temp contractor, there was no real talk of advancement or even long-term employment for that matter unless the manager above was moving on or being fired, which is rare because they cling to their jobs for dear life since they get paid 2-3 times as much as the technicians do. The few managers I did deal with were not only unprofessional but not well versed in anything technical. I got the feeling they were only in their jobs because others had left for greener pastures after the buyout and they stuck around. Of all the people I met at CompuCom, only the management is still working there, while all the rest are working in other fields or for other companies like Siemens or Xerox as techs. When I did work for them, I had to cover an area from Leesburg down to Fredericksburg and all the way over to King George and Arlington/Alexandria, had 72 hours - from time of ticket opening - to close any tickets I was given and that was no easy feat with the work load and lack of resources the company allocated, had to buy my own tools and equipment, was asked to pay for parts out of my own pocket, was casually threatened every few days by the team leader who had a lawsuit filed against him by a previous tech, was forced to drive over 60 miles away to a rural location every day for two months to "train" with some clueless 50-something who didn't have any technical certs, was told to get certs for things that had no relation to repairing computers like fixing office equipment and getting certified in software that was not related to the job or any function the company provided, and the team members I worked with would clock in and then disappear while a lot of their work got shuffled to me by the manager. I was told around three months that I had been hired and the paper work was going through and then I heard nothing and finally got a response saying it would take time to go through and that they were extending my contract and that went on and on until I got a call one day saying it was going to be my last week and that I didn't need to do any work for the rest of the week and that they would pay me anyway if I just came in and clocked in/clocked out. When I asked the team leader/manager what was going on, he just said "I don't have to explain any of this to you." and I was the one who brought their completion rate from low 60's up to mid 90% all by myself, while the other three techs didn't even bother coming into the office most days. One of them was faking a back injury and smoking massive amounts of pot on the job, the other was lazy and pregnant, and the third was busy working for other companies at the same time and spent more time going out on lunch dates than doing his assigned work.

Mike-Mike

WafflesAndRootbeer wrote: »

because that's what the company does, provide on-site tech support..

Sorry, but that is only a small segment of their business. I work there and I have never stepped foot on a client site.. my whole building does remote support.. we have two floors worth of employees who do anything you can think of.. Service Desk, NOC, Server support, storage, etc....

WafflesAndRootbeer wrote: »

The only way to advance in CompuCom is to last longer than a year and accrue as many useful certs as possible. .

working at a company for one year prior to advancing is a pretty standard policy... lots of large companies have this policy, some even have a 2 year requirement.. but CompuCom does have a policy that states this can be waived with manager approval, and I've seen it happen on more than one occasion....

WafflesAndRootbeer wrote: »

Of all the people I met at CompuCom, only the management is still working there, while all the rest are working in other fields or for other companies .

many people at my company have many years with the company... one guy had 15 years... but regardless, IT tends to have high turnover.....

WafflesAndRootbeer wrote: »

I was told around three months that I had been hired and the paper work was going through and then I heard nothing and finally got a response saying it would take time to go through and that they were extending my contract and that went on and on until I got a call one day saying it was going to be my last week and that I didn't need to do any work for the rest of the week and that they would pay me anyway if I just came in and clocked in/clocked out. When I asked the team leader/manager what was going on, he just said "I don't have to explain any of this to you."

Well, it does sound like your team lead was kind of a dick, but technically he is right, the benefit of hiring contractors is you can let them go at any time for any reason.... and them offering to pay you for a full week but not requiring you to work, well that sounds like they were doing you a solid....


anyhow, I'm sorry you had a bad experience, but your bad experience doesn't mean the company as a whole is bad..

WafflesAndRootbeer

If CompuCom is so great, why are there lawsuits by employees who were screwed by CompuCom's bad and often illegal business practices and companies who contracted CompuCom's services only to be swindled? Why is there a mountain of complaints from customers about CompuCom's inability to provide services they are contracted through a third-party to provide like on-site printer and copier repair when they have neither the certs or resources to do so? Why do so many employees give CompuCom a fail rate as an employer and why are those employees reporting that CompuCom won't pay them for the overtime work they are required to do? Why are there reports - and I can back this up myself from my own experiences working on their BB&T contract - of CompuCom providing faulty refurbished parts for on-site replacement that go bad within weeks or a few months? It sure looks bad to me.

paul78

As an outsider looking in (someone that uses certain aspects of CompuCom services), the company as a whole seems stable and ok to conduct business with. In the past - as a corporate customer that sought support which was outsourced to CompuCom, I thought they were decent.

That said - it's probably never accurate to provide wholesale generalization of a corporation based on one segment of their business. That's sort of like saying that all American's play and love baseball because it's the "national pastime". Compucom is a global company with many businesses and over 10,000 employees. I am sure there are variations among it's various business segments.

@WafflesAndRootbeer - it is interesting to read about your experience. And it does sound like you worked in an horrendous environment. I am glad to read that you got out of there. But bear in mind that lawsuits are actually a lot more common that you may think, in any company the size of CompuCom, I would not be surprised to hear that there are lawsuits on a regular basis regardless of how "good" or "bad" that company is perceived to be. Microsoft for example, at one time had 130 lawsuits against it - and that's just the business related ones - Microsoft's lawsuit payouts amount to around $9 billion- The Inquirer

Companies that engage in lawsuits with their employees are another matter. Most companies will settle out of court and treat it as a private matter or use private arbitration. A few will not "compromise" their principles and will allow the matters to go to court. This is generally a risky approach as it generates reputational damage.

I generally would never judge a company by lawsuits - also - you mentioned illegal business practices - if there were illegal practices and they are egregious - that would have been enforced by the FTC or relevant government agency versus a private right to action.

CodeBlox

N2IT wrote: »

Sounds like 83% of all projects. Why didn't your company have a vendor/project manager out there managing? Sounds like your company dropped the balls well.

Yeah Ok. Sometimes it boils down to a vendor keeping their word and in this case they didn't.