Field tech. support

gatekeeper

Has anybody had expirence with working for a Co. that sends you to driffrent city's or states for administrative support like network installs , troubleshooting ,client or employee training for days or weeks at a time if so what was it like ?

QUIX0TIC

Yes... I did it for a couple of years. I also got divorced in those couple of years too. Its good for a single person. If you like to travel and live hotel to hotel... no problem. But, if you are the type of person thats never really been outside your city or county... then maybe a bit difficult to handle.

If you do take it... it would be fun at first (0-4 months) then after that... it gets a bit irritating to travel or over travel. Just apply for an American Express or any rewards cards and choose that card when you are flying... at least then you get the extra flight/reward miles for your own benefit.

mikey_b

I do it, but I only cover my Province of residence, and 90% of that is in the city, and that's where I live, so there are no major issues for me. I do get to fly around once in a while to get to remote locations up north and spend a few nights in a hotel maybe a handful of times a year. I also spend a lot of time driving, but that's not so bad, I can still be home by 6:00 usually.

Can't beat the experience, going out and doing what you do. It's a lot of fun and I hope to be doing this for a while longer while I finish MCSA and hopefully MCSE. The Wife doesn't mind because I'm still home early enough to have dinner with her and the money is pretty good!

dmbfanatpsu

If you all don't mind me asking....what's the general salary for this type of position? I know that it depends on what part of the country you live in, but lets say the midwest?

mikey_b

Well, I live in midwest Canada and make $45,000/year. The salary does not include mileage ($0.35/km) and I average about $5,000/year in mileage. I also get reimbursed for my parking, hotel rooms, and airfare. It's big company though, I'm sure small companies might not be able to pull it off as well.

QUIX0TIC

Im from the West Coast and when I was travelling... then I was making approximately 40 dollars an hour unless it was a goverment/ state site and then it was "A" rate which makes it 54 dollars an hour.

Just like the post above... mileage, hotels, gas, and per diem is also included or reimbursed.

porengo

I had done field service work as a Technical Engineer for many years. The first couple of years were fun, exciting, educational and confidence building. After the first couple of years it got old fast.

At the time I was making close to $50K. I got paid a minimum of 40 hours a week whether I had a call or not. If I had a call my clock started from the time I left my door until the time I reached my hotel room. So anything over 8 hours for that day was considered overtime.

As in the earlier posts, if it was a local service call I'd get paid per mile, plus parking and tolls. Gas and car insurance was out of my pocket. Meals were also out of pocket unless I had worked overtime, then they paid for dinner.

If the call was out of town, everything was reimbursed...taxi, airfare, car rental, gas, hotel, meals and sometimes drycleaning. However, many companies now require that you use your own personal credit card to pay for your expenses. Then they will reimburse you after you have submitted your travel expense paperwork. However, when I first started we had been issued corporate cards which paid for everything. But I guess those field techs who used their cards at the casinos during service calls to Vegas blew it for the rest of us. Those Sons-of-a-Brooklyn Bridges!

Anyway, if you have the opportunity to do field service work, I would say to go ahead and do it. You get to see different problems, work closely with engineers to resolve bugs, and learn how to interact with clients.

skully93

mikey_b wrote:

I do it, but I only cover my Province of residence, and 90% of that is in the city, and that's where I live, so there are no major issues for me. I do get to fly around once in a while to get to remote locations up north and spend a few nights in a hotel maybe a handful of times a year. I also spend a lot of time driving, but that's not so bad, I can still be home by 6:00 usually.

Can't beat the experience, going out and doing what you do. It's a lot of fun and I hope to be doing this for a while longer while I finish MCSA and hopefully MCSE. The Wife doesn't mind because I'm still home early enough to have dinner with her and the money is pretty good!

That's pretty much the position I was in from March to Oct. It wore thin at times but overall I was treated pretty well, and since I was home on time 90% of the time the wife was fine with it.

Go Bucks

Do these traveling jobs require a lot of experience? I ask because I'm 28 years old, single, and I like to travel. I have an associates degree in computer science tech. and am working on my A+ right now, but I have no paid experience. I know a lot of people are eliminated from such positions due to wife, kids, etc and I know it would get old after a while, but I'd like to go this route to gain experience and get a decent wage. Any companies in particular I should check with? Thanks.

jdog0254

I agree with the other people who replied that doing field work is definitely better if you are single. I am single, and working for a Cisco Partner doing networking and security installs for different companies throughout the state. One thing that I like(and dislike) is that it is a constant learning experience, there are times that I am sent out to do an install for a product that I have never worked with before and that means burying myself in the Cisco docs. Oh, and I don't pay for gas, even though the majority of my travel is local.