Pros
Most of my fellow technicians were some of the best men I have ever worked with. There were two jobs I was stuck on in the freezing cold at night and on both occasions two guys were willing to come out and help me finish. The management at my shop was great, they were always looking out for the best for me and took a genuine interest in my success. I could call them at any time and they would pick up and give me advice or send help if I needed it. The training was decent, spent a week in a classroom learning the basics and then doing ride - alongs for around two months. Can't beat paid on the job training. The senior manger was awesome. He always kept it real and asked me how I was doing with work and life. The day I left he firmly shook my hand and was genuinely bappy for me. He realized how the company worked and wasn't surprised that I was moving on. Truly some of the greatest men I have ever known I worked with at this job because we all were in the struggle together.
Kontras
I have never felt as demeaned as a human being than as I did while working for Dish. I told them from the start I needed Sundays off which as soon as I was on my own they gave me Tuesday and Wednesday off. I knew I would have to work at least one day on thd weekend but they completely disregarded it. Once you're on your own that's it. They throw you out there by yourself to figure everything out. You may get 3 jobs a day but after a couple months they give you around 5 jobs a day, although that does include easier trouble calls and such. Normally you work from 8-4 but with having to go to the shop and running into issues at your job can leave you working an average of 12 hour days which is where I was when I left. I think the longest day I worked was from 6am to 10:30pm because it was an hour drive to the area I was scheduled in. The call center has no sympathy which is understandable because they have no idea of the hell you go through on a day to day basis. We were supposed to call in at 4pm to see if there were any more jobs if we had already finished our route for the day; mind you they could then throw an install at you which they knew you wouldn't finish until 7pm. There was no such thing as a set schedule, be at your first job by 8 and call if you're finished by 4. You're just a number helping to get their numbers up. Don't even get me started on CSATS. They measure your pay Tier based on the most retarded scale. For example if you don't hook a Hopper system to the Internet, EVEN IF THE CUSTOMER DOESN'T HAVE INTERNET, they count it against you. Then if you go to a job that someone else installed completely jacked up, and you're just there to change a bad connector, your name goes on the job. That means that if they QA, "Quality Inspect" it, it counts against you like you were responsible. Happened to me multiple times and I wasn't going to reinstall their whole setup for $15. Then because of this a rep from corporate started showing up at my jobs because "he was in the area". That's when I knew it was time to move on, the system is jacked. Then they emphasized sales. If you didn't sell enough customers items they didn't need and meet quota that counted against you. I'm not a salesman by any means and maybe I had too much compassion for the industry, but I would only try to sell people items they NEEDED like surge protectors or wireless routers. It became mandatory to demo headphones and soundbars. Don't get me wrong I sold a few but that was because the customers could afford it. They want you to go in a home with 6 kids who have bought their service with bad credit and try to sell them extravagant home theatre equipment. I can't tell you how many jobs I went back on to fix poorly installed equipment in run down homes and they have a $100 set of headphones that another tech pushed to them while knowing they were screwing the customer over with a horibble install. The only way to make good money there was to be there for at least 3 years to have the experience to blow through jobs and basically have no soul to your customers. These were the techs who were pulling $800 a week. For my advice it is not worth it if you're intelligent and looking for a career. Turn around time for my office was 6 months. There were only 2 lead techs who had been working for 5 years for Dish and honestly they were bitter because they were stuck. If you need a job to fill in some time this is the job for you. There's no career advancement either. If you want to be in management at a shop you have to wait until the current manager either dies or retires. The hours suck, the pay scale is retarded and broken, the company does not care about you as a technician because they know that as soon as you leave there will be another Joe to fill your spot for 6 months. The vehicles are in horrible condition and they will trade you one broken down vehicle for another that's almost there. Do yourself a favor and spare yourself the trouble. I would recommend this job only for the man who wakes up every morning with a dream to compromise their time with their family and friends and is willing to be screwed for the rest of their lives so other families can sit in a warm living room and enjoy watching tv.
