If you might work for ProAutomated or do business with them, please read my testimony below so you know what you're getting into:
I worked as a Field Service Technician for ProAutomated at Apple Campus II (AC2) in Cupertino, California for approximately 3 months. Everything about this job and this company seemed off from the beginning.
I was hired within 10 days of them responding to my resume submittal. My only formal training was a PowerPoint presentation on the system I would be working with for a few hours, then they gave us the address of the location and told us to go to work.
I was hired as a temporary full-time employee with the expectation that, with good performance, there would be a full-time permanent position available. As the weeks rolled by, I knew that a permanent position was never going to happen, despite my efforts.
My first day, I showed up at the safety orientation for AC2. ProAutomated is a third party company that works with Lutron's systems. Our role at AC2 was to provide our client, Lutron, the assistance needed to install their lighting systems at this location.
At the end of the safety orientation, I met with representatives from Lutron and ProA. One of the engineers from ProA took the new recruits aside and told us not to say that we were new. He told us: "As far as they're concerned, we're only sending our best, so act like it." I had no idea what this meant, and I only grew more confused as the day went on.
After a brief meeting with Lutron, I was assigned to work with a group of people on the system. None of these people was from ProA--they were all from our competitors (other 3rd parties helping Lutron) or from Lutron itself. I had a lot of questions to ask, so I reached out for help. The people I worked with were very friendly and helpful but were confused as to why I didn't know certain basic things.
The actual work I did on-site was extremely banal and tedious. On top of that, the atmostphere was extraordinarily tense. They told us "No one here is your friend. Do not ask people from other companies for help." The relationships between all of the contractors on-site were strained and volatile.
I had been told in my first orientation that we would be paid mileage for our commute. In the second week, they refused to pay it.
It turns out that ProAutomated had been misleading our client and us. Apparently, Lutron had contracted ProAutomated to bring fully-trained engineers to AC2. ProA then hired a bunch of temp workers, hardly trained them at all, paid them a lower salary, and pocketed the extra money. When Lutron found out about this and refused to continue paying full price, ProA fired all of its temp workers.
As I see it, there was never a real opportunity for us to advance at this company.
