junior project manager

Artech-Group-LLC

I spent my time with ARTECH assigned to an IBM contract, which turned out to be over twenty different customer contracts. The majority of my time was spent attempting to get onboard to approximately 10 customer accounts. In the midst I was reassigned to another IBM group operating out of Boulder, where I was then tasked with coming onboard to approximately 10 other contracts. The effort spent for the previous customer contracts was now null and void.  Then in the midst of onboarding the new customer contracts, IBM did a re-organization of the teams and customer assignments. Only two of my current contracts were valid, I now had an additional approximately 8 contracts to onboard. Some were customer contracts to which I had originally onboarded. Of course I needed now to start from scratch.

I was only able to work on two or three changes and or problems related to CICS and or Omegamon CICS during this employment. 

I have for the most part been working under a work reduction throughout this employment sometimes only three days a week. Then when I am completing the boarding process for the majority of the customer accounts assigned during the reorg, I am terminate.

My personal opinion is that a lot of time and effort was wasted during this employment, which was not a problem of Artech or it's management, but the customer contract with which is IBM.

I was able to gain many new skills during my 15 months in this role and every day was different. I supported three members of the communications department team and learned how to be a team player while completing a personal workload of local events and different communication tasks at the same time. 

Writing was a huge part of this role, both in short form event invitations and long form editorial articles. I was responsible for updating our company website and site televisions with new editorial content each week, which meant that I had to maintain a working knowledge of the technical systems used for posting new material. 

I coordinated with outside vendors for internal company events and partnered with other departments like HR and IT for news stories and program launches. Being in communications meant that you worked with every employee in some capacity. It was very much like being the glue of the company culture.

This role truly gave me perspective on what it means to develop a business plan, provide the resources to execute that plan, follow through with those resources, and summarize your results. The most important part of that process is analyzing the steps and finding what can be improved for the next time around.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The pay was decent and getting time off whenever I wanted. As a contractor I was also given the opportunity to enroll in health and life insurance as well as voluntary accidental and death, dental insurance and vision

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The most difficult thing about working here was the lack of communication from the person of contact as well as short notice about when contract was in date, and never receiving a raise. The company did not believe in giving raises. Receiving back-to-back calls all year long even when open enrollment was over six months past open enrollment and cause were still back to back so we were heavily understaffed.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Work environment, sort of toxic, constantly being micromanaged to the extreme. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day was clocking in make sure I go to break the lunches on time or I would constantly be dinged and micromanaged making sure I came back from lunch and break on time because 30 seconds over and someone is pinging me on teams.

Artech will give you one job description and then change it.  They will tell you they have a position for an IT specialist or systems administrator, but then the actual job is an enterprise service desk specialist in a call center doing nothing but filling out tickets and trying to comply with stupid SLA metrics.  I do not know who has my PII now and in what country, and that is frightening.  If you look at their responses to bad reviews online they even say themselves they have partners in other countries, INCLUDING CHINA!!!  They tell you at first they do not have health insurance, then tell you they do if you insist you need it, then send you a brochure with some insanely expensive health coverage that has a horribly high deductible, so basically it covers nothing.  I've gotten emails from a recruiter recently from a company with another name that is now a part of Artech.  The government needs to investigate this.  IT IS A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY FOR ARTECH TO HAVE THE SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS, NAMES, DATES OF BIRTH, ETC., OF PEOPLE WITH SECURITY CLEARANCES!!!

I work for Artech for the past 5yrs worst company ever. You don't get paid oncall or standby time For being oncall. No paid vacations no paid holidays but you are mandatory to not bill. They breached thier contract numerous times over a 5 yr period with paycuts up to $6 hr. They call & tell you about the pay cut & say if you don't agree tomorrow will be your last day. They give work furlough's so that you can't work a full 40hrs a week 32-24 just out of the blue usually around holidays. This is all true they agree on an hourly rate then 8 mos later tell you to take a cut in pay. If they have a question about your time card they don't contact you they just don't pay you and you have to fight to get your paycheck. They do not treat people right I only stayed as long as I did because it was a work from home position but they really take advantage of  their contractors it doesn't pay to  contract thru this company. I don't need to be anonymity if you have a question feel free to email me donjohnson7 at gmail

No typical day being I always had projects such pulling data, investigating bugs, writing scripts for new requirements or debugging scripts that were no longer working especially with performance team.  Was usually called by the DB2 team, TSM team, or representatives of the end users to debug some new problem.  Was involved in data recovery (especially following a hardware problem), worked on both production and testing systems extracting and moving data.  Worked with one other person, my team lead.  The hardest part was knowing that you had to come up with a solution quickly especially when a production banking system was not working correctly.  The most enjoyable part was working a group of professionals that were among the best database admins, system admins, I've ever worked with.  We were a team that collaborated fully to get the job done.

Artech offered a position at PepsiCo which delivered unparalled duties with minimal supervision.  My supervisor gave instructions as needed, expected and received above average performance out of me.  

A typical day at work consisted of preparing 6-60 tapes for pick up by Iron Mountain for off-site storage.  Created paperwork to send with tapes and retained copies on-site.  Made sure on-site copy signed by driver and received 6-60 expired tapes for on-site storage.  Downloaded three reports that were created via emails from tape librarian batch processing system into a community library and updated two spreadsheets with daily tape counts.  

Workplace culture of PepsiCo was laid-back and not too stressful.  The hardest part of the job was lifting the cases from Iron Mountain when there were more than 30 tapes being shipped out or returned.
The most enjoyable part of the job was interacting with other co-workers.

A typical day was started at 8 AM with a meeting about the workload and priorities of the day. We head home around 430 PM each day. While I was employed I learned a great deal about remote administration in the Windows environment, as well as configuring User accounts and network resources within Active Directory. Artech is a contracting firm. The only communication I had with management was when they changed the terms of my contract and wanted to pay me less. I did not have any fellow Artech employees working with me. The hardest part of the job was being discouraged from finding solutions to base wide computer problems. One time I was actually told that a certain platform would not be of concern several months down the road so do not worry about employing a fix for the end User. Easily, the most enjoyable part of the job is hearing the customer say their computer has never run so well after you've worked your magic.

I was working contract with IBM on and off for decades.

Artech inherited me when GTG was let go. CTG inherited me when Spherion was let go. Worked before a contractor with IBM under Decision Consultants.

Artech is just the company that I worked for while contracting at IBM.
Artech wanted proof  of  citizenship but had no idea that it against the law in Texas to use a notary on the form.

Artech has an archaic and redundant manual parole system and does not connect to IBM’s more sophisticated time keeping system.

===============

The IBM environment has present management but no mico-management. Option to work from home; however I prefer office to interact with other people and in house. Most of the team is in various countries around the world. 

IBM used to give training classes to contractors; however now if is up to me to ferret out the best answers and actions to take. It is great as we go further than any book instructions can handle.

My role with Artech Information Systems was as a temporary labor Contractor to AVIS Budget Group during the 2014 desktop computer refresh cycle. The environment was moderately paced, professional and focused on achieving the client's quarterly and annual goals. As Technicians we interacted with full-time technology staff personnel at the corporate headquarters and performed exactly the same duties they did, effectively ramping up the capacity of the department for several months. We were tasked to imagine more effective methods of reaching out to Sales Associates and Managers at remote automobile rental locations and we did that. Daily contact, shipping, receiving and User Profile migration duties effectively met the needs of the client.

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