field service technician

desktop support technician

senior field technician

field technician

desktop technician

CompuCom

Started working for them through a staffing firm with an expiring 6 month contract and at the end of contract, was offered to join compucom for "a couple of bucks extra per hour"and continue working my job. Took the offer and have been beating my head in everyday since from regret. Was told if I could prove myself and bring something to the table to the existing team of techs(all full time compucom employees) then we could talk about getting me on board as a full-time compucom employee like the rest. The guy hired before me only waited 6 months to get full compucom status with benefits. I've been there over 3 years and still labeled a "temp" contractor with no paid time off, no paid holidays, no paid sickdays, no paid vacation. The compucom person assigned to me that Ican reach out to with questions told me "the type of assignment you are on does not provide any paid time   off for vacations, sick days, and holidays. When told that to the supervisor that gave me this offer, he was oddly surprised like he didn't know this already. Years later since then, despite multiple talks, he seems very well informed of exactly everything that I'm not allowed to receive as a benefit and pretty knowledgeable about precisely what I do not get as a temp contractor. I held up my end of the deal and delivered bringing quiet a lot to the table. So much so that even Elizabeth Candelario-Carrera, the Senior Program Executive for CompuCom reached out to email me personally to thank me for all my hard work and dedication I've made to compucom after someone  I helped support  had sent out an email to all my highest level managers with extreme gratitude and detailed levels of explanation of her entire experience of being provided IT support by me like she's never experienced before in any country she's been in. I also have similar letters  from a few other high level people I supported and rescued from catastrophic PC failures . My supervisor even began to remind me how good of a job I'm doing and how much he appreciates how much effort I'm putting in to do my job. After a year passed by, I asked if he can get me onboard as a full-time employee after all this hardwork I put in to prove myself. He replied by debating how there's really not much more benefits or anything far more beneficial between being a full-time employee  as opposed to where I already was. Tried to downplay the idea of becoming full-time like it's almost pointless and nothing much more comes out of it than just being a temp contractor with a laugh undertone almost sso Iget the idea from my mind and forget. Then a few months later, it was because of some restrictions that were being set by upper management, he couldn't bring anybody onboard as full-time employee. He offered to pay me for 1 week vacation. Since I don't get paid for holidays, I used those vacation days to  cover 5 holidays instead. I came in during severe snow days, even during the floods when cars were floating on Route 1 and it took me over 4 hours driving home. When the regular compucom employees are out on vacation or taking day off, their work got dumped on me. I always get volunteered to do anything that comes up that requires dropping everything I'm doing just to stand somewhere for atleast an hour everyday. Constant emails about status updates, ticket updates, getting training done, performing some task that got dumped on me, making sure i attached a document to some task and it never ends. Still get nothing but stories and the old run around of just never ending nonsense. Everything has been a lie and the workload keeps growing consistently. It's been over 3 years, I'm doing so much work everyday that I forget to even use the bathroom throughout the day. Not even once have I taken a 30 minute lunch break where I went to the cafeteria to just eat instead of trying to find time to eat while working at some point in the day if I'm lucky. I had a few years experience prior to this job and this was going to add to my experience  as well as help me progress my career. But turned out to be the worst mistake I ever made. The workload is astronomical with deadlines tighter than shrunk spandex. I love the job and helping people solve problems.The team of techs I work with are solid techs, well experienced and      function great as a team. Don't make the same mistake to fall into limbo to have to deal with the same, save yourself the headache and continue looking past this company's job listings, nothing will get sorted out within this company that will make them treat their techs with respect.

To start with the positive, this job was a step above the worst job I've ever worked.  Continuing on this thread, the pay was o.k., the benefits were decent, training was paid, the PTO was nice, and being able to control your own schedule from time to time was nice....now on to what I found wrong with the job.

On hire I was told that benefits would start 90 days after being hired, though benefits did not begin until approximately 160 days after hire.  Benefits were also not covered in full, though the cost was not extreme.  I ended up paying around $90/month for healthcare, vision, & dental.  Also, the deductible for the healthcare plan was $1,500.

I was also overcharged for nearly 6 months due to a clerical error stating that I was a smoker, though I've never smoked.  After multiple e-mails, phone calls, and several hours of time I was able to get a refund several weeks later.

Also, upon hire I was told that the job would be full time, or close to full time, due to the nature of the job.  During the first five months most weeks averaged between 30-40 hours, though beginning after that time period, due to the loss of a major account, hours began to slowly decline, finally leveling out around  an average of 15-20 hours a week during my final month of work.  Despite logging hundreds of hours of training, total average weekly hours continued to drop for nearly a year.

Company policy was to fill the remaining time up to 40 hours a week with training, which become unreasonable/impossible later due to the continually declining hours, lack of training left to complete, lack of guidance as to what training to do, and lack of incentive to complete training due to little to no hours gained as a result of continued training.

Communication was generally poor, with management often contradicting itself on a week to week basis.  Policies would often suddenly change for little to no reason.

As one example, company announced company vehicles for field technicians and then phased them out within 5 months of instituting them, citing a lack of need due to a loss of business from one account.

I had to rely on my personal vehicle for mileage after the company vehicles were phased out, which was reimbursed at nearly half the federal mileage rate (after subtracting out an additional deduction for the first 15 miles of driving each day).

The low mileage rate made a huge difference in pay due to often extreme amounts of driving.  I logged between 350-700 miles a week of driving most weeks, with peak weeks exceeding 1000 miles a week.

Company later phased out paying technicians for the first and last 30 minutes of driving to and from home each day, which typically resulted in an additional reduction of hours of 3-5 hours a week on top of continuing to lose hours each week due to declining work.  This was done with the rationale that normal jobs don't pay you to drive to and from work, though the company failed to mention that the role of an onsite technician is not typical of most jobs due to the extreme amount of traveling involved.

Management was generally hostile to technicians, nearly always blaming technicians for not following written directions (that were often inaccurate), shipping errors (almost always due to stores not shipping boxes back or system errors not properly recording tracking numbers), or other issues that technician had no control over to begin with.

Job was extremely stressful due to hours changing day to day, projects requiring being onsite before 8 a.m., after 8 p.m., high priority calls randomly assigned during the middle or near the end of the day, sheer volume of different accounts worked on, different rules for every account, different hardware and software for different accounts, as well as often being on hold for as much as 4 hours a day during projects, and many other issues.

The team size shrank by more than 50% during 17 months at the company.  Several people were laid off during my tenure, but most quit.

I would only recommend working here if you are only looking for something short term and would like to pick up some skills or certifications along the way.  With no opportunity for advancement, no pay raises, hostile management, and a total lack of clear communication from management I don't even know how I made it beyond a year.  It could have been worse, which is no reason to stick around long.

I drive to job site, call into the automated response system, and go into the job site. Then take inventory of all the computer equipment including all peripherals. 
 Make sure all the equipment being changed is there and no more than is needed. Then run the information for the network printer and reset the IP address. Make sure that the NAS is online. 
 Then I would upload all of the files to the NAS and replace the computer, then download all of the files and set up all programs to run on the new computer. Train the customer on the new computer and help them set up all of their accounts. Then go to the printer and change that, then the scanner and set up both. 
 Clean up all wiring, wrapping them to make them aesthetically pleasing and clean up all debris form work area. Then go to the next office and do the same for that computer that is going to be replaced. Then repeat until all of the hardware is replaced in the office as well as all software and programs they need for their new units. If I ran into any problems, I would call the help desk and escalate the problem. Most I would handle myself, some I was not supposed to fix myself and needed to have the help desk deal with the problem, most times by remote. After all work was completed and old units boxed up, I would call UPS and schedule a pick up of boxes. 
 I would then report that job was finished, then if more than one site was on my schedule I would drive to the next job site. If no other was scheduled for that day, I would drive back home. When arrived at my house I would call in and close out the day. 
 I learned how to be really efficient and methodical in my tasks and to train employees how to run new programs and new computers. I learned how to escalate problems and using the help desk as I was taught. A lot different than doing it on my own. I learned how to handle sensitive information for the insurance companies I did the work for. 
 All of the help desk personnel I worked with, were very professional and we got along great. Working together as a team with mutual respect for each other. 
 The hardest part of the job was not being allowed to try to fix some of the problems I could easily fix. I understood though that there was a lot of confidential information at risk and things were to be done a certain way to make sure security was the number one priority.
 Working with the people and training the employees, they were all for the most part happy they were getting the new equipment and even happier that I was there to help them learn the new equipment and not just given something new and making them stumble through using the programs.

CompuCom provides complete or supplemental outsourced IT support for various companies. That being said, a typical day for me would consist of a 30-60 minute team phone conference where we discussed how we were going to support a client who had purchased some poorly negotiated and confusing contract drawn up by a salesperson who seemed to have no IT experience while the rest of the day was practically spent sitting in silence surrounded by coworkers with their heads down and buried in their work trying to figure out how to document the client's systems to which we have almost no access and no insight into how they want us to support their environment.

So, simply put, imagine a client says to you: "I want you to document our systems and tell us how you are going to support each system in a step-by-step 'runbook' with diagrams and flowcharts outlining each type of support issue and how you will respond to it from start to finish with little to no access to or knowledge of our systems." and you get the idea. And then imagine upper management (which, by the way, resided in another state and timezone altogether) not comprehending why you're not able to get your tasks completed on schedule or not providing you with what you need to get your job done.

For me, pay was poor and not sustainable in comparison to other local IT companies. When I tried to negotiate a pay increase with upper management they agreed to process a signed request I had negotiated with my direct manager. But when that direct manager quit the company my request then sat in limbo for two months with no update or response before I finally just quit because I could no longer afford to continue working there. 

Additionally, the work required such intense focus and attention that coworkers did not really converse with each other. Felt like an IT sweatshop, in my opinion. A shady, cold, and lonely place to work.

Honestly, the hardest part of the job was literally getting motivated to get out of bed every workday to leave the house and come into the office. The feeling of dread was, at times, overwhelming.

So, that was what it was like for me working at CompuCom. I don't understand why some I met there could choose to stay as long as they did (and still do) when there are other companies out there that are so much better to work for. Perhaps they have better negotiated contracts, clients, work requirements, and/or upper management than I did, but not likely.

In any case, whenever I meet someone who is considering working at CompuCom I tell them my story and to go elsewhere. I've been in IT for 20 years and this was one of the worst companies I ever worked for.

During the usual typical days of working for this company. It would be arriving at the company designated location and greeting the Managers or Store Manager of your arrival and beginning on checking the UPS for the store to make sure that they are in balance. After the inspection then I would get on the company laptop and check on PeopleSoft to check any tickets that have been requested by the store. I would then go to the designated location on the ticket system and begin working as soon as I would click the start work process for counting the time on how long it would take to complete the task. I would greet every employee in the designated area that I am working at and complete the issue and test it to make sure that the issue is no longer a problem, or order a replacement part for that department. 
After completing the tickets in that store, I would then ask at least one employee from each department if they have any issues with anything and create a ticket if there is time. This position's work hours is a fluctuation of different hours per day. Depending on the location you are going to, it can be a 8-5 on one day, then the next day it could be an 8-5 with driving hours prior and after the work day is completed. This position is now called a "Desktop Specialist Delivery", which changed from Field Service Technician I to that. It is very hard to go for a raise or promotion from this job given the fact that the store Manager or the Assistant Managers are the one to give a positive feedback or a negative feedback. 
One of the most difficult parts of this job is dealing with Managers who want to do things their way and do your job their way, this can ruin a productive day for a Field Technician since the parts that I have ordered have been taken and installed at a different location than what was written on the Ticket System. This issue has been discussed with the Corporate Manager and my Manager about the issue and was never resolved. The best part about this job is talking with the employees and getting smiles out them and helping them on their problems. The Companies main office is also located in Texas, which would mean that their way of hiring and firing is completely different from that of California's standards. As a matter of fact, I was let go without any type of notice and been left in the dark for more than three weeks before confirming with a third party. That is quite an issue since I could have used that time to search for a job. That is probably the most negative thing I have about this company.

First of all, the work day at Compucom is a 12 hour shift, from 7:00 to 7:00. The physical, mental and emotional stress would probably be a lot lower on the day shift. I worked the night shift. A typical shift would involve resolving as many system issues as possible as the ticket queue remained at a high level. Along with ticket resolution, I had to react to alerts from system monitors. There could also be a prescheduled project during the shift.
I did not learn anything at this company. It was a fast paced test of the skills I currently held.
Compucom is lacking in all levels of management. They hire their management from the ranks of the every day worker and then expect them to be able to perform in a management capacity with absolutely no management training. If any mistakes were made by anyone, they would find out in the team meeting in front of everyone. Compucom's management made it a regular show to use team meetings to falsely accuse people of destroying breakroom appliances. Since the managers were hired from the ranks, those people made sure their friends were hired into the best positions while others were passed by with no regard because of personal clashes.
My only co-workers were 3 people who didn't do the same job as I. Personally, we all got along and enjoyed our time together and I thought they all did an outstanding job in their respective fields.
The hardest part of the job was trying to cope with the side affects of working 7:00 pm till 7:00 am. I started having physical and psychological issues. I was getting weak physically and was having issues metally trying to stay alert while I was awake and keeping focus. Through some research, I found the issues were due to the body's circadian rhythm. Some side affects could be stroke and heart attack. That type of environment is unhealthy for anyone.
The most enjoyable part of the job was working with some really great people.

The most disappointing employment experience in my entire career. President has the right message but his views and message did not carry down line. Much talking the talk and little walking the walk.  Complete lack of support, resources, direction, and engagement with executive management that enables someone to be successful. Back-to-back meetings all day with little time (if any) to meaningfully address unrealistic workload and tasks. Convoluted processes and antiquated technology creates a ridiculous amount of administrative over head.  Most management has been there forever, and they are completely out of touch with how organizations operate and what makes them successful. Though you have PTO, there is literally no such thing as being off because there is no structure in place for anyone to assume your responsibilities, not that anyone would want to,  considering you are addressing 100+ emails a day, on relentless meetings, viewing PowerPoint after PowerPoint after PowerPoint, populating spreadsheet after spreadsheet after spreadsheet and trying to provide the best service to your clients (did I mention the PowerPoints and spreadsheets?). Most everyone there thinks this is just the way companies operate because they haven't worked anywhere else and don't know any better. Low pay for technicians and manager creates descent and revolving door.

My advice: DON'T be afraid to get some new blood at the top levels that know how to humanly communicate with people instead of retaining some that take the dominating and over powering stance. Just because someone has been there a long doesn't mean they are good at what they do, It may mean you are afraid to make hard decisions and change. Growth has been stagnant and employee sediment has not changed for some time - time to make some hard calls! Ensure there is communication and resources available that enables EVERYONE to be successful. Tackle the low pay issues and long hours head on. Stop trying invent incentive programs and just increase the pays across the board. It will hurt, but is needed!

I worked there for 20 years and had many managers. A mix of good and bad. They moved my account that I had supported, to mostly Mexico and lost the account the next RFP. I feel they could have given me at least a week for every year that I had worked when they laid me off, after giving them 20 years.  I left feeling that I was only a number to them. They switched to Google Workspace for business and that was def a downside. Google Workspace is definitely not as user friendly and does not have all of the capabilities as Office. Changes were made several times, that had to be reverted  back. It seems the right does not know what the left is doing in upper mgt. and they do not learn from past mistakes because the people in charge are always changing. They spent a fortune on Salesforce, which only led to more time and work-arounds for us to do our jobs. They disbanded it within 2 years. I tried to tell them before they bought it but they only held a grudge for my honest input, when they asked my opinion. Doing the work of 3+ as one person, it is not good to then have your employees take extra time recording what they are doing. It is a waste of time and there are so many reasons why at least 6 years ago, the CRM tool dashboard Outlook shell could never have accurate reporting info, the reason they said they had implemented it. There are too many variables and grey areas. The worst part was when a customer would respond thank you, it would open a case back up and add all the extra time onto the time it took to close the case but many things like this. It was not a tool that added to our productivity, it was a time waster where we would have been free to have more time to service our customer. It was very stressful, esp when they switched to Google and our work arounds would not longer work. A bit of advice to all. If you are able to make big decisions in your company, make sure to run them past a core group of worker bees, that are able to offer valuable insight as to what it may affect. A lot of Ego centered decisions were made by this company when I was there. 


This company started off sounding like a great place to be with all the promises of being brought on full time in the near future and the raises we would all be getting and vacation time and the promises of job advancements. We all soon found out that this was all hollow wind whispers. When we started questioning it we started getting run around answers and more promises of near future deliveries only to have more empty handedness. When asked about the promise of help advancing to another team they act like you're speaking a foreign language and even coworkers that have been here for a long time will tell you that you have to make your own way and can't depend on management to help you in the least bit. It's also been ingrained into the newer staff that when we are brought on full time to negotiate our pay because there will not be a raise afterwards. Those people have been here for several years making the same pay as when they hired on. All in all I'm very disappointed in my experience here because the people I work closely with are very fun to be with but the management is always disgruntled and under too much pressure to be of any assistance to anyone and when they do give any kind of answers you can bet it isn't anything helpful or truthful. The responses from HR give you the same circular runarounds as management so you have zero help with any situation.  Most of the hourly employees at this time are looking for employment elsewhere just to make decent wages or to get payed the competitive wages for the jobs that are being done. In the beginning they bought us lunch often times once a week or more for the work we were doing and to boost moral and show they cared but that has completely ceased now and you're lucky to get a thank you for anything. No I would not recommend this as a long term place to work. I would say only accept a position in this company if you just need an immediate paycheck while you are looking for somewhere else to go.

Hours are pretty flexible, management can be very accommodating so long as the metrics that the middle/upper-management have prescribed for the field are met with consistency.

Learned that the company truly does not care about their field employees. Just warm bodies to help them meet their goals and objectives. Don't expect to get a raise out of Compucom Systems, they aren't in the habit of suffering foolish requests. 

Management leaves much to be desired, they are over-bearing, micro-managers that resort to constant brow-beating entire teams from the middle and upper management's decrees from on-high that only see what numbers tell them. But, so long as you make the numbers that they want to see so that they don't have to do a bunch of scrubbing, you'll be left alone to get your job done (somewhat). 

Workplace culture is a VERY stressful one, ALWAYS under the gun to get the work of 4 people done in an 8 hour day (or less), 3rd party is taking overtime away from the full-time associates (and they get paid more). Working within ticketing systems that is poorly designed and constantly having to play catch-up due to the administrative workload. PTO for the team is rarely coordinated so as to make sure that there is support to cover the missing person while grossly under-staffed. Benefits are lack-luster, company skimps on holiday gatherings and no recognition at all for loyalty.

Hardest part of the job is #1 digging deep for a good reason to clock-in. #2 Dealing with ridiculous traffic day-in and day-out and #3 Having to threaten to quit yearly in order to (possibly) get a raise out of the company.  

Most enjoyable part of the job is (sadly) going home at the end of the day. (this wasn't always the case)

Maybe a stepping stone to a better career but, not a place I would recommend investing any length of time at.

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