landscape technician

foreman

crew member

Forrester-Developer,-LLC

Tata has a company tagline of “Expect Certainty”. And if you seek a job here, and bless your heart if you get it, you will certainly be able to expect a lot of disappointments, every step of the way. You may or may not interview with someone that speaks English clearly enough to be understood, as the company is based in India and has sent many people here to run the business; though if you do get one of them, be thankful, they’re among the nicest people you’ll meet there. Their American counterparts are uncaring and merciless on a good day. On a bad one they’re vindictive and will micromanage you into oblivion. 

You may be told you’ll work in IT and that the company does IT consulting. What you’ll actually do is answer a phone for a third party company. Your background check will take far longer than it should. They will waste your time as much as possible until they eventually get you a start date. You should expect that date to be pushed back at least once and keep some source of income going until you’ve actually sat through a first day of orientation. Otherwise, you may go a month or more after you’ve given two weeks notice at your previous employer before you start, let alone waiting until the next pay cycle to get paid, assuming they don’t mess up your payroll. And that’s not entirely from personal experience, no, most of my colleagues have gone through the same thing. 

The pay is can be very good. Provided they pay you what they pay everyone else. If they think you’re a sucker, they’ll try to get away with lowballing you an offer. And if you discuss your pay, you may be threatened with disciplinary action or termination. That’s illegal, but that’s Tata. They’ll imply that you must work overtime, even though they can’t require you to. And they’ll also often ask you to do work related things on your own personal time or to work through your breaks on things they want you to do. 

Management is in no way your friend. And like most of your colleagues, they’re highly unprofessional. One of the senior management members made repeated degrading jokes at my expense in front of other employees. When I brought it up with HR, our only contact person quit the company the next day. Management didn’t tell us that they had quit until several months later. So all the calls and emails we sent them, were never delivered or addressed in any way. And that’s only one of more than a dozen things management has never bothered to bring up until it was discovered by someone through unofficial channels and brought to light. 

At the start of the pandemic they were adamant we would not be allowed to work from home. They only changed their tune once the owner of the building they lease said it would be closed regardless of their decision. So for a month, we were sent home while they worked out how to do work from home. During which time they left it ambiguous as to whether or not we would be paid for essentially being on call all that time, right up until several of us banded together and threatened to quit. And that’s really the only way to get things to change here. They don’t fire people often, they just make people miserable until they quit. 

The company itself is very impersonal. Though they often appear to have lenient policies and generous benefits, they actually play by the rule of the company that they contract with. So when they don’t observe holidays, you don’t get to observe the holiday. They’ll give you a floating holiday, in theory. I wish you the best of luck in taking it. They never hire enough people to keep up with their growing workload so you’ll be pressured to never take time off. If you do take any of your combined ten days off per year for sick leave or personal time, you can expect retaliation of some kind. Your hours will be changed without your consent or input. You’ll be written up for bogus disciplinary violations. They’ll skip right past any warnings and go direct for final warnings and probationary restrictions like not being eligible for promotions, raises, or bonuses for months on end. Though you do have to work to earn and accrue your paid time off, you lose it if you don’t take it. And there’s no option to get it paid out either. 

They will promise you opportunities for advancement. But they will hire people from outside the company or project you’re on, and expect you to train them, with no thanks and no extra pay, on top of your daily work responsibilities. If you want a possible chance at any kind of career advancement, be sure to suck up every chance you get, you might be allowed to go pick up the bosses daily take out order on company time. If you do more than that, he might give you a minor leadership role. 

If I haven’t painted a clear enough picture for you, this company, at least it’s people and culture here, is exceptionally toxic, unfulfilling, and generally dismal. The only reason people stay is the pay beats most other places around. The benefits are as pitiful as most other employers are these days. They make and break most of their promises. You will not be treated with respect the majority of the time by the majority of the people. And no matter how well you separate your personal life from work, it will affect you even outside of work. Not one person here is a happier person than when we started.

Working here was like working in a slaughterhouse. You are waiting to be butchered by the Supervisor when you make a minor mistake. You don't get recognized for the good things you do on the job; you get criticized for the bad things that happen. Bounced around from supervisor to supervisor due to the fact that they couldn't get a supervisor hired for my area (the state I live in). You are expected to put your JOB first, instead of your family (such as an emergency arises, or you have other things going on that do require immediate attention). 

Typical day at work- Get on the company provided computer, get all programs up and running and immediately jump onto the phones to take calls. God forbid you have a customer that just wants to cuss you out or talk to you like a dog (you are expected to take it and diffuse the situation). You aren't allowed to let customers speak to Team Lead's or to any supervisor because they tell you in training, that you are to act as the if the supervisor is on another call, when they clearly won't be because they don't take calls since they are "higher ups". You are expected to do an escalation email and cross your fingers and toes and hope to God that the supervisor will call them back (99% of the time that doesn't happen, a Team Lead will call the customer back acting as a supervisor). 

Management- This was one of the biggest jokes, it is literally non-existent when it comes to needing help with something or needing to let them know that "So and So" called for them and would like a return call if the supervisor has been speaking to them previously.

Hardest Part of the Job- Co-workers will deliberately mess up notes that are to be posted on the policy you are handling, or will lie to customers about things (such as their paperwork did arrive and was being reviewed by the examiner and so on...) And if you have a disability that needs to be accommodated, better hope you have a Dr. that will jump through hoops for you because they do not take a Dr's note as being a reason for needing ADA compliance, nope you have to have a way to print off the form, take it to your Dr. turn around and go fax it back to the HR person you are dealing with as well as waiting to see if the HR person approves it and then if your supervisor agrees to follow the ADA.

Most Enjoyable- Being able to work from home and 

Communication in TCS is very difficult.  When you're on a project at a client site you're given a TCS manager, the problem is that they change on a regular basis as they usually return to India without notice or one day notice.  When this happens it is difficult to have someone to talk to about various matters and to try and advance within the company.  You usually end up talking to HR if they happen to be there as there is typically one HR person per city.

On a typical project you are interviewed by the client and TCS will push for you to be put onto the project.  The downside is that a lot of the time the project you interview for is not part of your skill set at all, but TCS requires you to interview anyway.  If you happen to be put onto the project you're expected to dive in head first and it is difficult when you do not know how to do what they want.  The other side is that depending on which client you go to, you are put on a six week trial or probation period in which you are considered a freebie and you will sit and do nothing or be given everything in the world with someone watching you behind your back (literally).  After the six weeks they will choose to either keep you or take you off the project.  It looks bad  on TCS if you are taken off a project, and it makes it difficult for them to put you on a new one with the same client.  This causes problems especially if you are a fresher (new person to TCS).  The longer you're on a project the more chances that you have to advance and get a raise in salary, except that you're graded, and if you happen to have a short project or are removed from a project your rating drops and it becomes difficult to do anything and this is what typically happens to everyone unless you are lucky enough to become a manager.

When you're finished with a project you are generally put on the bench to await a new round of interviews that will possibly put you on a new project.  If they are unable to get you on a project they will keep you on the bench, fire you, or require you to move across the country will little to no warning and not help you in moving costs except to break a lease within a certain limit.  An example of this would be requiring a person who lives in Houston to be in Chicago by Monday or be terminated and given a one day notice.

- A typical day at work depends on how well the client understands what they actually need since sometimes even they have no idea.

- I learned to run away from stressed out clients that don't have a clear idea of what they need and from managers that don't really care since they can't budget their time to do what they are supposed to do as managers.

- TCS management had to ask ME what I did for the client, like that's YOUR job to know that since you are the manager.

- Trained a replacement, then was let go. That says lovely things about any company, I must say.

- Workplace culture was overly concerned with the political agendas and social media ideas of the day using buzz words that corporate love such as empowerment, diversity. Constantly pushed incessant training on their CBT platform, which was not the best, mostly a waste of time--ploddingly slow, focusing on minutiae that didn't matter--stuff you could look up on YouTube and read for yourself. Focus was more on those new to the workplace just out of school, not on experienced professionals. Some language barriers, way too many goofy apps to get things done. Help desk is offshore/delays in getting anything done, no or few opportunities to really talk to a real person about reviews, raises are few.

Hardest part of the job was just having to figure ways to survive to keep the job.

Most enjoyable part of the job was probably talking to clients about things in life that matter, not necessarily always trying to figure out what they needed for the project just to keep from going crazy.

The only advantage company offered was the Job Security, which is no longer the case. 

Company has the reputation of hiring huge number of Freshers through on-campus or off-campus recruitments. They are trained and relocated to various development centers within India. As TCS will be among the first 1-3 companies who visit campuses, all bright and hard working students are hired. Hence they end up working hard and dedicated at TCS too. And, that is the secret of the company's high profit margin.

But, with  lot of hirings they did in the past 8-10 years, has caused too many experienced ppl and have become either leads or managers due to less technical progression. This had also prompted for involuntary layoffs of many experienced mid-level managers.. 

Performance appraisals is a Joke as it is rated not based on how you did the previous year, rather how useful you will be in the coming year.... If you or someone change your projects between appraisals, be ready to get lowest performance band and a big hole on your pay check....

Do you want to grow professionally?  then, it should be your personal interest and you need to fight for each and every thing.... Also, if u want to climb ladders, you need to have contacts in the leadership team who favor you for no reason.. 

And, Salary wise, every xzy employee in USA gets same salary irrespective of experirence and role, with some difference of $50 or so.. and if you compare with other competitors like infy, CTS, wipro accenture ... the US salary offered is so less that you feel that you are incompetent compared to fellow employees from these companies... 

Anyhow, I always loved this company due to the name "TATA" and their contribution to community.

Mostly Indian employees. They stick to their own kind and look down on everyone else. Decisions are made by those who can shout the loudest. Projects often involve people in India so you will have 6 AM meetings or late at night. Most projects have a few overworked people while others sit around with no technical responsibility. This can go on for months, or years. Indians are given first preference when it comes to technical responsibility and rank promotions. Indians often do not understand English, so if you ask a question you will often get a nonsensical or irrelevant, rambling response. This applies to business meetings. Employees are treated like dirt. Communication goes one way, from managers to subordinates, often through shouting and condescension. Work environment is thus similar to that of a sweat shop. Questions or advice from employees falls on deaf ears. Internal logistics are a mess. If you pay for travel expenses, do not expect to be reimbursed without having to remind HR and/or waiting for several weeks. Many people are hired by phone interview only. Also a lot of pothead slackers. As a result, many crazy people get in. One guy got fired for throwing a temper tantrum and threatening to bring a gun to work. He had been throwing tantrums for over a year with no reaction from HR. Hard to get fired but that's no reason to stay. Talented people and people with self-respect quit TCS after realizing how bad the Indian work culture is. There is a vast pool of free technical reading material, including technical textbooks that have been transcribed electronically. But you can't put that on a resume.

I interviewed in July, received and accepted my off in August and started for the company in October. They did not communicate much with me during that time. For the month of October, they had me in a training program to ensure that I was able to do the work. Once training was complete, I ended up being idle for months. I was paid the entire time and I had plenty of self-paced training at my disposal, but I was not place on a project. After some time, they changed my role and location without even consulting me. I brought this up with my manager (who never responded) and Resource Management. After waiting for longer, RMG finally changed me back to a developer but left me in the location.

TCS is a huge company with many clients. As such, they tend to hire consultants and send them where they need. They told me they consider your role/location preferences, but they ended up placing me in a location that I had zero interest in. After they placed me, I discovered that my developer role was also different from what I interviewed and trained for. The client team onboarding began in late January and was also unorganized. I am still confused about my job and I'm still having issues just being able to do my daily work. It feels very sink or swim. It induces anxiety.

The pay seems good. This is my first job after college so I don't have much to compare to. I get good benefits. Even with that in consideration, I recommend trying to find a smaller company where it's harder to fall through the cracks. Even though i have been employed for months with a nice title, this time has not been productive for me.

I was approached by a recruiter by email about being a software engineer.  Naturally after graduating with my degree I jumped at the chance to start my first job.

The initial training for their US employees was decent. We learned about the company culture, and went through basic development fundamentals. However, before being dispatched we were told we weren't software engineers/develops as the recruiter suggested, but rather consultants for products. 

After being assigned to our additional groups that's when things started to go downhill. As other LDP (learning development program) students were learning web development (ie: MEAN stack) about 12 of us were assigned to SAP.  SAP training consisted of sitting on the clock doing nothing. In fact, in a whole month of this "training" our only task was to watch videos on SAP and make a presentation. As a result, many of us complained and were moved to other training locations, but by then it was too late to start the training we needed to get real world experience with development.  Instead I was given the task of learning AWS then assigned to a client who didn't even use cloud applications.

In addition to this issue Tata's continuous learning application (fresco play) does nothing to expand ones knowledge of development.  Many of the learning paths have incorrect/outdated information and/or wrong answers.  Although you can submit to have this questions reviewed and corrected they never are. Instead they expect you to select the wrong answer or miss the required continuous learning goal because of their faulty training system.

Overall, I love the culture at TATA and what they stand for, but their initial training and additional training needs a complete overhaul.

First of all this is not any kind of a real company at all whatsoever except maybe back in India but here in the United States TCS doesn't own any buildings or anything like that so you're always working as a contractor out on the job site wherever that might be.

Second of all TCS doesn't Supply you with anything everything that you get everything that you have is supplied by the contracting company so there's no such thing as a TCS laptop or company car at least not for the engineers

Thirdly most of TCS work is not engineering design work it's sort of like project engineering where you do a lot of facilitating of meetings and scheduling and emailing back and forth and acquiring information and TCS wants you to send every bit of Technology back to India so there's always someone in India that wants to get copies of everything you come across at work you need to scan it and email it back to India.

And since everything is done on the internet of course your timesheets and all of your human resource discussions and everything you never do a face-to-face you always do everything over the internet you have to raise a trouble ticket then it takes days and weeks to get it resolved usually the resolution is in favor of TCS but not the employee unless there's some kind of a state law or United States law that they have to follow then they follow it but the employee never get any breaks you're never going to get anything out of TCS whatsoever

And believe me you're going to be in and around Indian people all the time and you're going to be just sort of a token American but you're going to be in and around Indian people all the time

I'm convinced TCS has the lowest hiring standards for new grads I've ever seen. After the two-month training program, filled with unmotivated fresh college students who had no idea what was going on, I've been alternating between waiting months for a project, and participating in a project that doesn't even remotely match my skill set with haphazard assignments involving blatantly broken programs. I never feel like I'm accomplishing anything meaningful. The pay in the US is generous, but if you want to improve your programming skills and put them to good use, don't work here. It will just make your skills rot away as you struggle to find anything to do. The management is clueless and consistently knows nothing about you, and you'll find yourself running into tons of setup technical difficulties. Asking even the simplest problem like vacation days will go through about ten different people, since everyone likes to forward questions to others instead of solving them on their own. Not even to speak of the many months of silence it takes to be placed onto your next project. You will find yourself tearing your hair out about how incompetent everyone is, and how little you can do to change that.

My job at TCS has symbolized everything that is wrong with software development jobs for major companies. Extreme task bloat, religiously adhering to Agile methodology without understanding what's supposed to make it efficient, and a lack of ever getting anything done. Unless this job works well for you, and unless you enjoy being paid to do very little, I recommend you start searching for new jobs as soon as you can so you don't have to suffer through this one.

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