programmer analyst

desktop support technician

software engineer

field technician

it support

HCLTech

Completed my education from Richard Stockton State University of NJ with a BA in Graphic Design/Animation Graphics (1993) and BS in Computer Science (1999).  In past 15 years I have had the opportunity to be employed by several major corporations with leadership experiences which shaped my career.  The companies I have worked for are: Johnson & Johnson Health Care, Abbott Laboratories,  mTv  Networks, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Hatchet Publishing Group and Commerce Bank ( AKA - TD America) along with operating my several home businesses in partnership with - Mary Kay Inc., and  Henna Designs.  

While working at Commerce Bank (1998-2000) as a Branch Manager, I was given an opportunity to volunteer to test the On-Line banking application which became my passion and goal to provide the most user friendly access to our customers/end users.  I then returned back to school to complete my BS in Computer Science.  My passion to provide ultimate user friendly access opened the doors to transition into Commerce Bank's IT team full time to test the On-line application.  This was just the beginning of my Corporate career.   Shortly thereafter, I joined Citibank (AKA - Citigroup or Citi ) where I worked for nearly a decade.  At Citi, I had an opportunity to work in various different areas of Information Technology and acquire a flavor of different technologies.   Here I mastered analyzing, understanding and delivering Organizational requirements by understanding the business structure, policies and enterprise goals.  I was then promoted to oversee software testing team while improving processes and business development where, I also gained knowledge of resource management at onsite as well as offshore locations.  My strong aptitude and experience in managing and implementing continuous software quality process improvement gave me another opportunity and was promoted to an Operation Manager where my responsibilities expanded to be a part of a Production Support.  

I then moved on to working with System Administrators (Unix) team to gain knowledge of enterprise SLA and its importance of being in Compliant where I learned to build new Unix systems and maintenance, along with Compliance and Audit. 

In 2009 I was given an opportunity to work in a PMO for JPMorgan Chase with one of their largest project due to Bear Stern merger with JPMC.  Here, I was responsible to oversee flawless infrastructure migration for several key applications along with ensuring their seamless day2day activities during the datacenter migration.   Having this experience, once again opened a new opportunity for me back at Citi where I worked on a short project to consolidate various global (Europe & Eastern) Helpdesk Levels into one centralized location reporting into US support team and helped streamlined the process. 

In 2010, I joined HCL America, one of the largest global employment service provider operated from India.  Having experience in various areas of technology allowed me an opportunity to enter another domain, Media Industries.  Here, I have gained a vast amount of knowledge which increased my awareness of how things work in different industries and ultimately resulted in me becoming a better professional.  At Viacom, I managed on-going enhancements of 30+ applications from small to large projects in Agile methodologies with total of 26 resources directly reporting within my organization.   Being a Program Manager gave me an opportunity to directly work with executives such as VP, SVP and MD.  I then moved on to support a short project of migrating books to eBooks at Hachette Book Publishing Group as an internal assignment.   I expressed my desire to be a part of a Health Care Industry to one of my manager upon completing a project at HBPG and I was appointed for a project at Abbott Laboratories in Waukegan, IL to manage testing effort for Model N Implementation.   

While at Abbott, I received an offer to be employed at one of the world's leading Health Care Provider and I joined Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc.  in May of 2012 with ICS (Model N Revenue Management)  implementation.  This was the height of my career.  I always had a list of companies I wanted to work for:  Citi, JPMorgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson, Discovery & National Geography are just a few from my list to start with.  I was working for the world's largest Health Care company.  Even the smallest countries on the globe knows of Johnson & Johnson.  Every day I was filled with gratitude to be a part of this company.  I began to read  one line from the "Our Credo" daily and learned the history of the company.  Fascinated by its birth and what it has become today.  At Johnson & Johnson, I worked as a Business Analyst during the requirements gathering phase of ICS to support one of the most challenging area of customizing User Role capabilities and Approval Routes to support many of their day2day operations of other partnering companies.   I then moved on to managing various testing phases (Integration testing & System Testing) for Cordis while managing resources and tasks for other Operating companies.  At present, I am working at Covance who is one of the leading Health Care company in research of Drug development, food, supplements and disease study by offering clinical trials.    

Besides my corporate experiences, I work at various facilities to help battered women gain confidence by teaching them self care with the help of Mary Kay by providing them with basics of Look good Feel good to enter back into the work force.   I have learned over the years that self care is essential in feeling confident to face the challenges and it gives me an immense pleasure to help other women stand tall and rise again.

My Passion of helping others translated into being a helping hand at the local hospice.  Here, I devote my time to give care and compassion to departing souls.   And, this brings balance into life.  I have gained a vast amount of knowledge which increased my awareness of how things work in life and apply practically into my day 2 day life which ultimately resulted in me becoming a better person.

A typical day at work includes logging in on time, getting your systems going, checking if there's any new emails/announcements, and getting on the phone. Phone calls vary and callers are typically just trying to get something done, not overly crabby. But when you call the help desk with questions or escalations, be prepared to wait 10-45 minutes, leaning more towards 20 minutes or more on average. And once you reach the help desk, it's like playing roulette - which help desk person will you get and what mood will they be in. This is more stressful than the callers, as you often get snarky responses to your questions. You feel stupid, incompetent, and angry as you go back to your caller. The rest of the call goes fine usually. You note the account. You hang up. Next call.

The job is pretty straight forward and you are trained well. However, training can be hectic. I have yet to see one training class not have major hiccups in the location of training, the availability of laptops for the training, the availability of the trainer for the training, and even the length of training. They did get a new training room built on the first floor so that has helped out some.

I went through two trainings. I started at one project with two supervisory type people and several that you could also talk to for help with stuff, experts. I learned my job, liked it overall. But I switched desks four times within 2 months I was on the project and had to share my desk with other agents, sometimes not scheduled to work together so they had to move or I had to move.

The next training was mandatory to start and I was told to clear my schedule for one week. I was in limbo as far as a schedule for over a month. I didn't know my supervisor for almost two months in that position, I just reached out in person to anyone I could see that might be a lead, because nobody read their emails. I used to have a good schedule, flexible as promised, to work with dr appts for my kids and myself. This time I was committed to work 5 days a week and they made it difficult to request time off. I was moved again twice, both times without knowing where I was moved to, and both times I had to ask someone who was not my supervisor where I was seated, and it wasn't on a seating chart at all, so I had to walk down every single row to find my new seat.

Expect emails back 2-4 days later. If you're lucky like me, your supervisor will rarely talk to you and look at you crabby whenever you approach them. You will seem like a bother. There is one awesome lead in the place who you will recognize within the first week on the floor and maybe even during training. She will be your godsend. One of the only 3 higher ups who actually show genuine care.

So that's the skinny. If you want to make the money, you can expect 13 an hour on contract with one of the 5-6 hiring companies who all speak with an Indian accent and are very unorganized. You may be catfished into thinking you will be answering emails and chats all day like I did, but it is a call center job, nothing less. People were working 10-12 hours a day to rack up money. Two people I met there went fro essentially homeless to an apartment within 1-2 months of working due to the amount they were able to make in that short amount of time. So if you want to grind a few months before Christmas, this job is ideal, because 13 an hour is pretty good for a quick buck at a pretty decent job. Just don't expect to make this a career, unless you are totally a masochist, because they run their training staff and leads into the ground.

Parking also sucks. The cheapest ramp is $55 a month, $5 a day. Free parking is up the hill 2 blocks, if you are lucky to find a spot. The bus is a couple blocks away. Expect to spend at least 15 minutes to get to work from your car unless you blow $10 at the nearest hotel ramp.

Oh and depending on the project you are working on, NO CELL PHONES ALLOWED. I could not even wear an apple watch. Cool for secure reasons but how you have time to steal personal information is beyond me with just a watch.

I was hired as a Shift Lead and performed the function of a Team Lead with no compensation for it. They taunted me with the title change for over 8 months saying it was being processed but, never went through. I have several analysts that worked under me that performed overtime upon companies request and were never compensated for it. I was released from the project and benched without any notification or reason given. 

They give you 30 days to be picked up by another team. If not picked up, your are summarily released. I got no replies to phone calls to HR or to other project teams. I was never officially informed that they had put me into the "Exit Management System". Two weeks later when I was given a reason they said it was the client that requested my removal with no prior complaints or service issues. I NEVER received any reason for my removal despite multiple written and phone requests. I was told that the client always gets what they ask for. When you enter EMS your are officially benched. If it was due to downsizing you may be picked up quickly but, if they have put a mark on your Benched status of being removed at client request this puts a flag on your status and no other teams will touch you.

I have been asked to lie to the client and have been commanded to issue write-ups for subordinates that didn't deserve them so that upper management looks better to the client. The problem with this is none of the upper leaders which changed every 3 weeks had ever met any of my agents that they were instructing me to write up. I have been required to let go of analysts for no reason at all. 

They don't mind telling you that they can fill 3 call centers for what it costs to staff one in the US. They say they are culturally diversified but, show me any US people in the upper management slots. I put in over 70 to 100 hours in some weeks with no further compensation. I have filed for overtime and been denied after the hours were put in. Rest assured the majority of everything your told at HCL is purely lip service.

QUOTED FROM ANOTHER REVIEWER: "The upper management does not seem to have any inhibitions regarding dishonesty. They will lie to you. They will lie to their customers & clients, and are not ashamed of it. They have a single-minded focus on the exact letter of their contracts with clients, and could care less about the spirit or goal behind the service being provided to the end-users. They have extreme cultural bias, and will only promote non-Indians to avoid legal action being taken against them. Unless you are of Indian heritage, be prepared to be treated as inferior, and discriminated against. Even then, their culture embraces the idea of "elite" family lines/lineage, so even some of their own nationality are treated just as badly as Americans.
DO NOT fall for their "Fresher" program! This is a gimmick to trap IT professionals into doing the work of normal L1 or L2 technicians, locked in at a pay grade well below that of a normal L1 for several years, and no room or chance for advancing beyond that level until such time has expired." END QUOTE

A typical day at work for me isn't bad at all, as I work from home almost exclusively.  It has made things much more bearable, as I don't have to see or speak with the management directly.  All of my team with the exception of one are offshore in India; the other is about 45 minutes away, so all communication is either through Skype or phone.  Same with the end users, as they are spread throughout the state.  Basically, I either remote to them when I first call or Skype, or set a followup with them for a later time to do so.  I remote into the machine, determine if I can fix it, and either fix it, say I'll research for a fix and get back with them ASAP, or escalate it to onsite support or the relevant 3rd level support team.  Afterwards, the ticket is updated and/or resolved as required, and it's on to the next one.

Management, above the team or track level, seem to be more concerned with making themselves look good as opposed to doing what is best for the employees and customers.  Office politics run rampant within this company.  For a time, the motto "Employees First" was in use, and that went by the wayside quickly as it never seemed to be put in to practice, or at least not under the project I've worked for until now.

While the pay and benefits are decent enough especially when first starting out, dealing with human resources and internal departments can be very difficult due to what I call "the accent barrier".  It's not a language barrier, but sometimes it can be very difficult to understand some of my co-workers; thankfully, Skype comes in very handy for that.

The company sends out a lot of e-mails that go to all employees but are only applicable to India-based workers.  They also send out a LOT (and I do mean a LOT) of self-congratulatory e-mails about how they've done this or that, or how they've made this much money.  Get used to doing a lot of deletions if you like a clean inbox.

You have to periodically update your skills and data in their systems, and the programs/sites provided for that are not what I would call user-friendly in the slightest.

Hardest part of the job is actually getting people to respond to voicemails, instant messages, or e-mails.  Often, a person won't respond in the allotted time (we use a three strike rule; if they don't respond in five business days from the first followup, the ticket is resolved and noted as a non-response), they see the ticket is closed per followup procedure, and then reopen it.  I try to contact them again, and the cycle starts all over.

Most enjoyable part of the job is hearing the satisfaction in a customer's voice when I've solved their problem that oftentimes many other people have looked at and couldn't figure out.

Typical day at work
• Streamline processes, maintained quality standards and lower operational costs
• Analyzes new business requests against existing processes to create standard support operating procedures
• Analyze control reports and ensure SLO are met and/or exceeded customer expectations.
• Escalation point of contact for internal management and third party vendors
• Implement suggestive resolutions, define and manage project life cycles according to PMO standards.
• Work closely with CA Sales on new program campaigns and entitlements. Review new support contracts, raise awareness on new support offerings.
• Work closely with Product Management and R&D on enhancement request, timely priority bug fixes and new features and functionality for CA Consumer product family.
• Participate in product launches and cross functional meetings.
• Managed support readiness plan. Conduct weekly meetings with Frontline Managers.
• Provide bi-weekly presentations to Senior Management on existing project (s) status and suggestive resolutions (new projects) for better customer experience.
What I have learned?
. I have learned to maintain deadlines, analyze spikes in support tickets and take corrective actions to mitigate. Maintain budgets, assign people to the right job, mitigate risks and escalate to stakeholders, people management, address third party concerns (escalations), follow up on any fixes provided by support team.
Co-workers: Very cooperative and team oriented. Eager to go the extra mile to ensure customer satisfaction. Motivated by positive result.
Management: Important information not being shared or assignment being given last minutes for example adhoc reports. My management team is remote based out of India. Heavy accents.
Hardest part of the job:
HCL is a global company. Most of support, R&Q, QA is in India. Often had to ask people to repeat themselves because of the language barrier. Stakeholders from other GEO not showing up for cross functional calls or provide statuses on existing projects.
Most enjoyable part of the job: Speaking to customers (stakeholders, Front-line Managers and end users regarding their experience with our product and services, attend cross functional meetings for new product launches, escalating and follow up on new bug fixes. Successfully closed projects with minimum risks, meeting and working with new partners

worst company ever to work

1.Managers look their sub-ordinates as slaves.There is no professionalism in the company.

2.If your manager likes you then you will be at good position.There is no proper  recognition for any work you do in the company.More of biased company to certain individuals.Managers are very
 dishonest. They will lie to you while your joining on company benefits.

3.Company expected you to work all hours in a day including weekends  at short notice and will not take into account their employees obligations outside of work .They don't pay you anything for extra hours.They bring cheap labour from india and make them to stretch for more hours and expect those recruited in USA also to work same hours without extra hour payments or perks.you cannot question your manager or Management.


4.Their insurance plans are worst in IT industry.The upper management never listens to the concerns of workers on any benefits to workers.Though many people are fighting to change the insurance plans they never bother as they provide cheap plans.
 
5.Lack of job security.Though your full time employee your job is never secured.

6.They don't have any notice period for employee termination or 15 day notice concept.It just on paper.They send people from india immediately next day your project completes.Its same with full time employees in USA.They give termination once their work is done with them.

7.Thier internal immigration service is worst and they have worst record in Green card process for any non - american workers.

8. No support to employees on any issues faced by them with internal applications in USA.everything you need to go for your manager or should wait to get a reply from india for 2-3 days on any questions or SSD.

9. Once your joined your growth stops in USA.No promotions or salary increase.Max salary increase you get is 3%.That to if your manager likes you.

10.They say employee first...but in reality its employee last.Managers will not allow employees to interact much with customer and they try to showcase more what their peers do as themselves.


No Bonus and no increment and your salary might decrease if your location is changed.

I worked with Capsugel for a year in the IT dept and earned my spot to be put into all the management meetings and work with programmers, specialists, and IT teams to work as a unit once the company, Capsugel, bought themselves out from Pfizer. 

Capsugel was not ready at all to stand on their own, IT-wise, and didnt know the strain issues would bring. I was their go-to guy for most project issues and global issues, because I was used to working with 12,000+ locally and working with the pentagon and the entire Air Force. 

Reason I left: I was on a business trip and HCL Americas had signed documentation by me and my supervisor that they would pay up front all expenses except taxi rides and food. They said they would set up my travel and hotel arrangements for I was traveling around Belgium for almost a month. I got there and 2 days later i was told i was checking out, and didnt have further accomadations. All hotels in the area were booked and I had to sleep at the factories IT break room, on the floor for 3 days. I contacted the HR, and they just told me to put everything on my credit card, which i told them i had not planned, and was not suppose to spend 4-5k of my own money on this business trip. I had to borrow money from family just to stay afloat. Upon return, Capsugel wanted to help me with my issue and the head legal dept went thorugh all the paperwork to try and help me get my money back. HCL Americas refused to refund any taxi or food reciept that wasnt printed, which most were hand written, signed, and dated, because they just dont have printers everywhere over there. 

So I tried to work things out with HCL and they only pushed me up into a corner. Through all of this my work was still phenomenal because i didnt physical have HCL co-workers around me. I only worked first-hand with the directors of networking and infrastructure to make sure the entire 88 people at the Headquarters were assisted fully. 

I even singly migrated every user to win7, which meant doing full backups and program migrations. I created full program lists and talked personally with each user to assure full satisfaction. 

I have 2 contacts that would assure all work I did was stellar and I never lost one byte of data.

I worked for this company as both a contractor and fulltime salaried employee. 

My first position was great. I didn't answer to anyone in the site my reporting manager was offsite. I was trained mostly offsite and was a specialist for what I did. 

The problem started once I became a fulltime salaried employee. That's when it became apparent that HCL culture is not one of "employees first, customers second" Everything is about HCL saying what the client wants to hear to land the contract. They will say and do anything for the client to get the business. As for the employees... Well I know I was waiting for a project to start for 6 months. No hands on training. No equipment for training and then you're live and on the phones taking calls from the client. As if that isn't bad enough then your manager is correcting you on what you didn't do correctly and how many calls are in queue. 

Growth is all but impossible. Once people are buddies and entrenched in their positions you won't advance. It's a "Help Desk" there is no room to move.

Unless....

You're Indian.  After the project starts you will acquire at least 7 Indian managers.  Some may have a clue as to what's going on others have no idea. However, they get paid more than you and the fact that they have that H1 Visa is a perk for them. 

Oh BTW don't get sick or injured unless you're not a minority. I have witnessed others get sick or go on leave and come back to their job. I was in the hospital with surgery, had doc notes, a return to work letter, FMLA and Short / Long term disability. They began termination paperwork on me upon my return. So much for embracing diversity. They invented a policy to justify my termination. However they seem to want to settle before the EEOC investigation concludes. 

Draw your own conclusion. 

In closing.  HCL is just a company. They're like Microsoft in India but really don't have a good rep in the USA. It's a paycheck but lacking on job satisfaction, job security and job advancement.

Most jobs in at HCL start well with lots to learn and the promised prospect of growing. But it turns quickly into the company piling on more and more work, responsibilities, and mandatory requirements without (or extremely slightly) increasing salaries for months and months. Being very good at your job isn't sufficient to deserve a healthy raise. The only way to do so is to manage to take on additional responsibilities that have an impact, all the while maintaining the core tasks at a high quality level, and usually while being an hourly employee that is not allowed to submit overtime. After doing that for a minimum of 6 months, if management decides these extra duties have been handled well, there's is a slight chance of a 1% raise that will be split between a base salary increase and a few installments throughout the year. If you leave the company before receiving all installments, you forfeit the ones you have yet to receive. And of course, that depends on the presence of a budget. All tickets and requirements typically take weeks or months to resolve, after mercilessly following up. Management is often rude and never open to receive feedback. And processes are sacred and MUST be followed to the letter at all times, despite their relevance, time requirements, or complexity. Middle management is often overburdened, left alone without proper support, and constantly blamed for all issues and negative outcomes, while higher management lacks understanding, compassion, perspective, and sensitivity, never taking the blame for anything their own direct reports had issues with. Be very careful when signing up with this company. Welcoming smiles and big dreams at the entrance, usually ending with depleted mental and physical health, motivation, ambition, damaged personal relationships, absolute exhaustion, extreme frustration, and less money than deserved. 

A typical day depends on the project you are on although it now consists mostly of resetting passwords. It is a stale routine. I do enjoy helping the user resolve their issue; but it is frustrating when the job will not allow it (which is most times) as they will not provide the tools or time to do so. That means the issue will need t be escalated (which will take an undetermined amount of turn around time) and will affect the users productivity. 

If you work remotely HCL provides a laptop but be prepared to purchase your own external monitors, mice, keyboards and other peripherals. 

Management will lie to you. They will find fault about anything and everything about your job performance depending on management's mood at the moment - and is quick to hand out performance improvement plans without giving you the opportunity of seeing how you measure up to other people on your team or to avoid one. Like in the movie "Horrible Bosses" management berates people. They will threaten you if you are a minute late from a break or lunch but forget about getting paid if you work over. In fact instead of paying you time and a half they will pay you half of your regular pay - if they pay you for it or working your regular hours at all. And talking about pay be prepared to be satisfied with subpar pay and $.05-$0.25/ hr pay raises - if you get that much. I've witnessed that if you are offered a promotion they will keep you at your current pay grade for a year or more until you "prove yourself" and then deny the raise. 

The hardest thing about the job is that you lack any recourse for issues that you may have. There is no reason to contact HR about those issues as they will never be addressed (or take months to do so) as they will be sent to India and then they will do their best to make the issue that you are trying to address your fault. 

If you are like me, all of it will enough to make you want to pull your hair out and wonder why you work there.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
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It support 44 salaries reported	$57,057 per year

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