software engineer

program manager

product manager

project manager

firmware engineer

Site Manager:

Unpredictable, moody, disrespectful and unprofessional.  She has no problem yelling at people and later giving them a hug.  She made up roles as she pleased and if asked about it she would say it’s from higher ups and it’s not her.  One day she is in a good mood the next day she could be angry and be yelling at people. Yes, yelling and I am not kidding. I heard her yelling at people several times.  Her anger and insults were usually over something minuscule.

She not only mistreated her employees (mostly sub-contractors) but was the same to her leads or Q managers.  One case in particular, I thought she was threatening one of the Q mangers really badly to a point of being extremely disrespectful.

The site manager played favorites: If you were a full time HP employee you were treated a bit better most of the time, although that depended on her mood or the kind of day.

                Example:  An HP employee came back from sick leave and she barely did any tickets. We saw her several times in her car resting /smoking. Her name was not mentioned in weekly ticket count report.  However, she was still working and the manger had no problem with her. However, if any of us didn't perform as expected and did fewer tickets, we were briefed and would have to explain as to why we were not doing more tickets. Yet, the HP employees like this one and others could walk around and be gone for hours and no questions were asked.  If someone inquired directly or indirectly their answer was “oh… so and so is on a special project.”

The manger could hire you to be in one group, but that could change at any time. She could move you to a different group or a different building to cover for someone else.  You don’t have any choice.

Operational Manger:

This position is for individuals who can interact and communicate effectively, be professional and be an example to other employees. However, this individual was the opposite. He did NOT know how to communicate; he was rude, and very unprofessional.  

Example: He hardly said anything positive about anyone and always made negative comments behind employees back. As an employee you will be dealing with him on a daily basis.  He will send you emails which is full of unprofessional etiquette demanding you do something ASAP and makeup rules as he wished.  He seemed to be an unhappy person and this reflected on his treatment of others. He had no problem insulting his employees. He seemed starved for attention, made sure informing you that he was the authority, and he was not very confident of himself either. He was totally the wrong person for the job. However, the site Manager liked him because he did whatever she told him to do and had no opinion of his own.

 
Working Environment:

You will be working on a floor of a building that has the worst conditions. The carpet was dirty and smelly. During the summer, there were a lot of ants in the room.  The room was not vacuumed and trash was not picked up. You had to clean your own area and pick up your own trash. There was no cleaning service. The cooling and heating system never worked properly. Summer time when it was 90 degrees outside was 90 in the office. There was no air circulation, so if someone used a microwave in the brake room you smelled the food on the other side of the hall. Nobody seemed to care really.

As a sub-contractor you have no room to grow, in fact if the contract changes or renews you may even get a pay cut (this actually happened to my coworkers).

Apparently, there used to be another site manger before the current one and everyone loved him. He treated everyone as adults and was very kind and professional.  As soon as she took over everything changed. I was there several months and felt like every 3 weeks someone was leaving. It’s a revolving door and the management knew it.  

Upper level management were either not aware of this or if they were they didn't care. The only thing they cared about was ticket numbers and no customer complaints/flags. As long as the site manager took care of the work they were happy with her. In my opinion, if they wanted to find out why this place is a revolving door, they could have done employee surveys or exit interviews which are a normal practice with other reputable and respectable companies.  They will hire sub-contractors or sub to sub with low pay ($18 per hour), with barely any benefits. They didn't seem to care when people left because they would hire more the next week.    

Save your respect and dignity and stay away from working for HP at Washington Navy Yard in DC under NGEN contract. There are a lot of Help Desk jobs in DC that offer much better opportunities.

A typical day at work, started with logging into all my programs. Then I would log into the phone system. I would then start to take call after call after call; the call volume would slow down near 7pm. I would come into work at 2pm-10:30pm. When the call volume started to slow down I would be able to do extra training provided by the company. After the training was completed, I would work on my "loopbacks" Witch would be tickets that needed a follow up or were sent to the wrong desk. Once I had completed my "loopbacks" I would then start on the "level 0 Tickets" this was a ticketing system that was sent in by end users that needed to be sent to a specific desk. That would usually rap up my day.

What I learned at HP, one of the main things that I learned at HP is how to refine my trouble shooting questions. In order to solve the users solution if I had the tools to do so, as quickly as possible; and to make sure that the issue was solved so the user did not have to re-contact the service desk. Another important skill that I learned at HP is the sense of urgency, to try and solve a user’s issue as quick as possible; while being as accurate as possible in the solution.

Management at HP, while I was employed by HP; I had 3 different managers with three very different management styles. The first manager that I had at HP was the manager that hired me into HP. His rule was that he did not care if you were late just as long as you came into work, his style was if you did something wrong he would take you aside and tell you about it. He was a very respectful manager. If you had to take a call you just needed to let someone know. At this time I worked the 10am-6:30pm shift, which was a hard shift to get things outside of work done. The second manager that I worked under at HP had a very interesting management style. He was very understanding to errors and issues that can go wrong on a fast pace service desk. He was very much like the first manager. The third manager that I had at HP was a manager that was strict on time, that is when our bathroom breaks started to be timed.

My co-workers at HP, throughout the year that I was employed at HP I meet some very interesting people. I would have to say by far it was the friendships that I made and the people that I meet at HP witch were one of the best experiences at the company. A lot of my co-workers I still keep in contact with.

The hardest part of the job at HP, was getting use to the fast pace environment; Giving accurate solutions as quickly as possible, while also doing all the other things that you had to do. The service desk had on average a call volume of over 1000 calls every day. Busy days at the service desk would be over 1500 calls in a day. The second hardest thing was figuring out the solutions that were specific to the GM network, which did not have very much documentation on in our solutions data base.

The most enjoyable part of my position at HP was with no doubt getting a call that you knew the solution right away. The user was completely down, and could not get any work done on their computer. I was able to remote into their computer and solve the issue very quickly, and they would be very thankful that they got me as a technician. One of the examples I can remember is a man called in, an over a week he slowly lost the ability to sign into his programs for his job. The user had somehow gotten on IE 9 witch was not approved for the environment, so I rolled the user back to IE 8 and he was able to get into all his programs.

My job was to manage the people who installed the HP Enterprise equipment throughout the Southeast US.  The equipment was servers, storage, networking...all the equipment that was installed into the customer's data centers.  The territory was NC, SC, GA, AL, FL, TN and small parts of MS, KY, AR and VA.  We were very busy.  HP was selling more equipment every year.  The best part of my job was experiencing the growth our my team in terms of wisdom, handling customers and gaining technical skills.  The second best part of the job was meeting with our customers and discussing what HP Services fit best with their goals.  The worst part was the amount of time that the job required.  My work/life balance was far too heavy on the work side of the equation.  As I matured in my role I was able to get the work/life scale closer to balancing.  But there were always times when the scale would lean heavily toward work.  Especially as HP kept having Work Force Reductions (layoffs) reducing not only my staff but staffing nationwide in the services sector of the business.  But as a manager you know that changes such as that are always possible and practically a certainty.  So you learn to adapt and teach your team how to adapt.  And how to become more efficient with your time and how you manage your time and your customers.  
There were plenty of places to advance your career if you would reach out to other sectors in the company.  You always had to look a few years out and predict where the jobs would be and then migrate to that sector.  The pay was reasonable for what we did, but the bonuses were lousy.  Raises were nearly non-existent and if there were raises they were always below the inflation rate.  There was never a Cost of Living adjustment in the pay scale.
My typical day was conversations with my Customer Engineers (the title we had for our Installation Specialists), talking with our customers, the HP Salespeople about deals in the pipeline and the occasional request to expedite an installation.  Scheduling training for our Customer Engineers was on my radar.  Since we got to install the new equipment we were trained before the equipment hit the market.  So it was important to be a leader with the training.  Fortunately HP had a good training program that offered a lot of training.  The hard part was finding the time that we could get the techs to training since their schedules were booked weeks in advance with installations and upgrades.
The culture among my team was very goal oriented.  We did what was necessary to get the job done.  We all worked from home (the office space had been downsized in all the markets).  So trying to create team building exercises where we would meet in person was difficult.  So I would do the team building by area.  The NC/SC people would get together, the GA people would get together, the FL people would get together and so on.  Occasionally when a new product was introduced and everything would align we would all be able to get together at training.  
The management I had in the company was very customer focused; but also driven by bottom line results.  Payroll and travel expenses were always under scrutiny.  But I always was able to get the people to where they needed to be without question.  So our customers never were negatively impacted.
Overall I would give my experience at HP a C.  Right in the middle of what I heard from peers at other tech companies.  In our highly competitive business that was quite an accomplishment.

Over my time working with Hewlett Packard I have had the opportunity to learn quite a bit.  I have been able to learn how their test process works.  I developed my troubleshooting capabilities within a short time due to the variety of failures I was allowed to come across spanning several server designs.  I have been fortunate enough to gain some leadership experience in terms of supporting some coworkers through certain issues.  While under my leadership work flow was maximized and productivity through my test area increased.  However I was not always the lead so this was something notable that was left unnoticed.  Management doesn't exactly give credit where credit is due.  A person who solves an issue isn't exactly rewarded for doing so.  Though I remain one of the best technicians, I am rarely kept in an area to exercise my skills.  I am often asked to train the new kids they bring onto the line, audit the work of others, and pretty much work with any situation that arrives on the go.  I am rarely challenged at work anymore so it isn't exactly an environment where you can face new obstacles on a whim.  
I would say that the most enjoyable part of the job would have to definitely be the opportunity to learn new skills.  Server Rack Build is an exciting area to learn about the components involved in networking a single rack of units.  However it doesn't stop there.  You have to understand the customer orders involving cables of different lengths.  You often run into situations where you are picking up where the previous shift left off.  So communication of any issue is a key factor within the work place.  I had the most fun however with troubleshooting test failures during my time in the test area.  Every detail matters.  When replacing parts I was extremely diligent.  I would not allow the I/O Boards to be damaged upon installation by my hands.  I took care of each part as if assembling the order for myself.  That is how I have minimized my fail rate as a assembler.

My least favorite part about the job would be that there is the annoying uncertainty of having a job at the end of the quarter.  Recently with each quarter that has passed by you hear about layoffs.  One obvious note is that often times the wrong people are let go.  I am lucky enough that I am still there as are quite a few other good workers.  The lack of job security is discouraging when it comes to putting in the effort to show that you deserve to be there.  I believe that the company itself has yet to truly define what it wishes to become.

First contract full of opportunity.  I learned so much in only 2 years time.  Second contract, I honed my skills and became a very effective technician in test and a decent lead within my group.  I was a go to guy for engineering.  Third contract, I found myself restricted by those over me.  I wasn't able to learn too much more because they kept me in test for a while.  I studied the A+ Certification though I never managed to save enough to take the test.  I found that with the knowledge I had surpassed majority of the leadership at that time.  My fourth and current contract.  I am far too restricted and unable to work with my full potential.  As things continue to move in the current direction I am in need of something new and challenging.  They refuse to allow me to continue getting better.

My typical work day would begin between 9 AM and 9:30 AM and most of the team would leave work between 3-4 PM every day.  Many people would work from home when they were allowed. 

Job training (to some degree) should be expected for anyone starting a new job.However, at HP, job training may or may not occur. High-level classroom or conference call training occurred frequently.  However, one-on-one low-level training occurred rarely or not at all.  

Communication between managers and employee leaves a lot to be desired. In my nearly-5 years at HP, I had two managers, both of whom spent 75%-80% of their days (every day) on conference calls or in meetings. I had a very decent relationship with my first manager, but I rarely (if ever) saw her in the office.  My second manager was very bad about playing favorites. Those with whom he clicked were given preferential treatment and often provided with additional training or opportunities for special projects that allowed them to advance their careers. 

I was laid off/let go from HP in February of 2017, I was a mere 3 months shy of 5 years. My termination came as a complete shock and I had no indication whatsover that it was coming. My manager had set up a one-on-one meeting, which happened regularly, so it didn't seem out of the ordinary. While we were walking to a conference room for our one-on-one, my manager was making friendly small talk, as if nothing unusual was happening. It appeared as if it were just a regular meeting.  Then...BOOM...my world came crashing down. When I asked why I was being let go, my manager gave me a bogus reason. When I challenged on it, he picked a different bogus reason. It was only when he mentioned that I was receiving a two-week severance package, that I realized I was being laid off.  I also realized that my termination was not his choice, as he offered to allow me to collect my own things from my desk and say goodbye to my team. However, I was too humiliated at that point to want to face my team to tell them I had been let go; a move that goes against typical HP policy. Even though I was given a severance package, my termination from HP was the most humiliating experience of my life. An experience that has set me back both professionally and financially by several years.

My overall takeaway from working at HP is that if you like an interactive work environment that provides you with the opportunity to enhance your skills to make you better at your job; therefore allowing you to advance your career, then HP is NOT FOR YOU.  Overall, HP's culture is toxic. Unless you're in management, you're just another cog in the massive HP machine.

Overall, HP is probably the best 'inbound' call-center job I've every had in the past 5 years. It was a transition from technical support to sales, although I have a background in both. The company was terrific, even though I worked for them as an ETW (employed temporary worker) through Manpower; my sub-contractor. 
The training was excellent as was "new product" training prior to product launches, seasonal sales, and the "cross-training" for add-on items to up-sale (such as computer security, software programs, accessories, etc). In addition, they offered the opportunity to become Certified with Microsoft and Intel.
At least once a month, employees were able to meet with various suppliers, in both a classroom setting and on a one-to-one basis, to learn about their product's background and how the product or service would benefit the customer, listen to their pitches, ask questions, and experience their products first hand.
The supervising staff (Supervisors and Managers) were the best I've ever encountered. Everyone was extremely supportive and they were always there to answer any questions or offer advice on closing a sale. The "one-on-one's" for feed-back with your supervisor were always productive and not condescending; even if you have made a mistake, it was gently pointed out and you moved forward. (like when I said "Welcome to Apple Technical Support"...ooops!)
For incentives, in addition to "spiffs," the company offered daily, weekly, and monthly contests for cash and prizes.   
The employees were never 'micro-managed;" you were given a certain amount of autoimmunity to make decisions based on your own judgement to close a sale.
As if employee moral wasn't already strong, in addition to excellent wages, spiffs, bonus and contests, the company and their various suppliers sponsored catered  lunches about once a month from 4 star restaurants, "Premier" movie nights for employees and a guest (before a movie was open to the public) including food court vouchers, family outings to the Zoo and the company supported several non-profit organizations and activities.
Since I was an ETW (contract worker) I didn't receive the benefit package offered to HP Direct hire employees, though I've been told it is one of the best ones out there.
Unfortunately, there were few positions available for an ETW to transfer (or to be hired) as a 'blue badge' direct hire employee. 
I was sad when my 'contract' ended and was required to leave. If I am ever given the opportunity to work for this company again, I would do it in a heart beat. 
HP is the BEST inbound call (sales) center I've EVER worked for!

Manny has over fifteen years of experience as a Civil Engineer. Working as Project Manager in Pharmaceutical/ Electronic Industry (Civil / Mechanical / Electrical Projects). During all these years I have learned/coordinated the development of brand new buildings & utilities areas, manufacture area development/instalation, interior offices & common areas remodeling, and relocation of corporate Real State projects in LAR Region (organic grow, business funded, decomisioning, etc..). 

Specialties:BSDCE, CBRE Certified PJM I, Construction Facilities - Projects Supervision, Project Engineering and Project Management. 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Hewlett-Packard Caribe, Ltd                              1996 - Present
Highway 110 North–Km 5.1 PO Box 4048 Aguadilla, P.R. 00605  
Latin America Project Manager/ Project Engineer - 

As Facilities Project Panager and Project Engineer for the HP Latin America Region with the following responsibilities:

•	Program Manager for construction and maintenance projects being executed in the Latin American Region.
•	Manage project costs estimate at each location.  
•	Manage creation of scopes of work with collaboration of stakeholders, and suppliers to obtain quotes.
•	Manage selection of core team members based on projects objectives and scope of work.  
•	Submit purchase requisitions.  
•	Supervise projects to meet designer drawings, and codes and regulations (e.g. OSHA, ADA, NEC). 
•	Manage design - construction - inspection plus approval with design firms of: UPS System, Data Center, IT Infracstructure modifications/upgrades (Lync), AC Systems instalation/upgrades, Coolong Towers and CHW S/R systems, Generators Rooms systems, Manufacturing Areas utilities & plumbing systems installations as well as electrical installations, and also facilities civil works.
•	Manage design and construction of a network operations center room on time to invite prospective customers.  
•	Manage energy conservation projects implementation without impacting the manufacturing operations.  

•               As Project Engineer was responsible of managing site facilities construction and/or modification projects in order to modify, improve and add facilities to HPPR site, including support to the Site Expansion (New Technological Park Isabela) and Business Continuity Program (BCP), collaboration with Government and Private entities like EQB, DNR, EPA, FEMA, CIPA, URS Design Firm, Major of Aguadilla and others.


Skills: 
Project Management
Program Management
Cross-functional Team...
Certified PJM I by CBRE / PMP
Team Leadership
Project Planning
Integration

My internship with HP was amazing. I learned so much and my manager was excellent. He knew how to lead and what it meant to be a true manager. After more than a year as an intern I was offered a position within the Public Sector of HP as a financial analyst (completely different organization and group than where I interned). This is where things took a 180 degree turn.

The interviews I had for the position led me to believe that there would be an enormous learning curve. I had just graduated with my MBA and this was emphasized frequently by me during my conversations with my future colleagues, supervisors and managers. Their response was always the same: "Don't worry, we will train you and make sure you understand every step of the way.. It will take at least 6 months for you to completely grasp and understand all the responsibilities and what the position is all about.." With that I felt confident and never thought for one moment that I would be thrown under the bus multiple times. How wrong I was.. I understood that having a government contract and customer is very demanding. I trained in the USMC so I know a thing or two about stress, time management and how to deal with uncertain situations. However, I was not expecting my colleagues and direct manager to be so difficult to the point that if a mistake could be avoided, my colleague would allow it to happen just to write me up about it later. My colleague who is supposed to be training me, left out tidbits of information so that when I missed it I would be held responsible for those mistakes. How can I effectively execute my responsibilities when my trainer is not giving me all the information? To get to the point, never have I experienced so much stress in so little time. The three months I held this position were the worst three months of my life, mainly because of the team and more specifically: my colleague and manager. It felt as though both were out to get me and dedicated to seeing me fail.

I have a lot of respect for the company and the culture as well as the people (who are some of the smartest most intelligent individuals I have ever had the privilege of working with) however, I just so happened to work in a group whose manager has no idea how to lead or manage. It's not surprising the group was unable to win the re-compete for their only contract! Ridiculous doesn't even begin to describe my days in this group/position.

I'm not even sure where to start so i will start from the beginning

Fact number one..when I was hired for technical support during training they advised us that it would be "a little" up-selling involved.  That was a lie, in fact if you didn't get enough sells your were force to retrain to take advantage of "hone in" technique.  And if you were one of the lucky people who sold a lot and got great numbers in the selling area then and only then would be considered for another job within the company.  The moral of this is if u didn't sell enough u didn't get a promoted or advance in any way.

Fact number two....during the winter season... the "Head Honcho" advised us that if this was not america he would make us spend the night on cots in the call center as the overseas counter parts did.  But this is america and they have laws against that. Just so we could be at work when and if there was snow or anything else preventing us from coming to work.

Fact number three.... during one particular "morning meeting" I was forced to sit a listen to the following as a inspirational/motivational speech 

"paraphrasing the story which I listen to"

one morning a little girl saw some napkins in her mothers cabinet.  the little girl asked her mom what the napkins where and the mother said that those napkins were for special occasions.....

(by this time I  zone out cause i cant believe this male supervisor is talking about this, and i cant believe this is his idea of a inspirational/motivational speech)

"paraphrasing the end of the story"

the mother tells the girl they are going to have a party and begins setting the table for her guest. the little girl goes to get the special napkins her mother keeps in the bathroom and puts one on each plate setting.  ( for those that don't get it the special napkins are feminine hygiene napkins)

My overall one year and two months with HP was wishing that I would have a fatal car accident on the way to work just so I would have an excuse of not going to work.  The only thing I can say positive about HP as a company is that they paid well.  And that the HR department would pay you before even getting hours submitted. Which brings me to 

Fact number four... After leaving HP I received a letter informing me that they had actually paid me for time I didn't work and I needed to send them a check for the amount they over paid me.....

LMAO they are still waiting on a check from me

A typical day at work involves talking to lab members for their testing/hardware needs, coordinating hardware, units for shipping and receiving new units. It involves also random request from management for setting up PCs for a demo to showcase software and products. Helping with acquisitions of lab supplies, test units and sometimes creating POs for training. Tech support for lab members from upgrading operating system version, network connectivity, troubleshooting errors, driver problems, hardware and software issues, enterprise back up software issues and guide, operating system installation/upgrade help and guidance, domain account issues, VPN issues/installation, ordering productivity laptops.

I have learned a lot from this company since this is the first tech company I was employed. I learned different ways to assemble and disassemble all types of computers, from laptops, desktops and all-in-ones. I have hands on experience of user problems with their PC and have learned how to install operating systems using an automated process where we can install different localization or languages. To troubleshoot errors and issues in a Windows operating system environment. Learned different types of software, internal systems and how to use them to make your work efficient and manageable. Learned how to ship devices, PCs internationally and have dealt with foreign customs regulations.

As for management, they have been really trying hard to be more proactive to the needs of workers specially contractors and to have a fun and healthy lab working environment. The managers are really nice and are approachable. Make sure you do your job well or they will notice and it will get stressful since mostly they will call a meeting for it. They make sure you have a task/job to do, never a dull moment.

Co-workers are great, they all come from different cultures.

The hardest part of the job is when in a day everything falls to your shoulder and all these duties/responsibilities /task are all important.

The most enjoyable part of the job is when you can really focus on the task at hand and no one bothers you for something else. Since I am the guy who helps with PCs, devices, test units, general PC problems, facility issues etc having to focus on the job rarely happens.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Software engineer 8 salaries reported	$107,313 per year
Program manager 16 salaries reported	$123,588 per year
Product manager 4 salaries reported	$132,500 per year
Project manager 4 salaries reported	$111,750 per year
Firmware engineer 8 salaries reported	$126,063 per year

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