customer service representative

manager

project manager

analyst

journeyperson lineperson

Portland General Electric

I worked as a contract forester for PGE in response to the 2020 wildfires, and frankly I was disgusted with what I saw.

Every single rule they try to impose on their contractors is a double standard.

The most absurd level of micromanagement I've ever seen when it came to tracking company trucks of contractors. Start/stop times are carefully scrutinized as well as lunch breaks since management has nothing better to do. PGE employees are allowed to drive their personal vehicles, while contractors are forced to drive a fleet vehicle.

PGE employees get paid for all drive time. Since there is no yard for contractors, PGE exploits a loophole so contractors don't get paid for their first half hour to and from job sites at the beginning and end of the day since the work truck is parked at home.

PGE field employees are allowed to grab lunch wherever they desire. Contractors are told it's unfair to drive into town to grab lunch every day.

PGE employees get to participate in regularly occurring conference calls to have discussions and ask important questions. Contractors are always excluded from these discussions. Only upper management seems to be worthy enough to PGE to be included in any sort of discussion. Field employees are seen as little more than disposable.

If you have more of a traditional forestry education and background, and have more than one ISA certification, you are seen as a threat and dealt with accordingly. The majority of PGE foresters are hired on from their tree crews. 

Forestry managers are way out of their depth and are completely clueless when it comes to assessing wildfire damage to trees. Rather than collaborate and work as a team, they leave everything up to you. Everything is subjective and they make up their standards as they go. It's nearly impossible to pin anyone down and get a definitive answer in writing from these clowns because they are so afraid of being held accountable or called out for their incompetence.

Consistently short-sighted and inane guidelines and unsupportive feedback, coupled with shifting directives and standards from managers creates a truly toxic Us Vs. Them feedback loop between PGE and forestry contractors. You are not set up for success as a contractor for PGE. If anything, they want you to fail, so they have an excuse to let you go.

The managers of the forestry department are the most pompous, condescending people I have ever had to work with. It felt like high school all over again, with people always poking fun at one another, and constant judgement to try and fall in line.

If you consider yourself a self-starter that is capable of advocating for yourself and enjoy autonomous work without being micromanaged every 5 seconds, look elsewhere for work. I can safely assure you that you will not last long here. All of your drive and ambition will be quickly zapped away.

Beware of the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Rampant cronyism, corruption, and finger pointing, people in charge of forestry department are clueless and have no management background or training, nothing is done to try and establish a professional rapport between PGE leadership and contractors.


The first thing you'll notice about working at PGE is that management will never give you a yes or no answer. Those words are forbidden in that company. You are spoken to the same way you are expected to speak to customers over the phone. With open ended statements that do not give direct answers, that lead the person asking the question to their own *Interpretation of your answer* and would not incriminate you in a court of law. 

PGE was a cool place to work when I first started and I loved it. I was told I would have a development plan to get me off the phones and shown all of the cool extra benefits I was given to break up my day. Sure maybe I took a call from a mean customer every so often, but it never stuck with me since they were few and far between. As time went on however, and PGE went through their system upgrade, things took a turn for the worst. We were busier than ever before with literally no time to think in between calls and almost every single conversation you would have would be a personal one to express rage. 

We never slowed down. Error after error in our system would drive more calls and more escalations which made the day really hard, even if you were only there for the 5 hours a day provided to a part time worker. One by one all of the benefits and extra activities started to get taken away as PGE needed as many bodies answering the phones as possible. It even got so bad that we no longer were given time to go over development plans or even review and prepare the statistics that were used to determine if we could become a regular employee. Management would always tell us there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but there wasn't. 

Around 2018, PGE stopped being customer friendly and started thinking only about their bottom line and shareholders. We stopped giving extensions, did not offer credits for accidents or things out of the customers control, and were expected to encourage customers, who were trying desperately to keep their lights on with a payment that would probably hurt them until their next check, to make those payments and "Call back with a confirmation number to go over further options" knowing full well they would be disconnected anyway, so we could lessen our loss of revenue. 

There is a reason why people call PGE the bad guys. To do business with them feels like dealing with the mafia and we as employees had to deal with the backlash of all the anti consumer decisions and do it quickly saying only the correct words if we ever wanted a regular position before the two year maximum employment deadline drew near. All of the good reviews I've seen posted about this company are from people in positions where they never had to answer phones and could work quietly at a desk all day. I have never before worked in a position that made me dread waking up in the morning, but that was being a CSR for PGE.

The PGE callcenter environment was not a healthy place to work. If you are someone who does not think for yourself, and willing to do whatever they ask you to do, then PGE's callcenter is the place for You! The culture is odd. Managers would sit around in weekly meetings, and their time was spent talking about employees instead of real concerns (this was openly admitted by management). Not very Dignifying, or good use of Company dollars and time. It is a "Good Ol' Boys" attitude among managment, and some didnt have to be good at managing to be a manager.. or even intelligent. Management lacks Accountability and Respect when it comes to how employees are treated. Stats were just an excuse to find fault in the employees they wanted to pressure out of the company. Many times I would get a customer who was calling back several times about the same issue, and I would be talked to for actually taking time to Make the Right Thing Happen for the customer. Newer employees were making wages higher than those working there for years. Older employees were pressured out. I watched this happen to people time and time again. Nepotism was very common. Many people (esp. management) seem related or connected to someone else in the Company. The "Guiding Behaviors" were intended for employees to follow, Not Managers to follow in their treatment to employees! (Stated directly from management.) LOTS of double standards. Lots of cherry picking. You really cannot Trust management.. or HR for that matter. The Company encourages a culture that will only benefit the Company's control of things, and HOW it wants to control. PGE does whatever it wants to do. (No 'I' in that "Team Behavior") Do not expect true fairness or ethical practices in this callcenter, or the Company in general. PGE has much to learn still on how to be a truly great company, and how GENUINELY care for their employees.. and that goes for taking care of customers too.

**Leadership is highly results‑driven and demonstrates commitment to meeting organizational goals. This leaves a strong burden on employees.
**There is clear emphasis on accountability and performance metrics. However, it feels purely punitive rather than constructive. 
**Decisions are made quickly, ensuring responsiveness to immediate challenges, but not fully thought out, and Subject Matter experts advices are not respected. 

Definition of accountability: Accountability is often forced resignation or other forms of punishment (demotions) rather than learning and improvement. This discourages employees from taking initiative or speaking openly.

Leadership style: The reactive and closed‑minded approach limits dialogue and collaboration, creating a tense environment.

Approachability: Leaders are perceived as difficult to approach, which reduces trust and transparency.

Impact on culture: Employees report feeling fearful of speaking up, which stifles innovation and engagement.

While leadership demonstrates strong focus on results, the current approach has created a culture of fear and limited dialogue. Addressing these concerns will not only improve employee morale but also strengthen long‑term organizational performance, and employee retention. 

Leadership should, reframe accountability to emphasize shared responsibility, continuous improvement, and constructive feedback. Encourage open dialogue by creating safe forums for employees to voice concerns and ideas. Model openness by actively soliciting diverse perspectives and demonstrating receptiveness to feedback. Shift from reactive decision‑making to proactive planning that anticipates challenges and fosters long‑term stability.  Invest in leadership development focused on emotional intelligence, communication, and trust‑building.



PGE does not make it clear that there is little to no chance of being hired on permanently within the call center. You are evaluated on a matrix based on your stats, and only the top 1-5 are given permanency every once in a while. You are in a competition with not only your new hire class, but all other classes who have yet to be transitioned to permanent. 

Management is overbearing and less than supportive. Expect to have meetings with a Supervisor who agrees with you that your stats and calls are amazing, but lack the spine to advocate for you, or disagree with their superiors as to what a quality employee looks like.  QA will find faults with even the smallest of details. This is your typical churn and burn style call center. 

A large portion of the staff are on anti anxiety and depression medication. This employer is not safe for anyone who may have mental health issues. 

There is no work/life balance, as you have to "bid" for your schedule every few months. Those with tenure and the highest stats get the few good shifts, the rest of the shifts are not designed to provide you time with family, or a life. Most shifts are heartbeat 7am-7pm. This means you start as early as 7am, or work as late as 7pm, with no balance given. Expect to work until 7pm and start the next day at 7am. 

PGE is full of nepotism and cronyism. If you are not related, or good friends with Management you will not advance, and will likely not be hired on permanently.  

They will ask and encourage feedback, and then retaliate if your feedback is anything but glowing reports. Do not fall for their tricks of a culture of diversity and inclusion. Expect Supervisors and Managers to be abusive with little to no repercussions for their actions. 

The tools provided to do your job are lackluster at best, and constantly changing. 

IT jobs at PGE have become a miserable slog under the newest CIO. There have been 5 division re-orgs, multiple projects with massive expectations and unreasonable deadlines - and then blow back when we couldn't deliver a perfect product. 
For salaried people, the pay rate seems good until you realize you're expected to work extreme amounts of overtime to meet the unrealistic goals/deadlines. Working 60-80 hour weeks has come to be the expectation instead of the occasional exception. At least if you're contract, you get paid for the overtime.  They say they appreciate all the hard work, but then they pile on more in the next quarter.
Don't believe anything about it being Agile. There is no leadership buy-in at any level on agile practices. We work in sprints - but sprint commitments can be derailed by any manager at any time to suit whatever whim is highest on the priority list that day. Of course, we then have to justify why sprint commitments weren't met.

There are some Pros to PGE - they finally revamped their incredibly stingy PTO policy to separate vacation from sick leave, and provide additional paid federal holidays.  It all used to come out of a small bank of PTO days. For IT workers, they also have the ability to work full-time remote in Washington or Oregon. The company is also working hard towards reducing carbon emissions and going green energy. Individual contributors are smart and dedicated and have been great to work with.

I don't know about other divisions, but anything related to IT is a mess, and I highly suggest staying away.  I still work there, but I'm trying to get out- as are a lot of my peers.

While working at Portland General Electric, I did not feel that I was given any opportunity to advance or progress my career. However, I am in the minority I do know of people who have been very successful at Portland General Electric so my own personal experience is this the mid-level management have no idea what they are doing and work off of buzzword and copy and paste what they see other managers doing even if the situation is not applicable. They take little to no time to analyze a situation before making a decision and often times make the incorrect decision. I worked in the call center so my experiences were unique to that environment only. I did, however work on many diversity, inclusion teams, which included parts of the company that were not in the call center and I do know that many people had a much different experience than I did, while working at PGE , while I worked, it was promoted to think outside the box and come up with creative solutions to problems. However, what I was taught and what I was told nonverbally to do were different. Based off of the feedback I had received, and the direction I was led to the only time you should be providing any information to a customer is based off of whatever’s in procedures do not think outside the box only do what the procedure say and no creative thoughts whatsoever. Don’t try and come up with new solutions don’t try and make  work for anyone else simply do whatever the procedure say whether they are fitting the situation or not. 

While I don’t feel the interview process indicated how intense this job would be on the FCC and technical side using outdated systems requiring tons of exceptions and memorizing pathways, I do feel the company was organized. I knew after 2.5 weeks of the 9 weeks of training, it was a mismatch for my personality and values, as it’s very much about molding into their culture in ways I’d have to contort. While I believe their ways are set up specific to the type of business it is, I do feel many came across as burnt out, overwhelmed, strict, and didn’t welcome input or even set specific boundaries around training and asking questions. They want yes people, and I’m not that person. I bring a set of skills that are valuable only to the right place and so it’s a mismatch. The pay and benefits were amazing but this is a level 3 customer care not a level one! I’ve worked enough call centers to know. Additionally, I gave my resignation and received zero response by the manager, as it’s polite to reply back. There was petty hierarchy and politics for conformity which would make me feel claustrophobic. I could never be what they want from me and tbh they should be more transparent that this isn’t about a learning curve but a compliance issue. Leadership is also limited due to specific policies but it seems there’s a queen bee vibe and a yes culture that’s not genuine and creates resentment. I think I assessed this day one, reading the room. 

Before I was hired here, I didn't know that DevOps existed at all. I've always loved sysadmin and software engineering, and they threw me right into the perfect team to learn. This was an internship through MECOP, so when PGE picked me, they placed me in a team, but still let me join another team simultaneously. I ended up being in one of the DevOps teams, as well as an infrastructure design team. This gave me the opportunity to learn many new technologies at the same time. 

The job wasn't necessarily laid back, but in relationships with co-workers, it's very much a mutual respect. Sometimes, my peers were pulled in too many ways, we tried to help relieve some of their stress, and if that wasn't possible, just don't bug them. We had a headphone rule, if someone was at their desk with headphones on, don't bug them. Email them. They'll get around to it when they can.

Code reviews and passing unit tests are required before merges. Documentation is heavily encouraged and pushed, and usually required.

Parking spaces was not provided, but it's right next to the MAX Line and other TriMet transit options, so it wasn't that big of a deal for me. They have lunch rooms, but they don't provide meals.. This also didn't bother me, because being located in Downtown Portland, there were ~20 places to eat within blocks from work.

Through my 6 months here, I loved it, and honestly, I miss it.

A typical day at work involves anywhere from 60 to 90 different contacts with customers who are wide ranging in their individuality and needs.  
I enjoy working with people and the strategy involved in really working to fix situations and solve problems that have become issues.  I learn how to deal with new personalty types every day since the customers are so diverse in their backgrounds and objectives.
The mangagement at PGE work hard to create and maintain an atmosphere of diversity and respect as well as accountability.  I enjoy my coworkers because they are right on the front lines with me and see all that I see and experience the same interactions day to day.
The hardest part of my job is to calm down a customer who is upset but doesnt have a clue as to how to articulate what is bothering them and to "translate" what they are saying into a coherent image in my mind that I can work with to help them get to where they want to go so that they can have their frustration alleviated. 
The most enjoyable part of my job is knowing that I have really assisted someone and hearing the relief in their voice and the gratitude because they know that they can relax now since the issue has been taken care of.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Customer service representative 4 salaries reported	$22.00 per hour
Manager 3 salaries reported	$180,000 per year
Project manager 4 salaries reported	$105,750 per year
Analyst 4 salaries reported	$119,000 per year
Journeyperson lineperson 8 salaries reported	$54.94 per hour

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