lawn technician

outside sales representative

pest control technician

lawn care specialist

spray technician

Senske Services

From the interview, this sounded like a great position. As soon as I started at the company, I was put on a computer with basically no training and told to “play around with the software”. The software was antiquated, hardly worked, and shutdown periodically. I received virtually no instruction on what I should, or shouldn’t be doing. From the very get-go, I was put in an environment where I had to figure out this stuff for myself. I logged into what felt like 12 different websites, and I began receiving notifications letting me know customer concerns, and that I needed to contact them. Pretty soon, I was inundated with reports and forms that I was asked to fill out. Again, no training on how this was supposed to be done. I was simply expected to “know”. I struggled through, but filled them out regardless. Every so often, I would be given more tasks to complete, again, with very little instruction on how to complete the tasks. 

The equipment that my technicians were forced to use was constantly breaking down. Vehicles were in the same shape as well and would stop functioning periodically. 

Technicians had very high goals that they were required to hit… and I did not agree that the goals were fair. Due to the scheduling, routing, and software, the goals would have been very difficult to hit. 

Scheduling was equally horrendous, as I quickly found out that the routes that were being created were causing my technicians to travel to the wrong locations, travel to the locations out of order, and travel to locations way too far to be considered efficient. 

I very quickly found out that I wouldn’t be able to succeed in this type of environment.

The first thing I will say about this company is that they actually put safety first, not as a motto on paper but as an every day enforced part of the job at all levels. Employee health and wellbeing is clearly high on the priority list of the managers here, a rarity in the current job world. As someone new to this specific industry I've received amazing mentorship and tutoring from every level of leadership here from the General Manager all the way down to the poor Technician I apprenticed under who had to deal with my constant questions. The work load here is exactly where I want it to be, which may not be for everyone, the hours can be long but the jobs are enjoyable and the company truck has great air conditioning. Most of my customers I interact with are very polite and respectful people, and I feel as though the work I do improves their lives. This is not a company that rewards record revenue with a pizza party, it's the kind of company that rewards individual efforts with extra money. Plenty of Overtime is available for those of above average Desire to Stack Dough. The company provides 100% of the necessary Safety Equipment for the job, including uniforms, at no cost, and all of it is of high quality except the glasses kinda look dorky so I wear cool ones. The hardest part of the job is rude customers. The vast majority are nice, but I get about one person per week  who is angry at me for things far beyond my control, some of which are beyond anyone's control but the customer's, but he's mad as heck about it and yadda yadda. 

 Pay is poor with substantial hours or management promotions. This company runs their respectable employees into the ground to makeup for other unreliable employees & their terrible work ethic w/ no repercussions. Sales are atrociously bad that the company will favor the client  income over the company expenses. Techs have no say in anything besides completing a flip flopped daily percentage & production number that determines their worth.
 Routing/scheduling is computer generated garbage mess and most of the time, you will find yourself juggling with driving unbearable distances & unfulfilled promises with unrealistic expectations. 
 The management is two-faced, untrustworthy, provide empty promises & are unprofessional as they will belittle/powertrip you & use your personal matters as talking points in public work meetings.
 Poor communication has & will always be a glaring downfall across the entire company. Work culture is toxic, immature & unsafe for employees’ mental & physical wellbeing. The revolving door of employees is a telltale sign with this company. If you want to feel undervalued, highly stressed & overworked first hand, give this company a try. Besides making friendships with a handful of good honest people, look for employment elsewhere.

Typical work day is cubicle and calls all day. Management is not team oriented, they don’t want you to succeed or grow within the company. I learned call center environment, nothing was enjoyable about the job, except the commissions, now they give you charge backs which a lot of it is out of your control. Inside sales department was always changing.   They give you campaigns and your expected to make about 125 calls a day.  The sales goals are always changing.  If you do not hit your weekly goals they make you work on a Saturday.   The workload is not stress, however the campaign could be great or poor performing commissions for your pocket.   Example, if you call cancels, your dollars are not nearly as big as someone who calls mesquitos campaign.  Now I’ve heard they dismissed their retention department, so now as a sales rep you are in charge of handling customer service complaints, saving your sales because customer cancel all the time, and making sales.  If you sell jobs, the technicians seem to fail on doing the jobs they were assigned.   Senske is not a structured company to work for.  

I actually enjoyed my time here because the technicians and the pruners were genuinely great people, but the management made so many empty promises, it doesn't take long to realise that they don't really care about the people who make money for them, they want to hit a quota at the expense of employee morale. Promise of 4/10 hours is great but like many things they become empty once they try to make it mandatory to work all week plus weekends. What really put a bad taste in my mouth was that I was told that we need to "justify our wages," 14.50 is not worth justifying for what you do, handling, mixing, inhaling chemicals. It's the most out of touch thing you can say to your employees. You're supposed to fight for higher wages not trying to dangle it over us. Especially for pruning, 18 for one of the most dangerous jobs is not worth justifying especially if you got equipment and vehicles that need work done, you're blessed to even be having a pruning team at all for that matter. I liked my time here but that really screwed everything up for me, (by the way only one boss person is out of touch, everybody else is at least sympathetic towards concerns and questions.)

Everyone in the office felt like family to me, but there was a lot of issues that needed sorted out, which is what I believe lead to me no longer being with the company. The world life balance was fantastic, and I felt that if something were to happen where I needed to go early, I could do so with no repercussions. I do feel though that communication was lacking, and that the entire company was fairly unorganized and overall just not on the same page, which made it very difficult to properly do things the way they needed done. This is largely due to the fact that I had thought things were to be done one way, and later on I found out that i was wrong the whole time. I feel these are important piece of information to keep your employees in the know of. It's not bad, just make sure you are secured in your position, and ask any clarifying questions. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
Lots of opportunities to grow and succeed, beyond base wages.  Benefits are good and they are becoming even more focused on employee happiness

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Sometimes the stress of getting work done on time, rolls downhill.  Things can get slow in the first few months of the year.  

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Good management,  friendly coworkers.  They try to make it enjoyable.  You work alone most of the time, but coworkers stay in touch throughout the day to make sure nobody gets overwhelmed.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Come in, get my route, stretch with the team, get my truck ready and head out to run my route.  I do 15-20 stops per day, get back to the shop, print my end-of-day report, and head out.  Usually a 10 hour day, Monday-Thurs.

A typical day at work consists of a daily route, pre-made days in advance. So you and the customer are aware of the situation/application that is occurring...this is where senske fails..  the communication.  The very first step in communication is where senske fails in my opinion.   Technicians at senske need to be able to have direct communication with routers and vice versa; to have effective results.  It seems like the only people that are satisfying the customers these days are the actual technicians out in the field...

An average day at work involved very little contact with one's coworkers. In the morning is the only time that technicians and management are likely to see each other, before heading out on route. A technician is given plenty of leeway to make decisions and implement solutions. The work is hard and the hours are long but a lawn and tree technician works to make green growing things thrive. Senske taught me everything I know about plants and insects and inspired me to pursue my degree in environmental science.

They advertise for employees as a “mom and pop” work place so they can take advantage of workers thinking you’re going to have forward progression in title and pay if you do better than expectations presented. Or just thinking that starting pay is just that “starting”. Not the case, they say they are transitioning to corporate structure. Treating service technicians like warehouse workers demanding the same products rates from different route locations, pay gaps in departments that are increasing and raises that are pennies on the dollar, maybe once a year that are decreasing. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Lawn technician 102 salaries reported	$20.18 per hour
Outside sales representative 163 salaries reported	$55,423 per year
Pest control technician 83 salaries reported	$21.15 per hour
Lawn care specialist 93 salaries reported	$19.77 per hour
Spray technician 77 salaries reported	$21.07 per hour

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