right of way agent

designer

pipefitter

survey technician

mechanic

Team Fishel

It’s important to know that the actions of upper management and their incompetence will affect your longevity at the company.  When they screw up and don’t understand the scope of the project they bid on they lose them to competent companies and have to let employees go. 

The profit sharing is more of a racket and pipe dream.  They hire people who think they will get to that year and collect profit sharing. You won’t make it. They let people go and keep the profit you made for the company themselves. It’s a small club and you aren’t in it.  

Unethical. Billing the utility for projects with no billable hours left to another project with billable hours. And when those run out they bill other projects with billable hours left you are not actually working on. If the utilities ever find out they are cheating them I can’t imagine them being happy.  This unethical behavior always made me uneasy. 

During hiring you might be told it’s a 10 year contract. It’s not. That’s a lie. This job is under a year and once close to profit sharing they will let you go to line upper managements pockets with the profit you were supposed to get. It’s more or a racket. 

After seeing them win multiple bids and getting kicked off of the project because of incompetence after they hired for the job I lost confidence in their ability to comprehend what is required by the customer. In the end the incompetent people will stay and the people hired under them pay the price for their mistakes. 

The office managers were great but they don’t control any of the incompetent higher ups.  Extremely nice and caring. Upper management is the opposite of the companies so called philosophy 

You will enjoy working there until incompetence causes the wheels to fall off.   By the time you see the damage done it’s too late. Then you work as a slave fixing the issues they caused. 

I would say avoid this company unless you are in need of a temporary fix. Those who work the least keep their jobs and those doing the labor get canned. They will watch you complete the work, thank you then share in the profit you made for them after letting you go. 

No real structure on the engineering side. Promised training and none provided. Does not really have a path to highly technical individuals, just more project management. 
Managers don't seem to hire a lot of engineers for jobs and relies on drafters to do design work.
They force flexibility with all the workers by "suggesting" high travel, moving, work extra, change hours, etc. Lots of subtitle threats to be lay offs without notice for making simple mistakes that are not written down or explained properly.
They also have a tendency to force people out of there strong areas and have them perform duties management lacks structure in. Taking good engineers, row agents, surveyors, out of their job function and having them try putting a manager structure together is common. Refusing the "promotion" makes you a bad teammate. Failing in any way makes you the sacrificial goat.

There is not management support, so come in with a full plan and your own way of doing things. You may knock heads with upper managers, but apparently that's what they want to see.

Their engineering group grew too fast, expanded into states w/o work secured, caused too many problems for the clients, lost work, and started layoffs. Disrespecting and forcing out good managers was the 1st sign of major internal issues. Promoting out of distress was the next.
First red flag was how upper management is very quick to tell others to correct things that aren't issues or else they can leave. Simultaneously not giving direction or feedback on what the desired change is. 

For sure screwed up a lot of people's trust in a work family. 

Probably the best job I’ve ever held in my life. The pay was great, the people were amazing, the work style was relaxed and purposeful. It was the best in the beginning… everything changed about 4-5 months in. Work slowed down, the environmental toxicity had started to reach unprecedented levels and it overall became a place where slowly but surely became another job to get through. Management became more scrutinizing, projects started become inaccessible and people started to get projects reassigned, pulled from them completely or were just let go entirely. Camaraderie as you’d come to know it was leaving out the door, cliques started forming as a sign of lack of trust of other employees or management in general. An eerie silence filled the office as even more of our best workers were let go. The panic set in as everyone scrambled to find more work to do even if it was just busy work to justify their desire to work for the company. Eventually, as the failed to secure any further work the majority of us were dismissed. Without a warning, no advance notice. But I am not bitter, at the end of the day a company will always look out for its best interest it was just another reminder that if you’re not on top you’re always replaceable. All things said it was still the best job I’ve ever held. At least my branch in the Tampa office area was.

When you interview with this company it seems like the best place to work. I was so excited to work for this company. They seemed so positive and it seemed like it was going to be consistent secure company which is what I was hoping for. That quickly changes. The benefits they offer don't even start for a year and nothing is ever as you expected during your interview process. This company is very stressful all of the time. They always boast about profit sharing but I never saw any at all. All of your benefits are a year away from ever kicking in and they are not good benefits at all. I don't know much about the management in Northern Virginia or Maryland, but the long term employees all say because this incompetent manager uses all the profit sharing money on some secret contracted project with Amazon so you don't get profit sharing they claim to offer. They still all brag about this one big bonus they got like 3 years ago but I never saw it. You are always one car accident away or mistake from being unemployed. They will have you traveling a lot and people always talk about each other behind their backs. They also have a lot of rah rah meetings that seem so great but management seems to be really bad at budgeting and seems to put the stress on employees when the do not budget correctly.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Horrible Work/Life Balance and lack of team effort make this the worst job I have had in 20 years of Fiber!
Constant overtime above and beyond 60-120hrs a week, threats from management if you do not work outages and this company is huge on Nepotism (so don’t expect to be promoted unless someone close to you works there) Raises were few and super far between! 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Too many higher ups and you are constantly directed by them with a answer of “I don’t, “figure it out”  with so many higher ups everyone has an answer and none of them were ever really correct,Worst communication for a communications Company  I have ever seen! 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Stressful, demanding , constant threats of Retaliation, for being such a safety oriented company they should practice what they preach, instead they would have us working 24 to 48hrs straight sometimes with no breaks for food, Drink, sleep  and then would not pay per diem so you could stay where you were working and have you drive home after working that long!

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Day or Day’s? 1 day could easily turn into 2-3 for outages instead of gathering a crew to sub in when they know they were over working you with no sleep!

Although The Fishel Company has a great presentation and influences their teammates to have strong core values such as Trust, Integrity, Respect, Honor and Commitment. I found that their corporate management and board of directors did not live by those same values. There are daily meeting, poster signs on all the walls that influence teammates each day to commit to strong core values and safety. I watched each day as teammates worked to commit to those values, but found it very hard to believe in when there was no support from their management. This is a family owned company with over 80 years in utility construction, offices in 13 states over 2000 teammates. I know that The Fishel Company had to have all of the core values that they influence on their teammates each day to built the company they have become over the last 80 years. I believe these core values once existed. I just never saw them the two years I worked for The Fishel Company.

The pay and benefits, including a company vehicle and profit sharing after a year, are decent, but there is absolutely no work-life balance. Management expects you to live and breathe Team Fishel, treating your personal life as an afterthought. Salaried employees are forced to put in 10+ hour days, even when all work is finished or no one is working cause of the weather. Combined with micromanagement and a toxic 'good old boys' club' leadership style, it is an exhausting environment. Other companies in the you will work with offer far better supervisory support. If you need a job, use this as a temporary stepping stone, but I would not recommend it to a friend.

It's hard to know where to begin when describing what is wrong with the Walcutt Road office. There is no structure from a training or management standpoint. There is no plan for advancement from position to position, when you ask for training it is treated as a bonus and not crucial to your job. People are thrust into "leadership" roles based only on seniority, with zero idea how to be an effective leader and zero support from their superiors when it comes to developing as one. 

At the low level of installer, you are sent into the field without so much as a set of prints and you are expected to complete a project without tools, skills, or any support from the people who planned that very project. When things go wrong, the installers are blamed and the process is repeated. There doesn't appear to be anyone in that office remotely interested in improving any of those situations, and believe me when I say I have barely scraped the surface.

Terrible place to work. Don't do it!

Inconsistent training if at all. Yet they are happy to bill the hours you "train" to the client. The lack of training does not set the employee up well for success.

Management has their favorites. How employees that spend half their day shopping on amazon or sleeping at their desk, survive a layoff is beyond me. 

Workplace culture is cultish. Pep rally for profit sharing. Employees that are vested yet have to attend these meetings. They are weird.

The company does NOT manage their business well. I was laid off after 3 months along with about 150 other employees because they lost a big client in Alabama. That's what happens when a company charges a client for work they did not do. They love to talk about their "core values" and then they scam their clients.

There are many options for work in this field. I highly suggest you stay clear of Team Fishel, in every state they are in.

I loved the work that I did here. I loved most of the people I worked with.  I truly enjoyed going to work most days.  However, management there was often times hostile.  
I was screamed at, and my job threatened for things that were not of my doing just because I pushed the buttons to enter what was given to me into the computer.  
Our office manager was in an office over 100 miles away, and very rarely visited.  She counted on the "Team Lead" in our office for critique.  The Team Lead at that time was the one that was supposed to be training me, so her neck was on the line.  The boss was told many things that were not true, to which I spent two hours locked in a room defending myself.  
I do feel that the Area Manager there, although he could be hard headed and have a temper, would have done anything for us.  He kept us safe during bad weather, and was very understanding when I had to take off for a death in the family.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Right of way agent 4 salaries reported	$50,875 per year
Designer 3 salaries reported	$32.33 per hour
Pipefitter 2 salaries reported	$25.00 per hour
Survey technician 1 salary reported	$49,000 per year
Mechanic 1 salary reported	$17.00 per hour

Working at Team Fishel: Company Overview and Reviews

Team Fishel

Team Fishel Ratings

Popular jobs at Team Fishel

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected