field service technician

customer engineer

field technician

electrical technician

test technician

Vertiv

A typical first shift day starts with starting busbar orders and coordinating with other teams to make sure everything is correct and ready for manufacturing.
My documenting skills have definitely gotten better from this company.
The culture is non-existent.  You basically come in and work.   Collaboration between teams is bad .  Most teams do not want to listen to suggestions, or change outdated ways.  This stems from the E&I company way which Vertiv bought out.  There are overseas workers that come from the E&I timeframe, which I think should have been let go because they do not align with Vertiv and they are stubborn in their practices.  R&D needs some attention for sure.  Their CAD models have errors and are not trustworthy to use.  The ETO team is for the most part good, except for the Team Lead.  That individual has been there for a good while and still does not know Busbar at all and is unreliable to ask any questions on busbar.  Planning does not plan things out properly and is also resilient to listen to changes.  Most of the project managers have minimal knowledge on Busbar.  Many of their request have loads of errors.  There are some seasoned vets (assemblers, technicians, etc.) on the floor that are reliable, but many of the people have no knowledge in Busbar.  That is because a good percentage of the seasoned Vets leave and take their legacy knowledge with them.  Vertiv has spent lots of money trying to fix this particular plant but the place doesn't seem to show improvement.  They have had years to improve since the days of E&I but due to factors like the E&I leadership still being there, nothing changes.  I would not recommend working at this particular Vertiv plant.

I was hired through (A.R.C Staffing Solutions) as a "Machine Operator II" Sheet Metal Department. Job title earned from "Work Keys" test results. Test (Must Take) paid for by (Vertiv) formerly of (Emerson Power). Great job, great hours, great *PAY*. Starting pay in "Sheet Metal" = $14.50 an hr. My payday was every week on Friday you don't get a actual paper check. Your paycheck comes in form of Electronic Deposit, you provide the bank account details or debit card account/routing #'s during the application process. The only draw back con I would say is sheet metal guys work different kind of shift then other departments, 12hr shifts 6 on 7 off. However there are pros to work here as well.
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.                                                Example:
      (Pros):
1.) Gas pump access on Sundays, Deducted from paycheck if cash broke.
2.) Snack Machines, Pop Machines, Cafeteria food may also be deducted. 
3.) Thursdays offer free bags of popcorn much you want till 5:00 am.
4.) Work 6, off 7 as "Work 3 days, off 1 day, 3 more days then 7 days off.
5.) You get four 15 min Smoke breaks 1 every 2 hours & a 30 min Lunch.
6.) Every other week off, Gas with no cash, weekly pay, $14.50 Hourly.

      (Cons):
1.) 12 hour shift 7 to 7, 7:00 pm to 7:00 am.
2.) Probation period (90 days), Strict on clocking in exactly on time no exc.
3.) 3 strike rule if you receive 3 write ups you will be terminated.
4.) Work Keys test at Collins in Chesapeake, Paid for but very long/timing. 
5.) Gas restriction at times/limited gallons & No gas during first 90 days.

Overall great place to make a career of, also the work keys test they pay for and have you do isn't only good for this particular job and company but is also used by other company's seeking people for jobs.

When I started at Vertiv things seemed like they were looking up and the company was doing well. Fast forward a year and there was a catastrophic quarter caused by logistics and pricing issues. Rather than take responsibility for the problems and improve the systems, upper management became a circular firing squad. When they ran out of fall guys they started blaming the worker bees, effectively saying it was our fault for not being able to execute change from under an avalanche of red tape and chaos. On a whim from the board they suddenly demanded that everyone immediately return to office, including people that had been specifically hired as full time remote. All movements are to be tracked with card swipes, and if you live hours from a physical location its your own fault. People are leaving in droves. They focus on breaking their employees down while competitors in the industry build their employees  up. The new CEO literally introduced himself by saying that if you don't like it, you should leave. It's an exercise in crushing morale.

On the upside - the people I worked with are amazing. Super helpful, smart, and enthusiastic. Management is hellbent on destroying the place from the inside out. Your people are your best asset.  They should look to their competitors from France for a lesson on how to inspire employees to do their best.

Vertiv wants you to fall in line, give up nearly all of your time, and exploit you as much as possible while paying as little as possible. No unions, cant even talk about it or you can get fired. No regular time off save rotating weekends, which can be taken away at very little notice. While here I was told to find other arrangements for my pregnant wife to get to the hospital if something happend with the baby because they needed me more, and when the National Guard was in question they outright tried to penalize me for leaving for drill. Which they were warned about in advance. The pay is only good because you work so often. Look if you want to have a life other than work this isn't the place for you, they want all of your time, get upset when you take time off (even for military, medical, or other reasons) despite having vacation days, and all around have a very adversarial attitude towards workers and remarkably poor work/life balance.

Workday starts with running, auditing work schedules and processing repairs according to preset priorities.
A repair is started with a complete visual inspection for damage and failure.
Once the determination is made that the equipment is repairable all repair and update parts are ordered from stock.  Throughout the whole repair process, the work order is kept updated with long text notes explaining what is going on with the equipment up to date and time taken entered.
Repairs are done to the component level if possible, sometimes whole PCB’s, or even whole units must have to be replaced.  Parts inventories have to be monitored, issues researched, possible solutions found and brought to the appropriate manager.  Once parts are received they have to be inventoried and verified and any discrepancies dealt with.
Once equipment is repaired and tested on manual and automated test equipment, the work order is completed by filling in the data base on all parts that were used to repair and update it.
Failure trends are monitored and Corrective Action Requests are written to deal with part, engineering and manufacturing issues to get them corrected.
At the end of the day, work areas are cleaned according to 5S+1.

Vertiv was quite interesting. Getting hired on I felt secure and confident. The pay was great, and the cafeteria had lots of choices of snacks as well as a few people making us a meal. We also got to get as many paid vacation days we wanted as long as we put in the hours. The work for my department demanded someone fairly strong. Unfortunately I am a small guy, so I had to ask for help pushing the large frames but my aid was not happy to help at all and made it known. Fortunately half of the frames were small enough for me to push out to the pick up zone and I did get to learn how to maneuver a pallet jack. The paper packets was a little confusing, had I been there longer I could've easily been more efficient with them. Spray painting the frames was the easiest part of the job and the most time consuming, but after I got the hang of it, I was able to paint them and have them on their way out in no time, the only downside was the masks provided did not filter the fumes out very well and would fog the safety glasses making it very difficult to see the areas I needed to paint.

Here's what I encountered working in a technical role:
1) If you want to get any actual work done, you have to wait weeks for the necessary approvals. This applies to even the most seemingly minor tasks. There is often no way around these arcane and antiquated processes.
2) Critical software is constantly in flux due to upgrades and changes. This has resulted in tons of headaches and lost productivity.
3) Many subject matter experts have left the company. Many were laid off. Competitors are actively poaching remaining Vertiv employees, and succeeding.
4) Because so many SMEs have left, the existing managers have no clue how to help their employees do their jobs. Important questions get deflected to other people, who deflect to other people, who deflect to other people...and so on.
5) Vertiv has recently been the subject of a major lawsuit. You can find the details with a quick Google search.

I'll end by saying that my salary and PTO was pretty decent compared to other jobs I've been in. But those perks were simply *not* worth the frustration of working at Vertiv.

The job itself is enjoyable enough for someone like me who enjoys hands on work and couldn't stand another day of life at a call center. The co workers are an interesting mix and you'll find some good peopke there. There are very frequently part shortages or other problems that arise that you must overcome. If you want to work every day without a day off ever, this is for you. They tell you at the beginning its a certain shift or certain hours and only occasional weekend work but, they can and will change your shift, hours and put mandatory overtime in whenever they want with very, very little notice. And if you cant jump for the complete opposite of what you may have been told starting out then youre just out of luck. What's worse is that frequently you are there on what should be your days off for either no reason or because of bad upper management. The people in the upper management are so completely detatched from the employees its ridiculous. I, for one, am extremely tired and I dont think some days off to be with my family should be too much to ask.

So a typical day at Vertiv, greet security and everyone as you make your way to your work station. Next I'll power up the work station and check my emails to get started. A lot of the time I am waiting for an approval email to move forward with a repair. Next Ill check to see if we got any shipments for new calibrations or repair services. Print out a list of new Service Orders and go pick them up and relocate them near the Calibrators area and we'll service the units according to what is needed. I have definitely learned to pay better attention to details and how to navigate and document the services I am apart of. The culture here is very positive almost laid back in a way a lot of the employees have been here 40+ years and even have retired and came back to help.

The hardest part of the job is probably being trained on a new task but your given the space and time to practice and improve your skills. The most enjoyable part is also being trained on new task because for me it exposes you to more jobs and services you can qualify for and makes you more valuable as an employee.

There is not much I can say positive about this company.  There is plenty of overtime because they don’t hire the right amount of people and traveling to a location takes forever since you’ll be sitting in traffic most of the time both on the way to the job site and back home.  The training is honestly a joke.  They’ll teach you to go down to component level but you’ll never troubleshoot that way in the field.  When you are training in the field, every tech has their own way of troubleshooting and fixing things so it’s all confusing.  Half the time, you will be on the road, sitting or cleaning up after the tech that’s been there for 20/30 years and hate his/her life and expects you to know every single system/program they have, which is endless.  Like I said, lots of overtime so that’s where you can make decent money but no life outside.  Your schedule can change from day shift to night shift or whenever they need you because they could care less about your family or your health.  If you hate your wife and kids, take this job, you’ll never see them very much.  

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Field service technician 30 salaries reported	$63,871 per year
Customer engineer 20 salaries reported	$69,448 per year
Field technician 1 salary reported	$37.50 per hour
Electrical technician 22 salaries reported	$39.45 per hour
Test technician 7 salaries reported	$31.74 per hour

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