There you go waving the "Bruister offers health insurance" banner again. Sure Bruister gives the employee health insurance at no cost, but it is insurance with a ridiculous $2500 per person per year deductable. And before you go spouting off about the supplemental insurance that is supposed to cover the deductable, I can assure everyone that so far it still (over a year after I had sinus surgury) hasn't covered squat for me. As for the Bruister employees who need insurance to cover their families, they are held up for upwards of $120 of their hard earned pay every WEEK. The company my wife now works for offers the exact same insurance Bruister has but they have it as the bottom of the line option and at a cost of only $50 per month (for a family of four or $30 per month for the employee & spouse). The big difference is that with Bruister they refer to it as premium insurance coverage whereas the company my wife works for calls it exactly what it is, a policy to be used in conjunction with a health care savings account. My wife & I now have the best BCBS policy her company offers, they pay 90% with no yearly deductable, total cost for the two of us is $180 per MONTH, now that's what I call insurance.
As for vehicles, fuel & cheap Chinese made tools (you guys still trying to charge the techs when that Chinese crap breaks?), before Bruister brought in those company trucks they weren't paying what Primebiz is. Primebiz say's he is paying $85/$20, Bruister was paying $60/$25 for veteran techs, $50/$15 or $50/$20 for FNG's. What is the pay now? Something like $10 per hour for FNG's and $12.50 for veterans?
Vaccations, yep Bruister offers them, but you can't take them during the summer. Oh the office manager and staff can, but the tech's can't. They also have workman's comp, but you had better be so disabled that you can't drive otherwise they will try to make you drive 80 miles (each way) to the office to work for minimum wage (that's $5.15 per hour folks) until you are able to return to full duty status (oh yeah, making an injured employee spend $25 a day in fuel to work for less than $45 per day is really taking care of your people, isn't it, my what a caring company Bruister is). It's only when you threaten to call a lawyer over it that they back off.
Buister does provide coax, connectors, zip ties, nail on wire clips and other small parts. The coax comes in various grades, from what I saw while I was there, about half the time I wondered if they were buying coax that didn't pass quality control inspection. During the summer of '05 I wound up with several spools of single coax that had holes in the outer jacket every few feet. And I also got even more spools fo double coax that the outer jacket would split on it's own where the signal wire was attached. For months ('04 & '05) we got bag after bag of nail on coax clips that were so brittle (both the plastic and the nails) they would shatter when you hit them with a hammer. I wound up buying my own at Lowe's because I got tired of trying ten to get one to work.
I could go on and on, but the point is you should make sure that what you want to brag about is really worth bragging about before bringing it up. If Primebiz doesn't offer all those things that you asked about, it is really of no concern, he pay's more than Bruister did before and after offer all those things. For what good it did me I'd rather have had the extra money in my pocket and the freedom to look for a decent insurance policy on my own. I'd also rather have used some of that better pay to buy some quality small parts myself instead of having to fight with some of the crap we were provided.
Re: Brewster-Out of Business?
Member #: 41567
Registered: 10/13/2005
Posted:
293
Name:
JD
Occupation:
installer
Location:
north Alabama
There are 4 replies to this message
