We all agree that the title "independent contractor" doesn't mean much more than "slave", "minion", or whatever....all coming to the reality of overworked, under paid, and all to just be chipped away at every corner. That is everywhere, with every company now days. We all agree that not only are the charge backs wrong, but almost criminal. All the negative we all agree on. What can be said other than we are a creation of ourselves. Years ago when we were proud of what we did, who we did it for, and all the terms from both sides......we did nothing more than feed the industry a huge list of people who wanted to share the life. The huge influx allowed the "companies" to begin the corporate slaughter of everything and everyone in its quest for the next buck. For everyone of us that is upset or ready to leave the industry, there are dozens who want to take our place, and will do so for harder work and lower pay. So there ya go. We did it to ourselves. Now back to reality. In the Adcom/Smart Circle world of 3 calls for every job and all the possible charge backs.....a good manager can stop 90% of it. If I am on hold for more than 5 minutes to put in status (en route, on site, ect), then I hang up and either myself or manager can drop that note in Pro-Site and stop a charge back. Just remember it cannot be abused. Same for closing out jobs from customer's phone. Can be missed with proper notes and no penalty. Don't get me wrong. It took almost 9 months for me to come to terms with the system and how to operate within it. My only gripe is the shady sales done with empty promises.....mostly on custom work. Yes the customer initials the space for custom work, but just like installation paperwork, we all know this is one of those "just initial here, here, and here" moments that are not explained. That leaves us poor "minions" to try to explain, discuss, be sympathetic to, yet try to get paid for our custom work....and do it without blowing the sale. Yep the pay cuts suck. Yep no pay on service calls as a result of failed equipment or any reason for that matter sucks. What sucks more is running a route for HSP and O&O where you do 4 upgrades in a day, work for 12 hours, burn 40 in gas, 50 in material, and only get paid 160 for those upgrades. In the end it is a balance of what you want, will tolerate, and can figure loopholes to. Nothing more. I have to remind myself that at least I get Sunday and holidays off. At least I only service my own installs (or techs that work under me who are no longer around). At least I have the ability to send a reschedule request in so I can group jobs together and cut down on driving at least a little. It's retail work....where priorities are what you, the installer, and what the customer wants. We all end up talking the customer into our way, knowing full well we suggest it mostly because its easier. Finally my personal favorite.....its new equipment at every install because I cannot stand trying to do a mover for HSP on a customer with 1 receiver from every series and decade and having to turn that hell firing nightmare into a working system. We do installs with new equipment and for SWiM......it's damn close to a cable system. Now if we could diplex in the CCK on the existing cable internet line.....that would make this almost a joy to do every day.
This is CABL.com posting #339579. Tiny Link: cabl.co/mbAvf
