With the launch of the WMT today, I've already applied for a few new jobs. A big part of this job is the freedom to work at your own pace, and as long as your calls get done & the customers are happy, you're free to do what you will. That's why we put up with such low pay. But when they spend well over 6 figures on this baby-sitting app and we're still getting paid ~20/hr for highly specialized work, it's insulting. Riding your calls is integral to maintaining a consistent workflow. It seems evident this system is not created for customers, but as a way to find excuses to fire people for "time theft".
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Ricoh going 1984 micro managing with WMT is totally crazy given the conditions techs are working under. Not all international companies are poor to work with… just junk ones like ricoh.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G9pTBhcge2k
Between the new spy program which is called where's my tech and the fact that they have lost so many technicians in the past year and a half or so it was all I could do to get up and go to work everyday knowing what I would be facing. My territory as a field service technician went from around 50 Square mile radius to 150 MI radius in less than 2 months. And of course they haggle over gas prices and they're planing to review them once a month forces field service technicians to support the company out of their pocket by paying high gas prices which change on a daily basis and they're only willing to check on them once a month. Not to mention the lack of real training on these machines you basically get some kind of basic training on black and white and color and then the rest of it you are forced to figure out on your own. And this becomes problematic because of the translations between the parts manuals and the service manual do not use the same common terms that we've come to learn in classrooms and from other technicians. Working for international company is nothing but a pain in the a-s and I would never do it again unless I was starving to death and ready to lose my house is the only way I'd ever worked for this company again. It's obvious they don't know the cost involved in couple years of training a technician who may end up being a great technician in the end of finding some fault with them and kicking them out the door or they find some fault with a company and leave on their own. I want to see if you've ever sat down and calculated how much money they've Wasted by training employees and then kicking them out the door sending them down the road or the employee himself choosing to leave the company because of all the bull cr-p involved in working for an international company.
Lost me at, “Covid farce.”
I was a Ricoh field service technician until just a couple months ago. I worked for them for 6 years. Some of the products are good especially the black and white copiers as they are more reliable and not so complicated to work on because they are a single process machines. Of course they're blaming Toner shortages on the supply chain issue, and customer support complaints are expected when a tech walks in the door for a service call. And as far as service goes and copier deliveries, they recently contracted out the delivery service to another company under contract and they have no direct connection to Ricoh except for delivery of their machines. They recently envoked a policy where untrained delivery drivers who have little IT experience are expected to set up and install the copiers etc. They have been short on service help in my area ever since the covid farce was released on the world, and they now expect technicians to drive ridiculous amounts of miles due to expanded territories and lack of adequate field technicians without any additional compensation for mileage. They alos live by metrics for field techs and with the expanded territories, it is virtyally imposissible to meet these metrics. With gas prices being on a daily roller coaster ride, they are only reviewing the gas reimbursements on a monthly basis in essence expecting the service techs to support them by paying high gas prices with little to no additional compensation. And they never privide training on new models and you just have to depend on yourself and poorly translated service and parts manuals for assistance for the most part to figure out a problem. When you do get a help desk technician on the phone, many times they are located in another country and deciphering the accents and pronunciations is a big problem. The mission quotation of "Imagine Change" is a big part of the issues they have as an international company with worldwide reach. When they exercise this imagine change concept, it creates issues in the field for service technicians simply because they change too many things from previous models that worked very well that needed no changes to start with. Now I'm not going to criticize them completely because in their favor I will have to say that their power supplies are very rugged and they last forever. In six years of working for this company I only found about three power supplies that actually failed and caused problems. In these days of modern electronics, many use cheap components, components such as capacitors and they don't last the lifetime of the machine. If I had known when I was getting into when I accepted this job I definitely would not have taken it. Now they're finally realizing that they are in trouble as far as help goes especially when field service technicians are concerned and they recently sent me a couple of trinkets to help me improve my attitude towards the company after almost six years of working for this company, they never acknowledged my commitment to my work until the techncian shortage started causing excessive service complaints, and due to the supply chain issues and lack of service techs, I could see the end of my employement coming to a rapid end. Glad to be gone in reality, but in today's world, can you show me a truly ethical company who values employees as much as they do the almighty dollar? I dout that very much. So much for mission statements and ethics.
I saw all this coming years ago and got out with the severance package. These companies don't realize that in this day and age who knows what someone that is a loose cannon will do. Having the location of technicians is just wrong. Especially since so many have to have parts sent to their homes, so anytime during the day they go home to get parts it is shown. Not good at all.
As far as we can tell the customer can see your location 15 minutes after you enroute in the morning. It's very likely through any number of scenarios a customer can see where you live. If plans change before you leave your house or you have to turn around and come back etc.
It's a deep invasion of privacy and whilst I'm not a lawyer, I'm sure one could find issue with it.
Nice way to treat your front line worker. Class act(ion) ricoh…Does WMT active before/after regular business hours?