RIF?
Contract out?
Safe?
13 replies (most recent on top)
It's a joke how in some markets Nokia does everything and others they dumped most of it on the FEs. I don't understand how these differences can exist. Hell, I know a lot more about Nokia products than their own installers.
@VO9nvQ9-3zmn not me. nokia does almost everything for us
I might open a door at a site twice a week
Agree with @VO9nvQ9-3ont. If you want to know who is really busy, just follow the build plan. In my area, we do all of our own integrations/BB upgrades/ carrier adds/RET configs, not Ericsson. There is also interference hunting, PIM issues, drive tests, we do many of those things that Sys Perf used to do , but now in our task bucket. We watch our own alarms, try to keep up with all the PO's to receive and approve in Site Tracker, things that we used to have admins for. Since last November's last layoffs some now have to drive more than 4 hours daily just to get to and from sites to clear an alarm, troubleshoot PIM, change a rectifier, check on a generator not running that we saw on a report while sifting through pages of Gmails, many not related to anything we are dealing with . It all takes time, it all takes manpower. Two commodities we are having less and less of.
@VO9nvQ9-2dbs I don't think this is true for everyone. If you live in the middle of no where with 20 sites, yeah you are coasting. If you live near a big city with 45 plus sites of all kinds, it's a different story. I'll admit the work load and the night work that comes with it does go up and down but things have changed dramatically in this job the last 3 years.
Abby Knowles?
@VO9nvQ9-2cdr big scam, nobody is busy. what did you do? tinker with some door alarm, put in a ticket for rssi,maybe test some batteries, slot a tfu? just a bunch of busy work
FAE's have been feeding sh-- to their managers for years and the managers are mostly clueless
I wanted 3 or 4 more years as a FAE but what happens when half my team takes the package is scary.
At 54 I may be looking for other work at a good chance of half my pay.
@1hnb, Who is this Abby to which you refer? Abby Normal? Dear Abby? Abby who?
@1gfs. I am really surprised at that! I am an FAE on the wireless side, and I and my co-workers have so much work we don't know where to start in the morning. If you are really that idle, you need to get out of the house, and come help us out!
BTW I am no red Kool-Aid drinking manager nor director want to be. I am just an FAE tech that needs more boots on the ground to help with the collective work overload.
I'm a fae on the wireless side, I work maybe 2-3 hours a day. We contract everything out, hide alarms, ignore others, I may leave my house twice a week for work. Why would I ever leave that? There use to be standards 10 years ago
Abby’s pushing hard for a rebadging. No one in Field Ops is safe.
Are you speaking to Field Assurance Engineers? Also known as Network Assurance Engineers? Also know as Net Ops Techs? If so, yeah I am one of those. There have been so many changes (or should I say additions) to our scope of work and job title changes it's hard to keep track what our title is anymore.
But back to your question, my gut feeling is it depends on how many really take the offer. I think contractors will back fill some of the roles at first, and if that works well, then they will have them take on more and more of the work and projects eventually downsizing the real VZW techs. I see rebadging being a distinct possibility, thus the 3rd party vendor such as Ericsson will pick the cream of the crop, and leave the rest to the RIF rolls. I would like to stay, but don't see how they won't completely over work the folks who will be left.
all of the above, except for safe.