Training is a joke. Expect a week of classroom and if you are lucky, two weeks of field training before you are on your own. Plus, you have 90 days to be as proficient as the rest of the techs or you can expect a coaching.
There are dozens of ways to get fired. Get too many tickets (even off the clock in your own car), you are fired. Have more than three damage claims called in on you (even if they aren't your fault) you are fired. Call in sick more than three times? You are fired. Show up late to your first job too many times (snow is no excuse) you are fired. In the four months I was with the company I saw at least 6 guys get fired, one teeter on the edge of being fired, AND my trainer got fired for no reason, no explanation.
Management talks down to you, even for the simplest mistake. Being new is not an excuse. You constantly are dogged about your speed, your performance. Management is also distrustful of techs. Expect a manager to drop in on you at least once a week, if not more frequently, at which point they will rummage through your van, look at your job, and tell you how good (or more likely bad, and how wrong) it has been done.
Hours can be brutal. I was driving anywhere from one to two hours away from my house to get to my first job. You have to be on site by 8 am. This would have been fine if I could have been routed an amount of points that I could handle, but I was being given more jobs than I could handle. This led to me not getting done with my last job until 9 or 10 pm and then having a 1 to 2 hour drive home.
Don't expect to get promoted. You have about a 10 point metric list that you have to meet to even be considered. Even then you have no guarantee of moving up. One of the items is connecting receivers to a phone line or internet connection. The fact that a customer refuses or doesn't have phone/internet is no excuse (notice a pattern yet?) My training group was even told to use a neighbors wifi connection if need be, just get the receivers connected no matter what. Why is this so important to dish?!
