The biggest con is a lack of training. Due to high turnover it’s not uncommon for one certified installer to be trying to train five people. This is made even worse when you don’t have someone certified to train (management finally got trained certified three weeks before separation… after over a year).
You will be completely overwhelmed with various departments, trainings, people, and guidelines for AT LEAST six months after hire. Logging your time is a confusing mess of navigating paperwork required which you will rarely see in the field as most days are so long that senior techs will finish them at a hotel or next day. Accompanied with trying to cram multiple people into smaller spaces during time critical installations and learning is extremely difficult here.
Policies for expenses change consistently which results in rejected expense reports, disabled cards, and ultimately disciplinary action. Expenses are the most dreaded part of this job. Even if your manager tells you that you can do something (in my instance traveling home for the weekend between trainings to console mourning family over death in the family), if expenses don’t agree that will insist on making it personal expenditure which will have to be reimbursed by you (a few hundred for gas in my case). I also received a large fee on a company required storage unit that was considered a personal expense. The reason? Disabled card while I was on STD for multiple surgeries. That too became a personal expense in order to have my corporate card reactivated.
The pay is good, especially in this economy but the stress of the job, compartmentalized management (you will have far more department managers than support staff), inadequate training for such a vast product line, and inconsistency in work load (most senior staff will work all day with one lunch break, fourteen hour day to get to the next place or home), it’s ultimately not worth the headache. You stay because of the pay which is kind of a golden cage but it’s not something I’d build my life around in case of changes.
