Deem Mechanical

[wrightbrigade]

I want to give my 2 cents about Deem as I worked there for almost a year. They let the dispatchers run the business. They will run you into the ground and you will hate life. They put unqualified techs on service calls and have the best guy go play clean up. This cycle only lasts so long, if your any good you will work until it's completely unsafe and they will demand for more. They will send you FAR away and keep you out late. This is coming from a former Refrigeration Service Supervisor and mainly speaking of the refrigeration calls. They can not even handle a simple Papa Johns PM or CVS call without somebody totally screwing it all up. You will get great pay, a new van and some nice shirts. You will get terrible insurance and a bad attitude. You will have to call off to get some rest. The word is out on the street and they can't find any good techs anymore. They used to have some of the best but they have moved on. I started to get the opinion they like having call backs as most of the time they still get paid twice. I say this because the worst guys never got in ANY trouble for doing poor work. The dispatchers also talk trash with all the techs so they spread stuff around and get people mad at each other. The contract / installers slap stuff in and run. As if service didn't have enough on their plate you run call backs on the contract side constantly. Good pay / NO life.

[mikeacman]

I really get a chuckle out of the guys who act like they're doing their employer a favor by taking the company van home....

we are ... Keeps all their property safe because when at the shop they have thefts ...

And if we start at the shop our time starts at the shop,as it is now my time starts when I arrive at the job or after one hour of drive time ...

I live 3 minutes from our shop . I would love to park my van there . I wouldn't have to look at it when I'm home . I would get an easy 300 more hours of pay each year.

I could walk or ride A bike to work

I could go on ....

Not being an ass... In our case it's cheaper for our customers ,allows jobs to be bid lower, and spreads our property out so the meth heads can't raid them all at once

[bohncoils]

Not disagreeing with your post, but you just described most if not all mechanical contractors Kind of the nature of the beast, feast or famine.

I want to give my 2 cents about Deem as I worked there for almost a year. They let the dispatchers run the business. They will run you into the ground and you will hate life. They put unqualified techs on service calls and have the best guy go play clean up. This cycle only lasts so long, if your any good you will work until it's completely unsafe and they will demand for more. They will send you FAR away and keep you out late. This is coming from a former Refrigeration Service Supervisor and mainly speaking of the refrigeration calls. They can not even handle a simple Papa Johns PM or CVS call without somebody totally screwing it all up. You will get great pay, a new van and some nice shirts. You will get terrible insurance and a bad attitude. You will have to call off to get some rest. The word is out on the street and they can't find any good techs anymore. They used to have some of the best but they have moved on. I started to get the opinion they like having call backs as most of the time they still get paid twice. I say this because the worst guys never got in ANY trouble for doing poor work. The dispatchers also talk trash with all the techs so they spread stuff around and get people mad at each other. The contract / installers slap stuff in and run. As if service didn't have enough on their plate you run call backs on the contract side constantly. Good pay / NO life.

[Dowadudda]

I can assure most of you that Pat could probably kick any one of your a$$es, just sayin. lol. Pretty big fella to be lipping off to. lol.

Actually he can muster with the finest mechanics around. Pat usually is the only guy who I can count on to come help when I need the muscle, technical or anything else at 2 am. He's a good decent dude.

As for the truck benefit as income, I don't like it, but it seems thats the way the IRS wants it.

As for Deem and any other mechanical contractor, talent is extremely hard to come by. And when less talent is on staff, it makes it hard for the rest of the talented guys. Supermarkets especially. The solution is to train, teach, train, teach, train, teach. And find good men who have ethics and willingness and motivation to get better. The character of real men is the missing link.

I was just with a young guy yesterday, who was really moaning about all the peripheral troubles and I could not help but think of back when I was in his shoes. Things were different. The trade has changed, it's kinda depressing.

[Ammonianite]

I've worked for companies big and small but DEEM is the most adversarial toward the front-line technician of any that I have ever worked for in decades in the service business. Turnover, at least in the geographical division with which I was affiliated with, was and is extremely high- even in this tough economy. In six months, we lost ten excellent rack technicians, two supervisors and a salesman. They do not treat their technicians fairly. One of my co-workers was the victim of what I have never seen in the service field. A meeting was held. A new rule was established (they were always changing policy and procedure but rarely communicating it to the techs). My buddy was called into the office and suspended for three days for allegedly misdiagnosing a unit. And the kicker was that during the meeting the manager from Indianapolis stated that the rule was just being put into effect and the penalties were to proceed from a verbal warning up to termination. They skipped all that and immediately suspended a good technician who may or may not have made a mistake. This kind of hints at the type of malice that DEEM engages in regards to their front-line employees. When I first started at DEEM, we spent an inordinate time waiting for the next call in parking lots- 1 hour or more was not uncommon. I spoke to a manager in Indianapolis who put the blame squarely on the technician- "The techs aren't trying hard enough to get ahold of Dispatch. And I am not going to pay you guys for sitting in parking lots!" I can cite so many examples, but I will share one last one- We were scheduled at a facility to replace some unit heaters. I showed up first, looked around and could not find a platform lift which I assumed was scheduled for the job. I called the office, was redirected from person to person to person until I finally got ahold of a man who sold the job. His response: "A platform lift wasn't included in the quote! Can't you guys do it from ladders?" No way- some of the heaters were located over a conveyor belt and couldn't be reached anyway without an extending platform. And how were we to get the old ones down and the new ones up? We did as much as we could as we continued to play phone tag for 3/4's of the day and having the local supervisor, who promised to get us a lift never call us back or respond to our calls until the end of the day when he called to cuss us out because we were going to exceed the quote. It was our fault! An hour later, in a more subdued tone, he called back and admitted that the lift was included in the quote but someone in Indy had dropped the ball. With DEEM, it is always the technician's fault until overwhelming evidence vindicates. Don't get me wrong- there are many good people in the Indianapolis headquarters but they, unfortunately are not the ones that engage the technicians on a regular basis. The things that I saw at Deem, I have never seen anywhere in twenty-plus years in the service industry. Bad craziness. Still- a job is a job and these days beggars can't be choosers.

[valdelocc]

time to unionize the rats SOB, call your local union, talk to the organizer, its easier than you think.

[MechanicallyInclined]

Even Serviceman classification wages trump what most non-Union Com. Ref. Techs make. It's time for change, indeed.

[John Markl]

time to unionize the rats SOB, call your local union, talk to the organizer, its easier than you think.

Ask the Hostess employees how that worked out for them.

[MechanicallyInclined]

You mean about the CEO's salary being tripled even after their 1st bankruptcy & then blaming their failure on union bakers & truckers? You must also be a strong Walmart supporter.
Will you close your shop if your employees organize?

[John Markl]

You must also be a strong Walmart supporter.

Funny how union people like to point their fingers at Wal-Mart as some sort of lighting rod for "what's wrong with America"......Yet, millions of Americans "voice their support" with their purses and wallets on a daily basis.

[koolkahuna]

The company I started with was non-union. They stated that there was no union needed as they treated everyone well and paid decent wages. 7 years later I left that company and all the remaining mechanics went union as we were no longer being treated properly, getting ripped off and the service manager was an alcoholic fool backed by the company due to his extensive refrigeration knowledge. It had become so bad that communication between mechanics and the service manager required a mediator. No face to face conversations if you could believe it.

IF a company tows the line no union is needed. The problem is that very few companies can stay decent without morals in place. They start getting greedy, tyrannical and think that they are doing the employees a favor by giving them a job. They think they can always get other employees.
In that case it is past due for a union as the employees have built a life around that employer and location and through circumstances are almost forced to put up with the abuse.
Human nature will soil employers, employees and unions if watchdogs are not in place. There is no right or wrong side. It comes down to the people involved.

To quote a former coworker that was unhappy with that company:
"Hey, I was looking for a job when I found this one!"

[raeden20]

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[Chuck]

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Yep, I thought so too.

[MechTech2013]

The truth be told.

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