View is only from field perspective, (non residential).
I would not recommend a field tech position
Unmanageable workflow, flawed systems, inept leadership, and poor execution of team integrations from acquisitions plagues this company. We have had safety briefs about stress management because multiple techs have had heart attacks... That pretty much sums it up.
The systems we rely on for workflow at the field level are buggy and inaccurate. By the time orders are received, the set dates vary wildly, with it not being uncommon for a due date to be several months past due, putting the orders in a difficult to manage position. You may have orders with holds or missing a step, and these new orders will be shuffled into the mix with the wrong date, unable to tell what is truly on hold, and what is ready to work or when it is needed.
The "escalation" process is broken. Previously, if a project or order was escalated or expedited, you knew the priority. Now, everything is a so called "expedite or escalation". There is no push back from management, or vetting to see the truth behind these, and everything is accepted and pushed through. Your daily workflow is a complete guess. You will get your day planned, and orders plotted, but before you even get to the first one you will already have calls and emails for work being shifted, added, prioritized, etc.
Leadership seems to focus on the wrong objectives and metrics. The communication is also very poor and unclear. A
ProsCompetitive Pay
ConsInept Leadership, high stress, limited work/life balance
The best part of my day was my happy long term clients. After only a few weeks after I started in the small business department, I had enough clients brought to me by referral from past clients that I had more work than I could handle for the next several years.
This used to be a good company for representatives to self train through experience to be the best in their field. After several years, I believe I accomplished that. The key phrase "self-train."
The trainers have VERY little grasp on telecom systems, providing expectancies of day to day work, understanding billing, PUC tariffs, FTC regulations and the corporate structure. As a result, every employee hired on unwillingly lies to their clients for the first few years and re-transfers calls to inappropriate departments.
The blame doesn't entirely fall on the trainers; Coaches, Process Analysts, Project Managers, Escalation teams, Marketing and Software development teams, all have a short grasp of their duties and how it affects the corporate structure.
I've gotten acknowledgements from nearly all the above teams after consistently reviewing the facts with all the above personnel that the processes are violating nearly all PUC tariffs via over-billing, service fallout, billing fallout, broken compensation system, system fallout and marketing that doesn't sync with the facts. 90% of my day was handling complaints from clients about mis-transfers, services that were added without their knowledge, untrue infor
Horrible toxic workplace that doesn't abide by their own company policies.
I was hired as a ROW Agent and worked at the I-17 and Camelback location. I was one of three agents hired across three States since four previous ROW agents walked out on the job. I didn't find this out until after I was hired and started working. My job was to oversee all ROW projects in WA and MT, and to manage/review the contractors work for final submission. My only resource for learning the company's internal databases was a narcissistic crusty old hellhound, who was also the only other ROW employee there. She was tasked to train me by our ROW manager, but refused to do so, and openly insulted me in the office in front of everyone. The few other agents (6 total) spread across the other States had similar attitudes depending on whether or not you were accepted by the coven. My ROW manager had neither Right of Way experience, or mgmt experience. He said he had a friend at CTL who told him about the open position and was hired. He had only been a RE attorney previously, and knew nothing about Right of Way. In less than three weeks after starting, I was forced to file an HR complaint against the black-hearted beast when it became obvious that the public shaming and berating was never going to stop without intervention. I never had to file one before at any previous employer, and the complete lack of training was affecting me. I tried to soothe the demon with home baked goods and compliments to no avail. My HR complaint was filed through a 3rd party company, whose own employe
The bad (bear with me, this may take a minute)...
Imagine a place to work where the processes change daily because they were only temporary fixes for larger more complex issues in the the first place. You're only informed of these changes through appropriate, official channels a small percentage of the time. Now add in the fact that the systems you use to do your job are broken as often as they function correctly and your day to day consists of a workload that should have been assigned to 3 or more people. Despite this you're still expected to do more, more, more, faster, faster, faster without the tools / resources do so. Then there is the infighting between teams that must work together in the order process. These teams would rather argue with each other than help out and just do their jobs in most cases. This is not 100% of the time but it's often enough to say that it's a large part of the corporate culture here (not the culture they advertise on the website of course). A lot of this is due to the process breakdowns where no one know who is responsible for what and some of it is pure laziness on behalf of the the sales teams who initially submit the orders. As a whole they're held accountible for anything and we've even been told internally, "there is nothing we can do about their continuous issues, sales is sales."
Training here is almost non-existent which can be highly problematic if you don't self-teach well. Jobs are very technical in this industry and without prio
Een typische dagals opleverings- en ontwikkelings coordinator begon voor mij om 0400 met een werkvergadering met de off-shore die in India gevestigd was (11 uur tijdsverschil.).
In deze door mij geleide vergaderingen werden project voortgang, coordinatie met test en ontplooings disciplines, alsmede software-development reviews en instructie sessies uitgevoerd. Om 0900 vond de dagelijkse voortgangs vergadering met mijn manager en de project-organisatie plaats, alsmede de coordinatie met derde partijen zoals externe leveranciers van gebruikte producten en diensten.
Later in de ochtend werden mogelijke ontwikkelings defecten en problemen doorgenomen met de 'Subject Matter Experts', maar doordat er zich slechts hoogst zelden ontwikkelings defecten voordeden, lag hierbij de nadruk op de ontwikkeings, QA en eindgebruikers test-uitvoering en uiteindelijk de productie voorbereiding. In de middag werd door mij doorgaans aandacht besteed aan de voorgangs documentatie, platform integratie en versie-controle, alsmede overleg met de gebruikers-organisaties en de benodigde hardware aanschaf en onderhoud, alsmede de afstemming met het test-laboratorium en de beschikbaarheid van de componenten hierin.
Vaak vonden 's avonds nog 'West-Coast' en Offshore afstemming workshops plaats, zodat het werk in de respectievelijke tijdzones op efficiente wijze voortgang kon vinden.
Qwest / CTL was als bedrijf in overgang tussen meerdere industrie-wijde overnames en grote interne en externe markt v
ProsFlexabilitiet van werkplek in de vorm van werk van huis.
ConsStarre en chaotische ITC bedrijfsvoering met een overmaat aan bureaucratie, Veel nutteloze (en zeer matig competente) management-lagen, Door de constante druk op het project was persoonlijk tijdsbeheer en welzijn moeizaam te realiseren.
My experience working as a Prism Retention Supervisor, as the Prism Retention Order Accuracy SME, and my past experience working as in Quality Control as well as both my interpersonal and organizational skills and my willingness to learn make me an excellent candidate for any position.
I have experience in both the Consumer Sales and Consumer Retention groups which have helped developed me with a set of skills that is not only required but necessary. While in my current role as a Retention Supervisor I have participated in several projects, tracked their effectiveness and analyzed the department’s results before and after each project.
In January 2013 I accepted the role as the Order Accuracy SME for Prism Retention. During this time I have sent out daily Prism Template coaching’s to the agents and their supervisors; sent out daily Prism Discount reports to each supervisor on our leadership team; created weekly awards and prizes; participated in bi-weekly conference calls with our Project Manager and sent out weekly scorecards for OA/CC/Prism OA for each supervisor to our Project Manager.
In August 2012 I worked directly with a member of our Prism Group on a project for the Prism Elite Tech Trial. This trial lasted until December 2012 and during this time I updated a daily spreadsheet with all Prism customers reporting chronic Prism issues. Not only did I follow each account to ensure the proper credit was given to the customer, I also worked directly with a memb
CenturyLink wants to be a top-tier technology company and they do some things well within specific and limited circumstances, but they are lying to themselves about their capabilities and ability to execute on much other than voice and network solutions in markets where they have a relative monopoly.
The company's procedures are stunningly complex and difficult to navigate, making it very difficult for front line sellers to actually do their jobs efficiently. The company grows through acquisitions that never get fully completed or integrated so there are often five different ways to complete what should be one simple task. Because of this, legacy dead weight still finds relevance at a big old telecom company stuck in the 20th century. Meanwhile, executive management makes rash, questionable financial decisions which result in sellers being let go to cut costs. Tell me what sense it makes to cut off your revenue streams while cutting budgets and continuing to pay strikingly incompetent support staff...
On a day-to-day, sellers lack sufficient resources to be successful which management refuses to acknowledge. Anecdotally, my 10-week training was a mind-numbing proprietary blend of Sales 101 and Telecom 101 which was primarily self-paced and web-led, focusing on CenturyLink's "core offerings", which are ill-conceived product bundles the company tries to shoehorn into their customers' much more straightforward needs. On top of that, I literally didn't have access t
Hired me for my ability to sell, then provided zero relevant training on complex products and services until 4 months into the job. When training was provided, it was how to navigate antiquated computer systems. They still run on a DOS based billing system.
75% of the time the support systems and teams provided to solve problems passed the buck and said call a different department for which they didn't have the contact information. The other 20% of the time the wrong solution was applied to the customer. On more than one occasion I got caught in a pass the buck circle between 3 or 4 different departments.
Billing errors are rampant an the process for resolution is long and bureaucratic and often results in a denial while thousands and thousands of customer dollars are contractually locked up for months and months at a time.
One of many examples, I inherited a customer problem that was 3 months old when I started. When I quit the problem still hadn't been resolved after working on it almost weekly for 6 months. The manager pulled me aside on several occasions telling me that I'm not supposed to spend my time working on problems caused by inappropriate sales.
I worked on the non-union side of the house. Getting the union side of the operation to correctly identify a problem and applying the appropriate solution in the first 3 attempts was an exercise in futility.
The conditions in which one must perform are impossible if you have a conscience. Turnover on the floor of appr
Prospay and benefits
Consnearly zero personal accountability, no promotional opportunity, turn and burn staff as hard and fast as they can
1.0
Sales and Service Technician | Boise, ID | Jan 14, 2014
Horrible company to work for
So I accepted the job for a Customer Service rep in Boise, ID at 10.50 per hour, a raise to 11.00 after 5 weeks, and then a raise to 11.50 at the end of assessment. Assessment is basically a one month period where you have to hit 70% of the monthly quotas or you are fired. About a month in they brought our new hire class into a room and told everyone they weren't going to honor any of the pay that they promised. They said it had something to do with the new contract that corporate and the union signed and there was basically nothing they could do about it. They are going to keep our pay at 10.50 an hour and then get .25c raises every six months. What company does that??? Not to mention it is illegal because we all signed documents about our pay structure.
They lied about the commission structure. They make it sound as if you will be rolling in dough once you get on the floor and start taking calls. About a month in they also changed the commission structure. You really can't make any commission money unless every call you get you completely harass the customer into spending more money until they basically tell you to stop. You have extremely high sales quotes you have to hit or you will get shown the door. You are required to sell a certain amount of home phone, internet, tv, verizon wireless each month but 95 percent of the customers you get already have most of those services. Especially the home phone and internet. You have to have at least one of those se
ProsBenefits are decent.
ConsTerrible pay, unrealistic sales quotas, always wondering if you are going to lose your job, no parking, a bunch of lies from management, terrible training program
This was my first time working in a call center. Call centers are like gas stations. People come and go, they are not there to stay. A lot of my co workers though have many years in call center experience and report centurylink(CTL) to be the best by far. And I would tend to agree even based on my experiences.
The management is not on your back, in fact I see my supervisor about twice a week and we just exchange greetings. This is common among most supervisors there.
You just show up, do your work and go home. Just a statistic, there is little to NO team work involved. Period. If you need assistance you call up to Tier 2.
What you learn at this job will be how the customers modem (internet equipment) connects to the CTL network. They call in, you diagnose it and try to fix it remotely. If you can't you dispatch a field technician to physically resolve the issue. It's a very tedious job and not very challenging. But you can't expect much from a call center. CTL even offers a good mix despite how tedious it is for me.
Co workers are often anti-social and introverts. Thus many have years of call center experience and not many interpersonal face to face skills. You'll be on a team; but you will not collaborate or have meetings with that team. The cubicals are quite big which is a plus, you don't have a very loud call floor. Or the person next to you screaming in your ear.
The hardest part of the job is the job culture. There are 2 main sides to CTL. 1)Customer Servic
Proslarge cubical areas, relaxed work environment, great starting pay
Consunpaid lunch break, bad employee retention rate, pay 61$ month for parking at SLC office.
You come into work and are responsible for your time. Tardy and absence dings WFM though - they often screw up when correcting a time or putting your time off in so you get written up anyway. In tech support, you take calls from people needing their service fixed. You have about 12 - 15 mins per call to resolve it. This is one of the metrics they require, first call resolve. If this customer calls back for any reason, it dings you and your rating goes down. Hardest part of this job is how helpless you are when you can't fix it because you don't have access to the tools which they frequently take away. You, instead have to call other depts to essentially do your job. Care often disconnects customers and sets up new service so they get the commission, tech support of course get that call to fix what was cancelled. No one in mgmt seems to care about this.Frequent hang ups from other agents not wanting to do their job, and mgmt has no way of tracking who so it is left alone as well. Don't get me wrong their are good, passionate supervisors here. Some, not so much. On the up side, they do have schedule bidding! But again, that to is frustrating. You spend 2 years moving up the ladder so you can work early, only to have them change the policy, add new groups and all of a sudden your working until 10 pm again. You do get pay raises every 6 months, it caps at $16/hr. You get 10 days vacation time, 4 days of personal paid time off and 2 days of paid priority time off. This may change
ProsFrequently have lunches, plenty of support, decent pay raises every 6 mos
Cons0 job security, too much micromanagement, upper mgmt wastes time and resources, conflicting policies, departments are never on the same page, no flexibility for absences or tardies, many many mistakes in WFM department that affect your job
Questions And Answers about CenturyLink
If you were to leave Lumen, what would be the reason?
Asked Mar 23, 2017
Bonuses for execs and more work and responsibilities for everyone else.
Answered Feb 24, 2021
Customers know what a Rotten company Centurylink is. Employees
know what it’s really like to work in
a Central Office surrounded by Garbage. Mgmt tells employees to
falsify company records. The problem is no one cares. Iowa.
Answered May 21, 2020
What is the work environment and culture like at Lumen?
Asked Jun 13, 2016
The environment is awful. Managers are unreliable and not trustworthy. Managers expect you to help them out even when you don't work for them. Co-workers will stab you in the back just because they know they can get away with it. The work ethic is to do as little as you can and push work onto other co-workers as often as you can. Managers will take credit for work you do with recognizing your efforts. The overall culture is to get away with anything you can.
Answered Nov 12, 2021
I never tell anyone I worked at
CenturyLink. It’s like saying you
are a former inmate. Just an awful
company. Yelling, Screaming and
Foul mouthed Supervisors. Don’t
even apply. They are beyond reprehensible. An awful company !
Answered Jun 2, 2020
How are the working hours at Lumen?
Asked Jun 11, 2016
Just an awful company. The hours
worked are the least of their problems.
I was told to falsify company records.
I was told this is our policy. Because “we don’t have the time to be honest”.
I guess in Iowa they do things different.
Answered Nov 3, 2019
You will have no life if you are a field technician . I was Consistently working 450-700 hours a year of overtime let that sink in a minute sure there was OT where did the last 10 yrs of my life go? havent been to the beach once in 5 years...worked every saturday for 8 years...........700 hrs ot is equal to almost 5 months of 40 hr weeks
Answered Oct 2, 2019
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Lumen a better place to work?
Asked Aug 23, 2017
Stop your subordinates from lying and falsifying documentation. Supposedly this is happening in Iowa, but it is happening everywhere. Everywhere people are being lied to by HR. The Integrity Line is a path to being fired, not a path to resolve company issues. People's titles and duties are being falsified so they can be forced to perform more work with less pay.
I reported these issues to the Integrity Line, but they fired me instead of correcting the issues.
Answered Jun 4, 2020
Stop management from telling technicians to falsify official company records. In Iowa this is the
policy in OSP and the Central Offices. Does Centurylink realize how degrading it is to be told to
falsify official records ?
Answered Mar 6, 2020
How would you describe the pace of work at Lumen?
Asked Dec 29, 2016
In Iowa the local policy is Just Make Stuff Up. So I would say yes, it is pretty laid back. I was told that this was the Wink Wink Rule that Management has authorized since we are Too Busy To Be Honest.
Answered Dec 1, 2019
There are techs in Iowa Central Offices that are allowed to where Pajamas to work. If you are a Manager “favorite”.
The Manager is posting his resume on job sites calling himself a “Director”.
This same guy cannot even get techs to take out the Garbage. If they can’t manage taking out Trash, how can they fix your troubles ? Oh. That’s right. They don’t have time “fix all these troubles”.
They are to understaffed to “actually fix these problems”. The techs complain constantly about their incompetent Manager. He complains constantly about them. Just a very Sick and Unhealthy workgroup. Everyone hates everyone else and they all Hate Centurylink. With their Clown Manager
can anyone blame them ? I think not.
