Why have some of your fellow copy techs been fired?

[TheOwl]

We caught one guy out who was going out to machines and diagnosing problems rather well, but when it came time to fit the ordered parts......

Lets just say that he was putting the parts in the bin and saying that he had done the job.

Eventually he got caught as his job sheets weren't matching the machine history on the back of the machines and the fact that machines were still malfunctioning.

The stupid thing is, they had this dumb founded look on their face when they were fired. Gees, I wonder why???

Well, I must say thee opposite. Techs never get fired where I work. In two years I've seen 8 techs come and go. They never last long enough to get fired, they usually quit or disappear or never come back. The dispatcher is a bit crazy and the boss is a bit cheap, but I'm always treated well, can't complain. I guess its because, its hard to find responsible well trained technicians.

[prntrfxr]

One guy:

Carried parts in the back of his open bed pick-up truck for a whole week (& yes it rained). Fixing units were rusted circuit board boxes were soggy and could not be returned like that to vendor.

Used the company credit card to take his girlfriend to dinner, a movie and a hotel. I guess he never heard of credit card statements (my guess is he never had a credit card before)

Other guy:

Used parts from our stockroom to repair fax machines on the side for another company on company time. Parts for free + part of labor for free = $$$

Stole a customers newspaper off their front step.

Stole computers from the tech room


Other guy:

Waits until 11A to get started on his calls (due to phone calls to girlfriend) when he's supposed to be gone by 8:30 or 9 at the latest.

Went to a call 3 hours away and called me to tell me he had forgotten his tools and parts needed to complete the call. I told him that he'd have to come back to get them. He said, "I still get mileage, right?" So I fired back: "Did the company forget to bring tools to the site? We are not paying for your screw ups!" "Awww now, that's just not fair", he answered. "What would you think if a doctor was going to operate on you with no equipment? Would you go to that doctor again?" I replied. An hour later he calls me all happy and says, "I fixed it. I used the customer's tools and a spring from an ink pen and fixed it." I could have killed him, but he was too far away at that moment.

Repeatedly said he's at customer site, when customers calling us from in front of the machine at the same time. One time he said he was in traffic. Our lead tech came in and asked him what road he was on. He was on a road that doesn't remotely lead to where he was supposed to go. He was finally fired when he told us he was almost to the customer's site and the lead tech saw his car at a stripper club on the corner.


Another guy:

In fairness this guy was not a tech. He made deliveries and pick-ups for the techs. He had core parts and a customer's machine in his uncle's van with expired tags, no insurance, and a suspended licence. The vehicle was impounded and he was locked up. After a couple of days the customer was wanting their machine back. My boss ended up paying the guys bail, fine and the fee to get the van out of impound. Then she (yes the boss) said, "We can't fire him he's such a cute little fellow. It wasn't his fault, poor thing. Do you think we should fire him?" She was right it wasn't his fault, it was hers. She checked insurance, tags, & licence on all of the techs she hired (driving is not a tech's main function), but did not do the same when hiring a DRIVER.


These were the guys that got fired. Those that were kept:

1) one would come in an sleep on top of a pallet in the warehouse until 12 (on drugs apparently) and then do his job. "We never had a complaint from customers", my boss said.
2) one great tech and later service manager would regularly get in the face of corporate clients if they looked down on him. (once a lawyer called him a janitor - that didn't go well) He was banned from a couple of clients buildings by security. But he could fix anything, I swear as a tech he was awesome.
3) The best tech we ever had only had one hand (gone below the elbow). He was awesome. In about 2 seconds you never knew he was without it. Could move and lift machines. I wish I knew where he was, I'd hire him in a minute.
4) One was an alcoholic that looked as if he slept in his clothes. A couple of clients didn't think he had a professional image (they said he smelled bad) so he got regulated to smaller clients
5) One tech we could only keep in house. He would panic in traffic or if he got lost. I went with him to deliver some cartridges so that he'd have someone to direct him (he wouldn't let anyone drive his car and mine was too small). We went down a one-way street and he started to panic. I had to reassure him that we only had to go 2 blocks and then he missed the turn. We finally got there, but when we did he was crying.

[kyoceradude]

Had a tech that was going through a rough patch with his wife and was kicked out of the house. He was a good tech and ended up geting fired when his wife called the boss and asked him to get all of these parts and machines out of their garage so she can park her car in it.

One of our drivers was canned for using the company credit card to not only fill up the truck with gas, but also fill up his belly for lunch. (He found a gas station that hand wrote the receipts for the total only.) He got caught when he offered to buy one of the other drivers lunch and used the company card.

[prntrfxr]

One of our drivers was canned for using the company credit card to not only fill up the truck with gas, but also fill up his belly for lunch. (He found a gas station that hand wrote the receipts for the total only.) He got caught when he offered to buy one of the other drivers lunch and used the company card.

I think a person who decides to steal from the company they work for are morons. Let me tell you what always happens:

1) There are no secrets in this world. Eventually what is hidden WILL come out.

2) It amazes me that stupid people never think about the consequences of their actions.
If you get caught, how will it effect your family?
Is it worth losing your job over?
Is it worth going to jail over?
Is it worth having trouble finding work in the industry again?
Is it worth the humiliation you will feel when your co-workers find out and laugh that you were stupid enough to do that?
What kind of example are you setting for your children (if you have them)?

3) Because stealing creates a euphoria of "getting away with something", thieves end up getting cocky and thinking that they can't get caught. This causes them to do more brazen stupid things that get them caught (like the story above).

4) People who steal almost always get caught and those who don't always live in fear of someone finding out.

[atwageman]

At a former employer I had a boss that treated the techs like they were 4 year olds that couldn't tie there own shoes.......He was a full time alchoholic. I left the the company for better opprotunities. Eventually he got fired because he forgot to pick up some clients at the airport for a trade show. He was hung over I guess.

This is where the story gets good. A year and a half go by and me and the owner of the company i now work for decided we needed to add a tech. (I had the power to hire and fire). I hold interviews and guess who comes into my office for an interview.....yep you guessed it, that asshole who I used to work for. The look on his face was priceless, without me saying one word....I had his lunch and then some.

I wanted to hire him just so I could return a few favors.

[10871087]

We had a customer with two HVC's, the tech advised them to renew the service contract on only one of them and he would work on the other one "on the side", free toner and parts, they pay him cash for labor. Well that worked OK for a few years until he smoke checked a booard from both machines while troubleshooting. The customer was pertty pissed that they had two dead machines and called the company to complain that the tech smoked their "on the side" machine and hasn't been back with the part for a few days.

Tech Fired, Customer fired (with two dead high volume copiers)

Well, I must say thee opposite. Techs never get fired where I work. In two years I've seen 8 techs come and go. They never last long enough to get fired, they usually quit or disappear or never come back. The dispatcher is a bit crazy and the boss is a bit cheap, but I'm always treated well, can't complain. I guess its because, its hard to find responsible well trained technicians.

As I said before techs don't get fired here they just quit.
Another one bites the dust.. That's #9

[Stirton.M]

Not many people get fired from my office.

Most of the turnover is in sales...no surprise there.

But on the tech side...man, the amount of rope given and given and given and given....we still have techs who aren't up to snuff.

Unfortunately in the colour department, we hired a young lad who talked the talk, but couldn't fix a copier if his life depended on it. Sent him on a training course, he failed that. Sent him again and he barely passes it. These are open book exams for crying out loud. I've been on at least a dozen followup calls to machines he went to fix but could not. Basic dog problems in many of those machines he could not fix. He throws many parts at the problem, yet doesn't fix the problem. Of course, all the parts he is doing are NOT related to the problem he is supposedly fixing.

Dirty transport and sync rollers. Dirty or worn pickup and separator tires. Worn out torrington gears and pullies, dirty sensors. He even put in a damaged fusing unit (I put it on a counter in the shop, marked damaged and for parts only) into a customer machine. Customer called five minutes after he left to complain about that. I arrive and find the fuser I had already written off, with MY HANDWRITING on it right there on top. Drive gear was split on it. He didn't even wait for the machine to initialize, he just popped it in, tightened the screws, turned on the power and left before the machine was even passed the hourglass.

The most recent, customer called in for constant jams out of tray one, he blames the customer for excessive staples found in an area on the finisher and now the finisher cannot work, he says to the customer and my co-worker that he needs clutches for the finisher and leaves. I take the call, find that he screwed up a turnover gate in the finisher, it was in the wrong position. Incidently, there are no clutches in the particular finisher he was working on. Everything is direct drive. Staples were never an issue.

Worn pickup and sep tire in tray one, dirty transport tire, doc feed tires filthy and worn. Counters showing jam history would have told him EVERYTHING he needed to know.

I really really want this guy gone, but my boss says we need the help. Customers call in and specifically mention not to send him. He is rude to them, mostly women. He cannot shut up when he should be doing his job. He dresses like a slob, is often late for work, never does the job properly or up to standard and.......he is not helping me, that is for certain.

Man. How much crap can a guy get away with before management says enough?????

I am considering a baseball bat and a request that he meet me behind the dumpster.

[banginbishop]

The problem is good engineers are in short supply - lets face it, was you directed to your current job when you left school? i wasn't i had never even heard of a photocopier engineer i wanted to be a mechanic with cars. We put up with sub standard "engineers" because we struggle to find good engineers in the first place.