Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer

[Gamut]

Re: Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer

@ 22 you'd be best aiming for the connectivity/solutions side of the business with the back up ability of fixing MFP's. (not the other way around)

Try to get on as many OEM courses as you can, plus another years experience then look around.

[banginbishop]

Re: Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer

agreed your pay is s**t. sadly without official training certificates no matter how much you say you can do the job it wont look good against a candidate with them at an interview. bide your time see if things change, get the training, and then look about.

[FRIDGEMAGNET]

[Richariri]

Re: Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer

@ 22 you'd be best aiming for the connectivity/solutions side of the business with the back up ability of fixing MFP's. (not the other way around)

Try to get on as many OEM courses as you can, plus another years experience then look around.

Thank you very much for the advice.

I am currently doing a connectivity Master course online with Ricoh and I assume my employer will actually put me on a physical course as I start my 2nd year and I believe it is a requirement for Ricoh Gold award.

unfortunately our IT support doesn't go further than working with an IT company on site as our policy is to not touch the current network. (liability)
I guess the best option is to try and get onto a Comptia Networking or Microsoft certified network course in my own time.

[Users Tech]

Re: Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer


with a wage like 25k, how many machines are assigned to you to support/maintain?

[Richariri]

Re: Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer

Can anyone tell me the rough cost of an MFD training course with Ricoh in wellingborough UK?

This is the main reason my employer determined such a low wage for me and I want to balance the costs

[FRIDGEMAGNET]

[Llama God]

Re: Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer

Can anyone tell me the rough cost of an MFD training course with Ricoh in wellingborough UK?

This is the main reason my employer determined such a low wage for me and I want to balance the costs

I'd personally say that the Ricoh courses are a waste of time and money, mostly because the most valuable training can be done in the field from experienced engineers who don't read out a Powerpoint presentation.

Additionally, try to fault-find on your own in a logical manner. The Ricoh machines all work on the same principals, broadly at least, so if you can work on an MPc6000 then you can work on pretty much anything. If you have a fault on a machine, a lot of the time it's down to service parts so check your PM counters (SP7803), tray feed counters (SP8451), ADF counters (SP8221) and jam counters (SP750). After that, narrow the fault down to individual units.

The best thing to do once you've done that is work your arse off and be willing to do any call and spend a lot of time servicing machines up. Get your return-to-fit rate down and, most importantly, your first-time-fix rate up. Then you can go back and justify a pay increase rather than throwing around figures that other companies pay.

Finally, make yourself indispensable by creating a niche of sorts for yourself. If you become an expert at networking machines, knowing exactly what each model can and can't do and fixing faults, more money will [probably] come with that.

Oh, and always admit if you drop a bollock because nobody likes people who lie to cover their mistakes.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer

One year experience mostly qualifies you to do what you're told. Unless you're some kind of savant, you haven't learned enough in the first year to do very much independently. You are not in any kind arm-twisting negotiating position. When you start working mostly independently, and have some training certificates, and maybe 5 years of toner in your lungs, maybe then but not now. And don't place a lot worth in those certificates. They expire, in a way. 7 or 8 years down the line those machines will be in a dump somewhere.

If I were to tender some useful advice.
1) I'd suggest that you start asking the "Why?" question a lot, to knowledgeable techs. For example: I just fixed this problem, and that's great, but I want to know why it's fixed.
2) Find a way to record the information so that you can find it again. When you first start out you'll think " I'll just remember the details ... " but you won't. Believe me, if you're not re-exposed to the information it will be completely gone in less than a year. Gone without a trace. Personally I use an Excel spreadsheet, cross-referenced by manufacturer, model family, call type (quality for example), solution type (coded), and all the details. If you read some of my posts you might think I have a great memory. Be assured that I do not, I just know how to cross-reference.
3) Take as much manufacturer training as you can manage. It makes you more valuable in the short term, and you might absorb some of the content just by physical proximity.
4) Ask for the jobs that nobody wants. This does not necessarily mean look for scut work. Say there's a machine that's constantly jamming and nobody can seem to fix it. Volunteer. Who knows? You might stumble over something noone else saw. Or you might learn something really valuable to put into your spreadsheet along the road to a solution. Every situation is a potential learning situation, if you think of it that way. Or how about this: Our dealer took on Ricoh products which included 40 or 50 machines in my 2 county area. We had a Ricoh dedicated guy who knew how to fix everything, yet I bugged him at every opportunity to let me take the calls in my area. Did I know anything about Ricoh? Nope. Was I able to figure it out? Yep. And the Ricoh guy was glad to coach me if it saved him 75miles driving. I was the first tech in our branch cross-trained on Ricoh and had not been to a single class, excepting the school of hard knocks. After a while you'll have a reputation as the typewriter specialist, the fax specialist, the legacy machine specialist, the high volume machine specialist, an IT specialist, when in reality you're just a really good generalist, unafraid to take on the next problem.

Did you see anything useful there? =^..^=

[Llama God]

Re: Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer

I'd personally say that the Ricoh courses are a waste of time and money, mostly because the most valuable training can be done in the field from experienced engineers who don't read out a Powerpoint presentation.

Additionally, try to fault-find on your own in a logical manner. The Ricoh machines all work on the same principals, broadly at least, so if you can work on an MPc6000 then you can work on pretty much anything. If you have a fault on a machine, a lot of the time it's down to service parts so check your PM counters (SP7803), tray feed counters (SP8451), ADF counters (SP8221) and jam counters (SP750). After that, narrow the fault down to individual units.

The best thing to do once you've done that is work your arse off and be willing to do any call and spend a lot of time servicing machines up. Get your return-to-fit rate down and, most importantly, your first-time-fix rate up. Then you can go back and justify a pay increase rather than throwing around figures that other companies pay.

Finally, make yourself indispensable by creating a niche of sorts for yourself. If you become an expert at networking machines, knowing exactly what each model can and can't do and fixing faults, more money will [probably] come with that.

Oh, and always admit if you drop a bollock because nobody likes people who lie to cover their mistakes.

Or move to London.

[slimslob]

Re: Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer

I'd personally say that the Ricoh courses are a waste of time and money, mostly because the most valuable training can be done in the field from experienced engineers who don't read out a Powerpoint presentation.

Here in the states, Ricoh courses are a must on newly released equipment models for dealers. Ricoh put a new policy in place starting on 1/1/14. If you do not have a tech trained on the new equipment within a set number of months after product release date, Ricoh will not ship equipment or supplies for said new models.

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer

Take on all the difficult jobs that know one else wants to do or able to fix. You will learn a great deal not only about machine and their problems but people and their problems as well.

In years to come your customers will say to you-- "your boss is not paying you enough; you're really worth more than that."

An after changing bosses or companies a couple of times. You might meet one in the street who say's "sh!t" I should have paid you more, you definitely had to put up with a lot of difficult situations; which I should have realised before you walked out. You really know how to fix difficult machines. And I would just smile as I walk away, and say under my breath "thanks @sshole but you had your chance."

So even though your worth your weight in gold you still have to put up with feeling like a door mat as your employer will always try and save 2cents before he gives you one more dollar. Such is the democratic/capitalistic system we exist in today.

[Richariri]

Re: Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer

Thank you for all the feedback everyone.

I don't mean to blow my own trumpet, but I already work hard with the ethos that most of you have said and the boss 'recognises' that I work hard.
Possibly my lack of first time fixes has put me in bad light with my boss, I honestly don't know what it is about me that makes him think I'm useless though. especially for my 1st year in the industry.
I am going out on call now and haven't had an RTF (apart from having to collect a new PCU) this year. I have organised 1000's of pounds worth of stock into an easy to locate system so that my colleagues and I are now much more efficient when it comes to needing a part for an item.

Either way, I have been given 3months notice now, so will need to go elsewhere. I have enjoyed the time i've spent at the company, just would of rather been thrown in the deep end than refurbishing machines all year round for 2.68 an hour

[glyn545]

Re: Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer

Thank you for all the feedback everyone.

I don't mean to blow my own trumpet, but I already work hard with the ethos that most of you have said and the boss 'recognises' that I work hard.
Possibly my lack of first time fixes has put me in bad light with my boss, I honestly don't know what it is about me that makes him think I'm useless though. especially for my 1st year in the industry.
I am going out on call now and haven't had an RTF (apart from having to collect a new PCU) this year. I have organised 1000's of pounds worth of stock into an easy to locate system so that my colleagues and I are now much more efficient when it comes to needing a part for an item.

Either way, I have been given 3months notice now, so will need to go elsewhere. I have enjoyed the time i've spent at the company, just would of rather been thrown in the deep end than refurbishing machines all year round for 2.68 an hour

I've been in the industry for 20+ years , my salary is shocking for the experience I have, I work for a manufacturer , who it appears revel in the fact they pay poor salaries . I love the job but really find it difficult to make ends meet.

[logrady2331]

Re: Wages for Ricoh Dealer Junior Engineer

I started in this industry 27 years ago after getting out of the Navy as an electronics/radar technician. Worked for no money for ten years. I have been everything from a street level technician to General Manager over a "mega dealer" (25 million or more in revenue a year). It is like any other job. You have to put your time in before you can command a good wage. My skill set covers all phases of dealership management and it took years to get that experience. I am making 60 thousand plus a year working for a small, independent Ricoh dealer. I do ALL the connectivity, machine repairs, rebuilds, billing, contracts, inventory plus monthly p&l duties to the owner. You won't make good money afetr only a year. No offesnse to anyone, but it takes a solid five years to really know what is going on and then another five to really get to where you know your craft (hopefully). I agree with the old timers here: Do good work ALL THE TIME and the raises will come. Get to know the IT side of things also.