Cable Forum - View Single Post - A few thruths about Virgin media engineers (Kelly Communication ones!)

Acusend · 27-08-2009, 09:21

I worked for the thieving Irish Kelly Group for 3 months see year, and only did so as this damn recession means there is very little else work. I would advise everyone to avoid like the plague here are just a few of my bad points working for them...

1) Interview stage, you're told that the pay is in the region of £25,000pa - It isn't!

2) Training - 3 weeks in a classroom over 80 miles from my house on £40 per day paying 30% Tax and £30 per pay day charge to their composite company and you won't see a penny for at least 4 weeks. They will not help with any travelling costs, quite a contrast to VM as a friend of mine is a sales rep and during his training they paid his train fare and put him up in a hotel...

3) Pay - it is none existent, once you're out of the classroom you're told you will be signed off from VM in about 2 weeks and then you are off training money and onto real money. 2 months later I finally get signed off and the delay couldn't have been performance related as during those 2 months I was forced to complete jobs on my own but on training pay. So if you do join these cowboys ensure you can afford to live on about £150 a week for a couple of months and remember that it is a 6-day-week you'll be working. This is far below the minimum wage and should be illegal but I think they get away with it as you're self-employed. Despite having my own Ltd setup and my own accountent I wasn't allowed to do this, I had to use their own Umbrella company which meant losing £30 every 2 weeks to pay them. And no you can't change the pay pattern to monthly to save money. And as stated before, you dread every pay day as there are always mistakes, yet they never seem to over pay you.

4) Tools - You have to pay for them, yes YOU! Costing around £300-£400. Wouldn't be a problem working for Sky as you could do some private work to pay for them, but you can't really do the same with Virgin.

5) Hours - As mentioned before, it is always a six-day-week and 90% of the time the hours are 7:30am - 8:00pm

6) The job - The trainers do a good job to teach you the correct ways of doing your job, but once you get out into the field you'll see that NO ONE does it properly, everyone takes shortcuts at the expense of the customer as failures happen so often due to rushing. But, there is little choice as when your having to complete 9+ jobs a day on your own you have to rush.

All, in all - avoid, work for Sky if you can handle the heights, pay, perks and job satisfaction is so much better.

27-08-2009, 09:21	#47
Acusend Inactive Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 1	Re: A few thruths about Virgin media engineers ( Kelly Communication ones! ) I worked for the thieving Irish Kelly Group for 3 months see year, and only did so as this damn recession means there is very little else work. I would advise everyone to avoid like the plague here are just a few of my bad points working for them... 1) Interview stage, you're told that the pay is in the region of £25,000pa - It isn't! 2) Training - 3 weeks in a classroom over 80 miles from my house on £40 per day paying 30% Tax and £30 per pay day charge to their composite company and you won't see a penny for at least 4 weeks. They will not help with any travelling costs, quite a contrast to VM as a friend of mine is a sales rep and during his training they paid his train fare and put him up in a hotel... 3) Pay - it is none existent, once you're out of the classroom you're told you will be signed off from VM in about 2 weeks and then you are off training money and onto real money. 2 months later I finally get signed off and the delay couldn't have been performance related as during those 2 months I was forced to complete jobs on my own but on training pay. So if you do join these cowboys ensure you can afford to live on about £150 a week for a couple of months and remember that it is a 6-day-week you'll be working. This is far below the minimum wage and should be illegal but I think they get away with it as you're self-employed. Despite having my own Ltd setup and my own accountent I wasn't allowed to do this, I had to use their own Umbrella company which meant losing £30 every 2 weeks to pay them. And no you can't change the pay pattern to monthly to save money. And as stated before, you dread every pay day as there are always mistakes, yet they never seem to over pay you. 4) Tools - You have to pay for them, yes YOU! Costing around £300-£400. Wouldn't be a problem working for Sky as you could do some private work to pay for them, but you can't really do the same with Virgin. 5) Hours - As mentioned before, it is always a six-day-week and 90% of the time the hours are 7:30am - 8:00pm 6) The job - The trainers do a good job to teach you the correct ways of doing your job, but once you get out into the field you'll see that NO ONE does it properly, everyone takes shortcuts at the expense of the customer as failures happen so often due to rushing. But, there is little choice as when your having to complete 9+ jobs a day on your own you have to rush. All, in all - avoid, work for Sky if you can handle the heights, pay, perks and job satisfaction is so much better.