Large companies you have worked for and your opinions

VegasMichael

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I know some of you have worked for some large national/international companies and I'm interested in your opinions of those employers. In the past the big ones I have worked for were United Parcel Service and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. My thoughts:

UPS: Good outfit. Run very military like which suited me fine since it was my first job when I was discharged from the Navy. Everybody hustled and everyone was cool. Thought about making a career with them for a time but went in a different direction.

Enterprise: Long hours. As a rental representative I worked M-F from 7-6 and sometimes later if we got a late rush. I also had to work every other Saturday. However, I did feel valued and there was room to move up and make good money in management if you did your job well and were willing to stick it out. I wasn't.
 

Dusten

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I worked for boeing.
It's odd. Your first level manager makes or breaks the job. It's a huge corporation and you know you are worthless because there are so many others. But you build camaraderie within your crew and you feel valued there.

So, in that aspect it was like the military.
Good benefits. Good pay.
 

gimmie11s

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I currently work for a major automaker at their head office in the marketing department doing product and strategic planning. Needless to say its the best job I ever had and the company is great.



The point of the thread is to name names, sharpie.


UPS— worked all through college. Worked my ASS off and everyone in the warehouse managed themselves. Management team was unorganized and not effective. Still a fun job, I enjoyed it.

YRC Freight— union company where the Teamsters have more control than the Co Leadership. As a manager, the job is thankless and all you spend a lot of time on conf calls about how screwed all the facilities are.


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noco5.0

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It's been a long time but I worked for Travelers Insurance for a little while. They were part of Citi Group at the time. I absolutely hated it.....the bureaucracy was crazy. I was working in the Denver office but the group I was part of was based out of Hartford, Connecticut. Rather than get pens, paper clips, etc from the room right next to my "cube" I had to call some lady in Hartford and have them mailed to me since I was under a different budget. My boss was based out of Texas and was a complete DB. Only lasted a few months before throwing in the towel thankfully my previous employer took me back....never burn a bridge.
 

CompOrange04GT

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Worked for Plains Pipeline ( huge pipeline company )

they wouldn’t buy new pickups. ( I had one that the head lights fell out of twice) and .. another with 215k miles that barely ran...

They wouldn’t spend the money on that.. but had no problem if we were getting triple time and a half on a call out...

you were just a number.. barely above your direct boss knew you existed
 

Adower

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It's been a long time but I worked for Travelers Insurance for a little while. They were part of Citi Group at the time. I absolutely hated it.....the bureaucracy was crazy. I was working in the Denver office but the group I was part of was based out of Hartford, Connecticut. Rather than get pens, paper clips, etc from the room right next to my "cube" I had to call some lady in Hartford and have them mailed to me since I was under a different budget. My boss was based out of Texas and was a complete DB. Only lasted a few months before throwing in the towel thankfully my previous employer took me back....never burn a bridge.

Haha. I worked for travelers as well. Hated that place.
 

matab14

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Did a small stint with Caterpillar in Engineering. Obvious plusses with benefits. They had a fantastic system for what I would describe as an Engineering toolbox. Specs for days and common approved supplier parts that made things easy from that standpoint. However, I truly felt like a number there. Lots of thumb twiddling time! Just very slow rolling from that standpoint. Never really got to put your hands on stuff you designed. I felt I was much better off in a smaller company atmosphere so that's what I've pursued thus far and it's been very rewarding and lead to a true management role and I felt I have learned so much more along the way!
 

IronSnake

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Berkshire is a great Corporate company if you want to self-manage and grow. Subsidiaries in every direction, but top-down WB generally wants ambitious people in every position from the top down to the warehouse. Good Benefits. Good pay. Good people.
 

svtfocus2cobra

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I worked for Farmers Insurance before going into the military. It was a subrogation office so it was a pretty busy work place where most of the employees were on the phone arguing coverage with other insurance companies or lawyers. Can't really say too much about it being good or bad as it was just your basic office with cubicles and everyone was pretty nice for the most part and younger. It was a first job for a lot of people out of college.

Don't know if it counts but a body shop I worked at did work primarily for Enterprise Rent-A-Car so I worked closely with the upper management of the region and I really enjoyed that. We were actually pretty close with their management and we used to actually hang out with them and go shooting or go to a race when it was in town. I used to drive their cars home when they would be at our shop for repairs which technically wasn't a policy but they were cool with it and just told us we better fix anything that gets damaged.
 

VegasMichael

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I worked for Farmers Insurance before going into the military. It was a subrogation office so it was a pretty busy work place where most of the employees were on the phone arguing coverage with other insurance companies or lawyers. Can't really say too much about it being good or bad as it was just your basic office with cubicles and everyone was pretty nice for the most part and younger. It was a first job for a lot of people out of college.

Don't know if it counts but a body shop I worked at did work primarily for Enterprise Rent-A-Car so I worked closely with the upper management of the region and I really enjoyed that. We were actually pretty close with their management and we used to actually hang out with them and go shooting or go to a race when it was in town. I used to drive their cars home when they would be at our shop for repairs which technically wasn't a policy but they were cool with it and just told us we better fix anything that gets damaged.

i liked Enterprise. They took decent care of us. We had a lot of good relationships with dealerships and repair shops. As an employee I could rent cars from them for pennies on the dollar. I even got to do a few repossessions which was fun.

I worked for FedEx as a package handler years ago. Everyone seemed to love their job until they took away peoples pensions. Then people started leaving left and right.
UPS has severely altered their pension plan as well. Not sure of the particulars though. Company pensions are pretty rare now. Only city/county/state/federal jobs have kept them for the most part.
 

ford fanatic

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I worked for FedEx as a package handler years ago. Everyone seemed to love their job until they took away peoples pensions. Then people started leaving left and right.

Pensions are pretty rare, so they left a good company for that reason to probably work somewhere else with out one...

I gota say, been with my company 23+ years and wouldn't leave if they decided to take my pension away.
 

delvin.a

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I work for Bell Helicopter in manufacturing now (12years) and would not advise it. It’s a terrible environment for anyone that thinks critically. We also have an awful union that does nothing but keep bad workers employed.

Worked for UPS prior to Bell for 7 years and loved that job but at the time a full time position was years away (on call air driver for 5 years) so I came to Bell. In hindsight I should’ve never left but that’s water under the bridge now.

Edit: I do have a pension with Bell and had one with UPS but they bought that out in 19 and now it’s an annuity
 

ccq8le

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I have your old bell helicopter ceo as my boss now..... Mr JLG. He has broken up parts of the company and sold a lot of it. Definitely kind of has been an axe man since the start. This last year he has taken over the division I personally work for.

The parent company I work for is Terex, and have for nearly 20 years now. I am in the lifting division (Genie lift) which really has been good to me over the years. I started when the technology was coming out to build bigger and better, and the lifts were getting bigger and taller and businesses was "boom-ing".

Now thing are in the cost cutting and make it cheaper phases of the business instead of innovation and new product development. I have seen a lot of coworkers go over the years as cost cuts and economic conditions as well as to there own decisions (and not be replaced). Recently things are being pinched more and more and much of the work is going to cheaper overseas manfacturing facilities. Even the engineering has started going off shore. The company has really shrunken down the US operations.

If I was a 25 year old now or was giving advice to one who is, I probably would advise to stay away from the company as I would suggest I cant trust how long it will be safe to be a lucrative U.S. venture/manufacturer as management at anytime could just pull the plug and send all the work to cheaper operations elsewhere.

I am well invested here now and will try to keep it out as long as I can continuing to pad my best egg for the day they shut it all down here.
I work for Bell Helicopter in manufacturing now (12years) and would not advise it. It’s a terrible environment for anyone that thinks critically. We also have an awful union that does nothing but keep bad workers employed.

Worked for UPS prior to Bell for 7 years and loved that job but at the time a full time position was years away (on call air driver for 5 years) so I came to Bell. In hindsight I should’ve never left but that’s water under the bridge now.

Edit: I do have a pension with Bell and had one with UPS but they bought that out in 19 and now it’s an annuity

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VegasMichael

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I work for Bell Helicopter in manufacturing now (12years) and would not advise it. It’s a terrible environment for anyone that thinks critically. We also have an awful union that does nothing but keep bad workers employed.

Worked for UPS prior to Bell for 7 years and loved that job but at the time a full time position was years away (on call air driver for 5 years) so I came to Bell. In hindsight I should’ve never left but that’s water under the bridge now.

Edit: I do have a pension with Bell and had one with UPS but they bought that out in 19 and now it’s an annuity
Is the plan you have: Bell Helicopter Textron Master Retirement Plan?
Since Bell is part of conglomerate Textron is there another area within Textron you could transfer to where the culture would better suit you?
 

delvin.a

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Is the plan you have: Bell Helicopter Textron Master Retirement Plan?
Since Bell is part of conglomerate Textron is there another area within Textron you could transfer to where the culture would better suit you?

I believe that is the pension, I’ll have to look into it transferring tonight. Thanks for the suggestion, I had gotten okay with the idea of leaving it behind for a better fit maybe I can have both.
 

BDF8

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GE

Most political bureaucratic behemoth in existence. I worked in Additive and all my bosses were transplanted from healthcare. Made zero sense and our Q earnings proved it.
 

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