I am sure that my subject line give out my name for those of you that were at the Charlotte location. I came to Ameritrain originally as a student that was then brought in as the receptionist and then as a part-time instructor. I have seen how dirty this compnay can be from all the angles as much of you have seen aswell.
Before I give my two cents I want to make this clear that all the student realize that the employees are being hurt and lied to just as badly as you have. We had no previous knowledge of what was going to be happening to the company. Please do not hold any grudges with us.
As an Instructor:
I like to get a lot of feedback from my student trying to make thier experience with the company as beneficial as I possibly could. This was a very challenging task due to the fact that when I start my class I was not supplied with any resources to use at all. No lesson plan, to teaching aids nothing. I spent every morning highlighting the schools teachers copy of the book trying to prepare a lesson.
I was then notified near the end of my class that a lesson plan was put together by another teacher and is now availible. I managed to get through my class and feel that my students were happy with the knowledge they received. One thing that puzzled me was that the teachers book would instruct to show slides supposidly supplyied with the bookset. I never saw these slides which wasnt a problem becasue we were not supplied with an overhead projector.
When the compnay would ask if there were any supplies needed I did mention that my students wanted to know why there wasnt an overhead projector and other basic teaching items and never received a reply or equiptment. I was told that there reasoning behind it was they did not feel it was necessary nor could they afford it. This did not help my relationship with my students or their relationship with the school, but we all put it behind us and made best with what we had.
As the Receptionist:
As the receptionist I was the main person responsible for alot of the paperwork and the phone responsibilities. There were afew student that had problems with the school in the past. I was told to direct their calls to Steve Gouvia. Like I am sure all our students have been told to do now. I do remember receiving several calls back that their calls were not being returned.
We at the CHarlotte location also seemed to have a mad habit of not paying our bill and then repeadidly being chewed out about it. Every time we received a call about a bill we directly got in contact with Steve G. Or our Director of IT Aaron and told him the situation and was told a check would be sent out immediatly, but the following month we could almost guarantee that the service company would be calling looking for thier check still.
We had several times that our vending company asked us when we planned on paying our bill, our cable modem service was at our school serveral times to take our equiptment, and our copier repair service just closed our account and wrote it off as a lose becuase we had not paid them in such a long time.
We (the employees) took a look at most of our bills and found out that most of them had not and probably still have not been paid since about Aug. 2001. When we were asked why there was no water, or coffee or supplies (like it was our fault) we had to explain it to Steve G. Several times that our bills were not being paid (as if it was a big supprise to him). The bills would not get paid until the other company was at the school trying to take their equiptment back.
As for our phone service, I was responsible for answering the phone before the third ring. This was not a problem, but when I was trying to setup a lab for my class because there wasnt any sent to me or helping a student or the other instructor with an issue or problem and didnt make it to the phone before the third ring all I could do was hope it wasnt one of them becasue they got very disgruntal and would not look at the whole situation.
I remember one incident that still pisses me off. I answered the phone (On the first ring) and it was Steve G. He asked to speak with Joe Eustace so I transfered him to Joes office. Joe accidently hung up on Steve during the transfer and Steve G. Called back and ripped me a new one for hangin up on him. I didnt find out until two days later the Joe told Steve G. That day that it was him fault he got disconnected. Setve G. Couldnt even show me the tact or professional courdace to fess up to his mistake. Yes it was a small issue, but it wasnt handled very professionaly. And Steve if you read this... I am still waiting for your apology! But I am sure I wont get it.
I also remember that we were told that we need to bring more student into the school, but were not going to be given any help for advertising. So the other Charlotte employees and myself came up with ideas on getting on the radio going to trade show and what not. We even came up with an advertisment video and emailed Steve G. Asking if it was cool if we put this together. He thought it was a wonderful idea and told us to go for it. Well Doug Davis didnt take it too well when he saw the final product, confiscated out video and I feel like we were repromanded for the whole project. When we asked Steve G. To back us up, he denied approving the project... EVEN after we showed him the email that he said it was a good idea.
So then we came up with the famous Resource Lab that all our student liked. We were told that the Resource Lab was an excelent idea and a great design and they would impliment it company wide, but once again never received any help with it or any allowed time to work on it. I know you all have our equiptment with the Resource Labs files on it. I hope you never figure out how the code works and it blows up in your faces! Myself and the other instructors worked too hard on it IN OUR FREE TIME for it to be used by people of your kind.
Last thing I have to bring up about employment issues was with our pay checks. I know that the other instructor waited patiently for month for back pay after back pay after back pay. I had an issue with them continualy cutting my hours. I was a part-time receptionist and part-time instructor... Two seperate positions right? Not in their eyes. At first I was told I had to cut my reception hour so that my pay check would not go over 40 hours a WEEK. I agreed to this, but stated that I could not take another paycut because it would hurt me too much since I was still trying to pay for the classes I took with THEM and the tests I was having to take for my certifications.
This turned out to only cut my hours by 2 hours a week. I was (thinking) I was being the good employee and bending with the company where they needed it. They then asked me if I would be interested in teaching down in Atlanta and be given a raise. This caused me some confusion becasue they were offering me more money after cutting my hours. I asked why this was and that it didnt make sence to me. And I could not be given an answer on how this all made sence... I was told to just trust it. So I did, until I got a phone call the follwoing week asking me to cut my hours again. Now instead of 40 hours a WEEK they made me cut my hours to 80 a pay check (we got paid bi-weekly). This pissed me off because I was told that the 2 hours I took earlier was going to fit in their little plan... Now I was being asked to cut my hours by another 12.
The week they called me with this, it was a long pay week so everyone was going to work more hours. I did not though. I was given mandatory days off until I was under the 80 hour mark, but hey I was still offered the teaching position in Atlanta for about $12,000 less then all the other instructors where making. I wasnt expecting to make the same amount of money that they were making but the average that instructors in that area are making was roughly $20,000 less then what I was being offered (www.salary.com). I thank god every day that I did not accept that positon.
Yes I am in a bad spot now, but I feel I would be worse off if I was down there.
As a Student:
Yes it took me a while to understand the whole "Hands on training" issue. I have been on both sides of this issue... Trying to find the hands on training and trying to give the hands on training. Myself and the other instructors spoke with our sales representative and asked him to take this line out of his sales pitch because it isnt 100% hands on. You do have to have fundamentals before you can play. He told us that he could not because it was what he was told to say and all the other sales people were told to say it aswell.
I a feel very bad for the student that are not going to get the training they paid for and I feel bad for the student that have gotten their training. This isnt a class you can take once and be done with. It takes much prctise and that is why Ameritrain offered student to retake thier classes once for free. Well myself and several others were going to do this, but can not now... Unless we are willing to go to another open location. We were offered a lab that we could practise in for a whioel year after we took classes so we could practise on our own, which I took great advantage of and was told that my tutition paid for the extra time in the classes and the lab.
So even though I completed my classes I still feel like I am out of some money because I paid for more lab time and another go around in the MCSE course.
I am very sorry this has happend to our student and my fellow employees and I have kept in touch with the two other instructors and our sales person on what the company has been doing and we are trying our hardest to help you all, but the matter of the fact is that we ALL got screwed one way or another by Doug Davis and Steve Gouvia and I hope this comes back to bite them in the ass.
Michael
Charlotte, North Carolina
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