Comcast Cable Company has been abusing their employees in their Knoxville Call center. They begin by giving you a big speel about all the benefits that come with working at the company. They tell you about their free cable, that can get cut off if you watch a movie and do not pay them their 1.99 for it. They then tell you about their insurance which costs the average employee a good chunk of their bi-weekly pay checks, to do very little. Their prescription coverage is laughable at best.
They proceed to tell you about paid time off. This is where they are most damaging. They tell you that you get a certain amount of "flex" hours along with "holiday pay" and "Floating Holidays" this "Flex" time is used when you are late, or when you have to be out for any reason. It is explained in orientation that this is used for any un scheduled absence.
What they do not tell you in orientation is that if you use all your flex time you can be written up, and have what they call a "corrective action" Two of these will get you fired. Recently, they have instituted a very funny system where they use what is called "events" to figure up employee flex time. As it was hesitantly explained to me by my wife whom is an employee of Comcast Cable they require you to schedule your sick days. As in literally they expect you to say " I will be sick next Thursday" if you do not schedule sickness or anything that makes you late (say a traffic accident on the way to work) then you are given an "event" once an event has been issued you have a certain time span where you can recieve a certain number of events before they do what is called a " request for termination" Which means yes folks. If you are late for any reason you can be terminated because that is half an event.
Once a request for termination, what I understand to be a cursory action in and of itself, has been turned in. The company "reviews" it and hands down their verdict. During this time the employee in question is expected to be at work, smile, be polite to customers, and ultimately do the job they are already fired for...
They also have to contend with people telling them it would be better if they just quit. This in fact was told to my wife last night by the Call center manager. Which means that he was informing her that she -had - already been fired and the wait from corporate was just cursory, and that she should just quit and be done with it. (guess what that does folks? That gets them out of having to pay unemployment... OF COURSE THEY WANT FOLKS TO QUIT)
Furthermore, I firmly believe that this company is following suit with a very old fashioned way of doing business. Something that call centers are notorious for. My wife has been with the company for 2 years (well she will have been with them if she makes it three more months for 2 years) they give raises on a pretty set budget.
Meanwhile they hire in a new class of employees nearly every month. These employees already have a hard time finding a seat because the place is not big enough for them all but Comcast keeps on hiring new people. Hired in, of course, at the base starting wage. Trained quickly they are put out on the phones and the people who have been there long enough to start reaping the rewards of being there for a long period of time... Start going out the door with ludicrous accusations about this and that. Mostly though, their fall back is their brand new, and always changing way of dealing with unscheduled time off (flex time) which now has to be scheduled.
They are a horrible company, they mistreat their employees, push older employees out the door so that they do not have to pay more than they feel their employees are worth. The base minimum they pay.
At the very least they are guilty of bad business practices in the manner of the way they deal with their always sketchy " flex" time.
Storm
Knoxville, Tennessee
U.S.A.
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