Jobsites each day are about an hour and a half away, on average with some outliers.
The crews get switched up all the time so you don’t always work with the same team and don’t always know where you’re going on that particular day until you walk in the door.
Company is far more focused on hitting their kW (revenue) goals rather than the safety of the install crews, but to thank you they will make you come in 15 minutes early once a week to hear about how well the company is doing, even though you are the ones doing all the work. Don’t worry though, they bring donuts to the meeting.
One brief 10-15 minute optional safety training session for new hires, after that you’re on your own and will just be told to “be safe out there”.
Crew leads do not use harnesses which means that the rest of the crew doesn’t wear a harness. Once again, zero focus on safety. You will often find yourself thinking, is this really worth what I’m being paid? Crew leads will often say they aren’t afraid of falling off the roof because “what’s the worst that could happen?”
Crews are sent to jobs with no regard for safety. For example, you might be on a metal roof with a 40 pitch in Vermont in the middle of December while it’s actively snowing. Or maybe you’ll be on a roof with a slightly less degree pitch (which management assumes will mean it’s an easy job) even though the roof shingles are falling apart right under your feet.
Bottom line…the lack of safety measures taken combined with management’s attitude of ‘just get the job done and don’t come home until it’s finished, no matter the conditions’ make this a terrible place to work.
New hires are told they will be “ground technicians with little responsibility to start”. This is a lie. You will be asked to help on the roof as much as possible right away with no hope of a pay increase if it’s already past the month that they do yearly evaluations. Crew leads are sometimes paid the same as ground tech’s because of this policy and because they have had to promote ground techs to crew leads since they have so much turnover.
Consistent 12 hour days depending on how far away the jobsite is, so if you want a life outside of work then this isn’t for you.
Management makes it a competition between the 4 crews to see who can install the most kW in the year. 1): crews have no say in terms of what jobs they are assigned, 2) there is no incentive provided for this, it’s just another attempt to get crews to work faster so that the salesman and the company can make more money. 3) this promotes an unsafe work environment where employees try to work too fast in dangerous conditions with no added benefit.
You will often find yourself saying “I’m not paid nearly enough to risk my life today like this.”
