Typical Morning at E-Crap

I took the liberty of pasting this guys post and put it in it's own forum. It pretty much sums up what the work enviornment is like. It is fast paced but for all the wrong reasons. The managers are incompetent, some of your co-workers steal from you, and there is the constant worry of finding cars.
Wake up at 6:00 do the three S's. Get dressed, eat breakfast leave my place at 6:40 and race to work 45 minutes away because they f'n moved me again. Arrive at 7:29 told I am late-manager has not unlocked front door yet (how can I be late, hot shot?). Two customers pull up in a hurry and need wheels. I scan parking lot, no rentals-we havent had time yet to see what and where cars are dropped. Manager finally gets door open turns off alarm, turns on phones, logs on, opens safe and key box. Call dealerships for drops wow we find a couple of cars. Manager gives me four tickets and drives me and customers to closest dealership. Write up two tickets by hand and send off first non-res customers in dirty un-prepped cars. Go into dealership waiting room- shit three more customers, call branch on cell scrounging for cars. Another MT comes out and picks me and the three customers up and take us back to the branch. Shit -still no cars. Branch manager starts keying in my first two tickets and makes a comment about not getting fuel fee or selling dub. Two cars are turned in and hastily prepped. I'm then directed to pre-write and take one customer and other MT in my personal car to another dealership and pray for any drops there. I am in luck I find a car behind the bodyshop and just write the unit ## on the ticket and send the customer off again in an un-prepped, dirty unit don't get dub 0 for 3 today. Drive back to branch in another vehicle and help other MT finish washing the other returned car. I step in a frick'ng puddle and now my feet are cold and wet (these are the second pair ruined since Christmas). Its already turning into a shitty day. Look up at Res board and we only have about 8 reservations. Our Branch manager decides to give us a "pep talk" but just reams us because HIS ESQI is gonna take a hit on the dirty cars this morning-excuse me? I used my own car, shuttled customers while he was in the warm office e-mailing the ho's in admin.
I get ready to settle in the back for lunch but after two bites, another customer comes in and I write it up I get dub! yeah I am 1 for 4! Then another cust comes in and is having a problem with the car he got this morning at the dealership. He demands a trade out as the car is "unsafe". I put him into the only other car on the lot and thank goodness its one of our new units but its a full size. I explain to him that it would be $5.00 extra p/day and the bastard goes ballistic. The Branch manager makes a weak appearance and allys the customer and gives him the car at no extra charge. Yesterday I was bitched at for breaking rate-good consistency here folks.
It's now 12:45 I'm hungry, my feet are wet and I am pulling 25%. Phone rings again and I am off to the dealership. Man these fuckers are messing with me-everytime they call, it's not one customer its two or three. I bring the three back to the office and start writing up tickets. The BM and the other two MTs fetch drops. By the time I finished keying up the last cust they all return one, two three and the MTs feverishly prep two cars and the BM walks in and tells me to clean the third one-lazy motherfucker. This part really pisses me off- I write up the tickets and I'm getting slammed for no dub. I am doing the work you know fetching, prepping, writing up tickets. If all three customers took dub my BM would have demanded that I split it with them.
I finally go back to finish my lunch around 2:00 and someone else finished it-my subway sub, coke and chips are gone. I walk up to the counter where the other MT is finishing up a cust and I tell the MT "we need to talk NOW" I go to his desk and there is my subway napkin, with my chips on it. As the other MT came up, I grabbed the napkin and his tie to smash his fat face in the chip-filled napkin. The porker was then teary-eyed and said it was only "a joke" I told the fat weenie that "I like a joke just as much as the next person but don't ever fuck with my food, especially when I am hungry".
I am called into the BM's office and again I am reamed about dub. I am pulling 14% at this point of the day. I'm told to go get 'em tiger! Not a word is spoken to the other guy about nabbing my lunch.
He only wrote what happened until 2:00 that day. Do you think the job will get any better? In branches all across the country good people (customers and employees) are screwed with, lied to and outright scammed.
Stay away from this place at ALL COSTS. You will have a much happier life!

This was AWESOME!!! Very true to life.

[ERAC BURNOUT&DAMN PROUD!!]

Damn, its so true! Sadly, that is what 90% of the days are like!

[Dr. Wang]

That post for what a typical day at ERAC is right on the money. We go to work at 7:15 and get out at 6:15 or 6:30pm. The amount of stress that we put up with throughout the day is unbelievable and it only makes the day go by longer. Last Tuesday had to be the longest fucking day ever. The whole day we had NO cars. We sat at 95% all day and the rest of our cars were in the shop. The worst part is when a body shop calls our branch then asks us to come pick up a customer and we know we don't have any cars for them. What should we say? That we don't have any cars? No I'm serious, this is a big problem. Corporate always tells us to book everything no matter what, even if we don't have the car. Also, upper management wants us to market more to body shops to "grow" our business. The only problem is that the body shops in our area are starting to lose confidence in us because everytime they call us we don't have any cars for their customers.

The hours at Enterprise are also ridiculous. I work about 55 hrs a week and it's a long 55 hrs because I spend a lot of time putting up with customer bullshit and looking for cars. Fuck, looking for cars when you have a bunch of customers waiting is very stressfull and it makes you feel helpless. I'm starting to realize why ERAC has such low retention rates and that's because they don't treat their employees right. When you first start working at ERAC they will buy you free lunches and be all nice to you but as time goes by you soon become stressed out and tired of the same bullshit day in and day out.
The bottom line with ERAC is that the job will suck the life out of you. I hate going in on Monday knowing that I have a whole week of this shit ahead of me. My next job will not involve me dealing with dip shit customers. In fact I'm done with customer service all together. I don't know if my managers will be real shocked when I leave or not, but they should at least respect the fact that I hate working there and that's why I want to quit. It's not rocket science. If you hate what you're doing then quit and that's what I will do.
And I just know my BM and ABM will say that I'm stupid for quiting and that I'm making a huge mistake. My response to that is: Fuck you! I just know they hate their jobs too. I know they want to quit too but they don't have the balls to do it yet. I just don't believe some people who claim to like working at ERAC who work in daily rental and when I say daily rental I mean actually working at a branch, not lazy ass corporate. The hours are too long and you deal with too much shit. If you are thinking about working at ERAC just ask yourself this question: Is it really worth all the headaches, long hrs, lying to customers and bullshit to maybe one day make 6 figures? And it's not even a given that you will be promoted if you work hard so just remember that.

[Dr. Wang]

Fuck Enterprise! Just felt like saying that before I go to bed.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I took the liberty of pasting this guys post and put it in it's own forum. It pretty much sums up what the work enviornment is like. It is fast paced but for all the wrong reasons. The managers are incompetent, some of your co-workers steal from you, and there is the constant worry of finding cars.
Wake up at 6:00 do the three S's. Get dressed, eat breakfast leave my place at 6:40 and race to work 45 minutes away because they f'n moved me again. Arrive at 7:29 told I am late-manager has not unlocked front door yet (how can I be late, hot shot?). Two customers pull up in a hurry and need wheels. I scan parking lot, no rentals-we havent had time yet to see what and where cars are dropped. Manager finally gets door open turns off alarm, turns on phones, logs on, opens safe and key box. Call dealerships for drops wow we find a couple of cars. Manager gives me four tickets and drives me and customers to closest dealership. Write up two tickets by hand and send off first non-res customers in dirty un-prepped cars. Go into dealership waiting room- shit three more customers, call branch on cell scrounging for cars. Another MT comes out and picks me and the three customers up and take us back to the branch. Shit -still no cars. Branch manager starts keying in my first two tickets and makes a comment about not getting fuel fee or selling dub. Two cars are turned in and hastily prepped. I'm then directed to pre-write and take one customer and other MT in my personal car to another dealership and pray for any drops there. I am in luck I find a car behind the bodyshop and just write the unit ## on the ticket and send the customer off again in an un-prepped, dirty unit don't get dub 0 for 3 today. Drive back to branch in another vehicle and help other MT finish washing the other returned car. I step in a frick'ng puddle and now my feet are cold and wet (these are the second pair ruined since Christmas). Its already turning into a shitty day. Look up at Res board and we only have about 8 reservations. Our Branch manager decides to give us a "pep talk" but just reams us because HIS ESQI is gonna take a hit on the dirty cars this morning-excuse me? I used my own car, shuttled customers while he was in the warm office e-mailing the ho's in admin.
I get ready to settle in the back for lunch but after two bites, another customer comes in and I write it up I get dub! yeah I am 1 for 4! Then another cust comes in and is having a problem with the car he got this morning at the dealership. He demands a trade out as the car is "unsafe". I put him into the only other car on the lot and thank goodness its one of our new units but its a full size. I explain to him that it would be $5.00 extra p/day and the bastard goes ballistic. The Branch manager makes a weak appearance and allys the customer and gives him the car at no extra charge. Yesterday I was bitched at for breaking rate-good consistency here folks.
It's now 12:45 I'm hungry, my feet are wet and I am pulling 25%. Phone rings again and I am off to the dealership. Man these fuckers are messing with me-everytime they call, it's not one customer its two or three. I bring the three back to the office and start writing up tickets. The BM and the other two MTs fetch drops. By the time I finished keying up the last cust they all return one, two three and the MTs feverishly prep two cars and the BM walks in and tells me to clean the third one-lazy motherfucker. This part really pisses me off- I write up the tickets and I'm getting slammed for no dub. I am doing the work you know fetching, prepping, writing up tickets. If all three customers took dub my BM would have demanded that I split it with them.
I finally go back to finish my lunch around 2:00 and someone else finished it-my subway sub, coke and chips are gone. I walk up to the counter where the other MT is finishing up a cust and I tell the MT "we need to talk NOW" I go to his desk and there is my subway napkin, with my chips on it. As the other MT came up, I grabbed the napkin and his tie to smash his fat face in the chip-filled napkin. The porker was then teary-eyed and said it was only "a joke" I told the fat weenie that "I like a joke just as much as the next person but don't ever fuck with my food, especially when I am hungry".
I am called into the BM's office and again I am reamed about dub. I am pulling 14% at this point of the day. I'm told to go get 'em tiger! Not a word is spoken to the other guy about nabbing my lunch.
He only wrote what happened until 2:00 that day. Do you think the job will get any better? In branches all across the country good people (customers and employees) are screwed with, lied to and outright scammed.
Stay away from this place at ALL COSTS. You will have a much happier life!

Unfortunately, this is the "old gold" business model for ERAC. Shuffling customers to dropped cars is no way to earn repeat business. Customers are becoming wise to these practices and more are choosing ERAC competitors. As a former Lvl III, I can assure everyone that ERAC growth is flat while the competition has grown.

Great post. A very true but harsh look into the life at ERAC.

Scary, thats how my branch is all the time too. Does this mean it is company wide?

if you do not like Erac just quit...stop bitching....

[Popper1977]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Scary, thats how my branch is all the time too. Does this mean it is company wide?

As long as you work in Rental, that is what you can expect on any given day. In a branch that has a lesser fleet size (provided it is properly staffed), you may actually have 1/2 hour to yourself to consume a decent meal. The only way to completely avoid the aforementioned scenario is to successfully locate a more legitimate career that entails hard work WITH adequate compensation to go along with it.