Erac is a Great Place to Work

[32AATopIPEandDub]

Originally Posted by EractGreenie

Honestly, for those of you who are quitting, just quit. Erac is a great place to work where you are constantly challenged and able to be put in a place of advancement. The hours are long and at times the customers are tough to deal with. A lot of you think upper management sucks, but look at your own attitudes. THose of you doing stupid shit during work and then wondering why Enterprise is awful place to work. Your doing it to yourself. Not everyone will get promoted but the opportunity is there, jsut like at any company. I just recently became a BM and the commission checks are different from month to month sometimes bigger sometimes smaller, but averaged annually its not bad.

I quit Enterprise after working there for 3 months and I just recently started working in the biotech industry in the bay area. Guess what? I make more than you and I only work about 35 to 40 hours a week. That and I get paid during lunch and half the time at work I'm just chatting with fellow co-workers and supervisors. Oh, and I actually get REAL BONUSES that's not accounted into my salary!

Oh, I just noticed that you're bragging about your 61k a year with bonuses and commission taken into account. My base salary is 62k and it's my first year working. That's also without bonuses.

Are you seriously trying to push that we should appreciate the opportunity to have a career at ERAC? There are better opportunities out there, but it takes talent, desire, and persistence. At ERAC, your local recruiter will be hounding you to join. Think about it... ANYONE can start a career at ERAC.

[Car Prep Girl]

If you guys are all "Ready to quit" then just do it.
I love my job, I never work more than 40 hours per week, though I know some others do, and they DO get paid for it.
For some reason I lucked out and work for the BEST location in the company apparently, or you are all whiny bitches.
If you don't like your job, quit it, no one is holding you there.

[freeatlast]

Originally Posted by Car Prep Girl

If you guys are all "Ready to quit" then just do it.
I love my job, I never work more than 40 hours per week, though I know some others do, and they DO get paid for it.
For some reason I lucked out and work for the BEST location in the company apparently, or you are all whiny bitches.
If you don't like your job, quit it, no one is holding you there.

There is too much consistency in the stories from various posters who are in various parts of the country to just label us as "whiny bitches."

If you have it good at enterprise then good for you. There are thousands that didn't have it so well.

Just remember as a car prep you aren't shuffled around from branch to branch. Many employees have to drive 45 min to 1 hour to get to work after they get transfered.

[32AATopIPEandDub]

Originally Posted by Car Prep Girl

If you guys are all "Ready to quit" then just do it.
I love my job, I never work more than 40 hours per week, though I know some others do, and they DO get paid for it.
For some reason I lucked out and work for the BEST location in the company apparently, or you are all whiny bitches.
If you don't like your job, quit it, no one is holding you there.

If you like making less than 20k washing cars all day, then good for you. Some of us have higher standards.

[wanky]

Originally Posted by Car Prep Girl

If you guys are all "Ready to quit" then just do it.
I love my job, I never work more than 40 hours per week, though I know some others do, and they DO get paid for it.
For some reason I lucked out and work for the BEST location in the company apparently, or you are all whiny bitches.
If you don't like your job, quit it, no one is holding you there.

Um, the vast majority of us (myself included) ALREADY quit the rental world, sweetie. In fact, most of us "whiny bitches" are simply here to tell the world that there is much better out there for a young person to start their career in, at least in our humble opinions.

I don't think anyone who works at ERAC or Hertz or any of the rental giants, and actually enjoys it, is any less of a human being. If you honestly enjoy getting up in the morning for your job, seriously congrats; there's few better things than doing something for a living your enjoy. My own personal "beef" stems from a couple of different things; for one, rental companies in general stress the importance of customer service to their actual customers, and the importance of sales to their MT's at the branches. Now many companies/industries do this, but not to the level that you see in the rental world. As a result, customers walk in, expecting the red carpet, and instead spend the majority of their time getting their arm twisted over an upgrade and protection packages...and this is assuming the car they reserved is even there or ready. On the flip side, the MT's (me), after having this opportunity pitched to them as a great career start in sales or management, spend most of our day operating as a taxi service and dealing with pissed off customers. In the end, we're both lied to; customers deal with a heavy sales pitch over actual customer service, and the MT's become customer service reps over salesman. Not what I signed up for.

The "running your own business" thing, which has been mentioned already, is also a joke. You have about as much freedom and a BM as the shift manager at McDonald's; you're basically baby-sitting a franchise operation that has to comply with heavy and strict standards mandated by corporate.

The other reason why I left too is finally realizing that there's one glaring problem with the rental industry in general; with rising fuel prices, a lagging economy, and weather being the only real factor to increase demand for insurance replacement (since I worked off-airport), it's simply HARD to be profitable in this industry. There's no cheap way to get cars; try walking into a Chevrolet dealership just to get a lease on a base model Aveo...but tell the salesman you plan on putting upwards of 20-30,000 miles on it your first year; hilarity will ensue, I'll tell you that. The industry itself is cutthroat enough to the point that competition dicates to charge really cheap rates for these cars that barely pay for maitenance and the purchase/lease of the vehicle itself. The result of this? A supposed "customer service"-oriented industry has to cheat, lie, and basically conduct business in an very non-customer service way just to turn a profit. It made me too sick to continue.

[JGATZ]

Originally Posted by wanky

Um, the vast majority of us (myself included) ALREADY quit the rental world, sweetie. In fact, most of us "whiny bitches" are simply here to tell the world that there is much better out there for a young person to start their career in, at least in our humble opinions.

I don't think anyone who works at ERAC or Hertz or any of the rental giants, and actually enjoys it, is any less of a human being. If you honestly enjoy getting up in the morning for your job, seriously congrats; there's few better things than doing something for a living your enjoy. My own personal "beef" stems from a couple of different things; for one, rental companies in general stress the importance of customer service to their actual customers, and the importance of sales to their MT's at the branches. Now many companies/industries do this, but not to the level that you see in the rental world. As a result, customers walk in, expecting the red carpet, and instead spend the majority of their time getting their arm twisted over an upgrade and protection packages...and this is assuming the car they reserved is even there or ready. On the flip side, the MT's (me), after having this opportunity pitched to them as a great career start in sales or management, spend most of our day operating as a taxi service and dealing with pissed off customers. In the end, we're both lied to; customers deal with a heavy sales pitch over actual customer service, and the MT's become customer service reps over salesman. Not what I signed up for.

The "running your own business" thing, which has been mentioned already, is also a joke. You have about as much freedom and a BM as the shift manager at McDonald's; you're basically baby-sitting a franchise operation that has to comply with heavy and strict standards mandated by corporate.

The other reason why I left too is finally realizing that there's one glaring problem with the rental industry in general; with rising fuel prices, a lagging economy, and weather being the only real factor to increase demand for insurance replacement (since I worked off-airport), it's simply HARD to be profitable in this industry. There's no cheap way to get cars; try walking into a Chevrolet dealership just to get a lease on a base model Aveo...but tell the salesman you plan on putting upwards of 20-30,000 miles on it your first year; hilarity will ensue, I'll tell you that. The industry itself is cutthroat enough to the point that competition dicates to charge really cheap rates for these cars that barely pay for maitenance and the purchase/lease of the vehicle itself. The result of this? A supposed "customer service"-oriented industry has to cheat, lie, and basically conduct business in an very non-customer service way just to turn a profit. It made me too sick to continue.

Awesome post. If you don't believe Wanky, take a look at this!

http://www.failingenterprise.com/for...-put-best.html

[wanky]

I should make as an addendum to that last post I meant "hard to be profitable" at the branch level. Both ERAC and Hertz make PLENTY at corporate.

[Car Prep Girl]

Originally Posted by 32AATopIPEandDub

If you like making less than 20k washing cars all day, then good for you. Some of us have higher standards.

I'm 20 years old. I'm in college, I'm not looking for a career here.
I'm just simply stating... if you guys have it so rough and hate your life, then quit.
So things dont go your way, so people get transfered around, so these things happen. It might suck, and hell it probably does. But do something about it instead of just whining is all I'm saying.
Coming on the internet and telling everyone all the shitty things that happen/ed in your time at ERAC, doesn't help you with your future. It limits it.

[Steve Williams]

Car Prep Girl-- That guy is retarded. Disregard his posts. We do.

[freeatlast]

Originally Posted by Car Prep Girl

I'm 20 years old. I'm in college, I'm not looking for a career here.
I'm just simply stating... if you guys have it so rough and hate your life, then quit.
So things dont go your way, so people get transfered around, so these things happen. It might suck, and hell it probably does. But do something about it instead of just whining is all I'm saying.
Coming on the internet and telling everyone all the shitty things that happen/ed in your time at ERAC, doesn't help you with your future. It limits it.

Maybe it is a kind of therapy for us that lack your amazing strength of mind.

Personally, I get a kick out of the stories that are on here. Also, several renters come on here asking for advice on how to resolve issues with the company. Having inner knowledge and knowing all the buzzwords allows us to help them along. We have also steered a few people away from taking a job they would hate.

Cheezy as it may sound, it is also nice to know that it wasn't just me that had the problem with ERAC. For most of us it was the first job out of college and we thought maybe we truly "couldn't hack it" in the real world." Some folks that are still with the company may feel the same way and I would have had a great sense of relief if this site existed when I was working for the green machine and I could see that what I was going through was nothing new and that there were, pardon the pun, greener pastures out there.

Finally, there is a stark difference between a job and a career. I think car prep is a great job for a college student. Try your hand in the mgmt training program when you graduate and get back to us. Most of us gave it a try, burned our real quick, and then moved on to bigger, better, and more prosperous careers.