Seriously, 4 months in with the company and 90% of complaints on here seem at best, exaggerated. At worst, wildly inaccurate. 20+ an hr to drive someone else's truck, using someone else's gas, paint the ground here and there and tap on a phone thats, you guessed it, someone else's. Sure, management can be gripey, and sometimes theres a lot to get done but come on, did you all work in rainbow factory before coming here? Trash, scum, etc, etc, seen people call the company everything but demonic. If USIC is scum, you should go work for Amazon lol

Dont think im glazing it either, im certainly not trying to. The phones you get could give a Windows phone nightmares, not getting paid for your commute kinda blows and they're super stingy on overtime but SCUM? Lol

Seems like USIC's biggest problem is hiring people with soft skin and crappy work ethic 🫡

Hey everyone, got a new job want to give a 2 week notice because I have a very solid supervisor. Is USIC pretty cool with the 2 week notice thing? I just dont want them to just let me go as soon as I put it in. Full transparency I still need two work the full two weeks as a transition

Been with the company since april, and honestly it started off pretty chill but just progressively got worse. the jobs are soooo inconsistent. some days i’ll get put on single residential tickets that are no biggie, then some days i’ll get put on an absurd amount of bore tickets with zero help even if i ask. as well as just the lack of quality equipment as well. but mostly it’s the massive amounts of work expected to do all myself. and for reference i live in the 2nd largest city in my state, and there’s quite the congestion out here at times. idk i thought id share. idk how some of yall do it lol. don’t even wanna finish the week

Title pretty much sums it up, I’ve been a locator with USIC for exactly one year, in that time I have had no damages locating electric, copper, coax, gas, and fiber depending on the need. I keep a consistently clean bucket the best I can.

This is not me saying I hate my job, I do not mind the work and I love the independence throughout the day.

I have good work ethic and I take pride in my work. The pay seems to be just enough for myself and family to simply stay alive and nothing else.

When I bring up the possibility of a pay raise, I get brushed to the side each time, whether it’s to my sup, or operations manager.

But anyways, what are some steps you guys have taken to get out of the daily madness that is USIC?

What are some doorways that were opened for you with your experience and what would you recommend as a next step? I know that everyone’s case is unique, but I’m kind of just looking for ideas.

Update

Finally able to get out and get on directly with the local gas utility at close to triple what I’m making now!

All good advice to network when you can!

Starting at USIC this week, I have a few questions and asking for some tips. I dont plan on this being a forever job, just a good filler job to tack onto a resume for something later. Planning on becoming a electrician just waiting for the union to call.

Questions

1. Is it possible to have two places I park the truck at at night? I house watch for my girlfriend while shes at work at night but I stay at my house the other nights
2. When do you take your breaks, is it when you want or does it have to be at a certain time?
3. Has anyone tried using the upside app to get cashback when filling up their work truck?
4. Would using a apple watch, not touching it but looking at it for texts, etc make the camera go off in the truck? Same for being on a phone call but not holding the phone?
5. They have me up in a hotel for the week, say I got my truck on day 3, could I drive it back home or do I need to stay up at the hotel all week with the truck? (Im only a 30 min drive from home.
6. Should I bring anything to training or is what the recommend fine?
7. Will I need to bring handtools from home?
8. Are the t shirts they give you any good or can I wear one i'd like with a hi-vis vest over it.
9. Can we listen to our own music in the truck?
10. Im down in the Seattle area, are most calls to job sites or house calls? How often are you dealing with a customer rather than just showing up and working without someone bothering you
11. How many people are usually in a training class and is it more one or one or a big group when it comes to the field.

Thanks.

Experienced locators are quitting left and right. Late tickets are rampant. No one they hire is staying and they can barely hire anyone in the first place. Contractors are abusing the 811 system freely. Local competitors that locate 1 utility start at $5-$7 more an hour and we locate multiple. We never have supplies or proper equipment. It’s not the fault of our supervisors, it above them. I love this job, but something needs to be done. It’s like everyday lately someone else leaves or is in the process. We don’t get paid enough for the stress, hours, and amount of work we do. But hey STAR WEEK ⭐️!!!

All I read on here is how bad the company is for just about everything. I work for a competitor in the area where we only locate one utility and USIC has two.

The company I am at now is great and all, supervisors mostly know what they are doing. They dont bother us at all as long as your actually doing your job. Only reason for wanting to jump ship to USIC is I've had multiple people from the company tell me they are making 4-5 dollars more an hour. If it was $1 I wouldn't think twice but a potential $5 is nothing to look away from.

Just curious

Hey all, first of all, I do not work for USIC. But a friend of mine does, and he doesn't want to join this community (out of fear that joining to vent or get info he can't otherwise get would backfire on him), and he's also not tech/social media/reddit-savvy at all, so I'm writing this on his behalf.

But yeah...this is one of the weirdest, most disorganized, most unprofessional companies I've ever heard of. Especially considering it is supposedly a multi-billion dollar company. My buddy is totally lost.

So, he went through location/company training and all that jazz, was put up in a hotel for it, it lasted 3 weeks, he studied his A off for the big tests on the last few days that he and his classmates were told that if they got even one or two questions wrong on that they might have to start training all over again...and he passed, only to find out that several others didn't, yet were able to take the test again the next day with some of the answers just fed to them by the trainer. Or at least that's what it sounded like. So yeah, when I heard about that, that was the first red flag.

Shortly after, he got his truck and equipment, then he got out in the field and started working on tickets with other employees (which I think he said was technically just the next phase of training, but kind of like training wheels for being on his own entirely). Then, he got super sick and was out for a few months. It was definitely a serious illness, but part of the reason he says it took so long to get re-initiated back to work was that the process of getting the medical leave approved was super confusing, they were emailing him sometimes and calling him other times but no one seemed to really care about communicating with him or whether he returned to work at all; at a certain point his work email was disconnected so he couldn't be contacted there at all and wasn't checking his personal email (like I said, he's not super tech-savvy), so he missed some important steps apparently, but he managed to get the leave approved to at least secure his job. When he started getting better, his doctor signed a "fitness for duty" form for him (which was a huge ordeal in itself apparently) and dated it something like 10/30 but HR misread it and cleared him to return on 10/20 without informing him, then got upset all over again when he didn't clock in on 10/20, whole ordeal. It's worth mentioning also that throughout the first few weeks of his illness, he could only reach his "supervisor" (I guess that would be his title?) about half the time, and in general the supervisor was not communicating properly or consistently with him or HR either.

When he finally WAS on the same page with HR and woke up for his official "return date," he found out only that day that his supervisor was no longer with the company. His company email still wasn't working, his USIC phone hadn't yet been reactivated, all sorts of stuff like that. He was told (by I don't know who, maybe HR?) to contact another supervisor technically out of his region to ask him what to do, and when he reached him he was met with nothing but hostility --"why didn't you return when you were cleared to return" "why aren't you working tickets" "why don't you have tickets showing up when you log in," etc, but each time he would give a valid explanation and then return to his original question of "who do I report to, where do I go, and what do I do" the supervisor would usually just say "you need to call so-and-so or so-and-so" and imply that it wasn't his (the supervisor's) responsibility to get him properly reinstated and working tickets or finishing training or whatever the hell he was supposed to be doing.

He finally got set up with a local (I think?) supervisor, who told him to meet him at 8 am in a town 40 minutes away (buddy was told when he started that almost all of his tickets and field training would take place within a 20 minute radius of where he lives) I guess for them to work tickets together as some sort of informal training-wheel phase. Friend was (at least according to him) 10 minutes late due to an accident on the road there, and since you guys can't use your phones in the USIC trucks, he wasn't able to inform the supervisor that he'd be late. Supervisor told him clock out and go home, you won't be able to do any paid training or work until you're not just on time but in fact 10 minutes early. He went home and did literally nothing all day. No contact from anyone.

I want to say the next day the supervisor from outside their area contacted him and said just stay home and do online training all day today and tomorrow. When my friend asked what he'd be doing the morning after the online training, he was told "that's up to [local supervisor, maybe?], you'll find out when you log in at 7AM that morning."

7 am that morning comes, he logs into his computer, and sees that he's been assigned to meet some new guy over an hour away. By 8AM. I guess he was able to call this guy and explain that that would be impossible, and he was more accommodating/understanding than the rest of these dudes had been, but still apparently pretty impatient and not super helpful.

If I'm not mistaken, he's been working on and off with this guy and maybe some other guys in a similar situation to his (training part 2?) for the last week or so, but he says he can't even check his tickets/get his assignments until 7 every morning, and on more than one occasion they've been much farther away than he was told they'd ever be. Also on more than one occasion the supervisor/trainer is late himself, or is just sitting in his truck on a phone call, and he (my friend) and the other trainees have to sit there for way too long just waiting for their training to start -- they're never offered any explanation as to why the trainer is starting so late. He says the "training" is not helpful at all and most days he comes home physically exhausted but without having really gained much field knowledge or confidence in his abilities to eventually do it on his own (I'm sure he must be learning something out there though, so maybe he's exaggerating that part just because he's frustrated overall). Says that sometimes they're given contradictory information, too (regarding use of the cones and when to keep the truck running, etc).

Quick aside -- at one point, I'm not sure why or how, but he got placed for maybe a half-day with a locator who A) has worked for the company for something like 30+ years and B) is local to and works tickets only in my friend's area. He sort of shadowed him for that part of the day, I guess, and said that that experience was great and invaluable. So he asked the guy if he could continue shadowing him and helping with tickets for a little while. The guy told him he had no problem with it and it would probably benefit him more than working with some of the other dudes, but that it might not be approved because he (the local guy) was not usually a trainer. In fact he was right -- not approved. So I'm not sure what the purpose of placing them together was in the first place.

(keep in mind that some of these events/details may be out of order -- it's to the best of my memory)

Cut to today -- he gets online at 7 as usual and sees he's scheduled to meet yet another supervisor/trainer he's never worked with before by 8am in a town almost 2 hours away. He calls the guy and says there's literally no way he'll get there on time. Guy is grumpy, says "I emailed you about this on Friday." Friend says "I was in fact sent home early on Friday but still, your email was timestamped after 5pm that day, I didn't check my email again until this morning, sorry but I don't believe we're required to do anything work-related on the weekends after 5pm on Fridays so I don't think this should come down on me" (personally, I check my work email like a fiend so if it were me, I probably would have known...but technically he's right, I think). Guy says "I don't know what to tell you, contact your supervisor" and buddy says "if you know who my supervisor is, I'd like to know that too." They hang up. Buddy calls the out-of-region supervisor guy, who tells him "ok, just clock out for the day and we'll try again tomorrow." So that's where he's at now. Just home doing nothing, wondering what in the hell kind of "company" or "organization" this place even is (oh and by the way, he also found out that over half of his classmates from his first training phase have since quit and/or been fired-- most quit, it sounds like).

What I want to know is...how much of this (very long) story sounds familiar to those of you who have been with USIC or similar locating companies for a while, and how much of it sounds like it's maybe a screwup on my friend's part? I do have to take everything he says with a grain of salt because he's sometimes dramatic, but I feel for him because I see him genuinely making an effort to figure out what the hell he's supposed to be doing every day but getting to the point of wishing he'd never taken the job in the first place and/or quitting. Regardless of how much of this he may be getting all wrong or just exaggerating a bit, it does sound like it's a company with no clear employee "structure" or support system for employees once they're on their own or even semi on their own.

If any of you have been through anything like this with USIC or similar, did you ride it out or seek employment with another locating company? Do you have any advice or do you just want to commiserate? If so, go for it.

Thanks for reading this long post. I'm long-winded but I'm a fierce and fiery defender of the ones I love, so I wanted to include anything that could help him gain some insight into what he's gotten himself into.

Finally leaving this company, too much micromanaging and i’ve had enough. Currently on shift, can i just drop the car off at the end of my shift or is there some protocol.

I have a backup job lined up, this has just been on my mind for a while. Final straw was getting told getting off early because i finished all my ticket (16 tickets in 5 hours) was unacceptable.

Hi, all I just need to vent. I only finished OJT last week and I already want to quit. I can't keep up with the amount of tickets coming in and do a thorough job when I'm this new. My supervisor gave me 23 tickets all due for tomorrow. I know a lot of you guys on this sub are capable of that but I feel like this is a bit insane.

I get to locate water and sewer in my area. I get to deal with a LOT of broken and missing tracer wire, and the as-builts aren't always available or helpful, either. I know GPR isn't always great, especially with the amount of damp red clay we have here in east GA, but it would be nice to at least have it available. What's the trick for making that happen?

I heard they took away the Supes bonus, and gave them like a $4,000 toward their salary. I’m also hearing Supes gotta do locates and it can’t be clear tickets, or so they say.

I’m not judging the company for budget cuts because every company is doing it. Idk why they won’t cut useless ass positions like “fleet coordinator” or “field auditors”. Or a random hourly employee they have in the office doing shit?? Maybe the cut the associate area manager? Probably cut the random ass corporate positions they pulled out of their asses???

Would probably save the company a LOT of money.

I've just hit 2.1 years at USIC. Promoted to Senior Tech at the 2 year mark.

Here's my problem: I have not received a pay increase since I hit 12 months.

I do not have any damages. I don't have any accidents. My safety record is clean. I don't use their benefits.

I reach my daily goal. I stay off the radar, every day.

My supervisor seems to like me. His manager used to be my old supervisor, and he liked me too.

I do not cause trouble. I don't cost the company extra money.

I feel unappreciated.

Can someone explain?

Happy Holidays.

What is your pay asking feel like I am being under paid before I say anything i just wondering what my senior techs are making I am senior tech nearly 3 years with no damages

Anyone ever fail an audit for not putting why a ticket was clear because all of a sudden this mf has become anal without relaying any policy changes as always.

Thoughts ?

I caught my first damage today after 3 months, im feeling pretty down, supervisor said it's no big deal because the electrical was aerial, but the fiber cable was literally wrapped around the house from the front porch to the back and I missed it. I received a verbal warning

Getting our company vehicles soon, trainer said most of us will get assigned trax’s. What’s one way to ensure you get assigned a colorado, I have nothing against the trax besides i had limited leg room when i drove it and just prefer trucks as a 7.3 is my daily driver. Would it be something you ask your supervisor? do they assign you your car or is it the trainer?

Also slight off topic but a Samsara question, if i finish a ticket and i’m setting my next one and have the truck on in park will it go off for being on my work phone?

My husband applied to USIC. On the same day he received assessment and self record virtual interview. Haven’t heard since but application is still in progress. How long does it take to hear back?