20 Managers in 3.5 years. Let that sink in... - Automotive Service Advisor Tesla Employee Review

2.0
22 Feb 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The Technology - this job will keep you sharp. You must be on your A-game when working with a product that is leading the way in a tech savvy environment. The product is stellar, the work environment changes keeps you on your feet, the job is so past paced and changes so often that you are constantly learning and figuring out new issues and always adapting to new concepts and environments. The People - As customer service representatives, you definitely deal with the occasional sh*thead but the majority of the customers are really cool. They all have different backgrounds and come from a very different past. Tons of tech industry guys, car dorks, and all around eco-friendly people looking to make the world a better place. The mission statement gives your arm fuzzies when you think about it and the product breeds motivated individuals to support the brand and the mission. You will also find yourself matched side by side in the trenches with amazing peers who lift you up and will teach you amazing things and encourage you when you are down. Cannot say the same about management.

Cons

There are too many cons to list. Let's start with main ones. You are just a number. The company grew too fast and if you don't get the special red carpet treatment because you know someone who knows someone, you will just get used, burned out, and never get recognized for what you have put in. I personally walked away but always walked away in 2022 when I was still making the same measly hourly wage they initially hired me in 2020 after doing everything the company asked for in return. I shifted my role to a trainer position, switched to a service center that was falling apart to keep it together, and everything you could ever ask for in an employee, I did it. I was promised and alluded a promotion but never got it until I threatened to walk out one day. That was the only time in my 3.5 year tenure I was promoted. Sad right? The lay off are crushing here and real. If you ever work for them, you realize that they like to "change" things up every so often. That could mean your hours change or your work environment changes. Or they fire the last 5 people they hired in your department or they fire the most tenured employee that works the hardest because they get paid more than everyone else. It's a sad system in place run by a poorly hand plucked management and stems from an immature company with too much growth and not being able to handle it. They promote the wrong people, lay off the wrong people, and hire the wrong people leaving you with a disorganized chaos to constantly clean up since service is the step child of the company that "shouldn't" technically exist. If the entire management team were more like the 4 managers I truly enjoyed my time with and supported 100% I would still be with the company. Two were fired and two moved on to a different part of the company. As service advisors, you are essentially just trying to keep the stock holders happy and fix the broken problems the engineering and factory created. Toms of manufacturing defects, fitment issues, internal issues caused by trying to fix something else. If the root of the issues were fixed from the top down starting with strict engineering and quality control, 50% of the headaches would go away. Instead service is dealing with either delaying the concern and putting bandaids on real issues that Tesla has no answer to fix. There is a certain level of actually fixing things and being the punching bag of customers who are absolutely upset they are not treated like their previous Mercedes service center but most of the time, we are informing the customers a future fix is coming or this is a known issue and our engineers are working on it. It gets old after a while and it seems to be the common trend with an immature company that cannot handle their growth properly. Long hours, zero recognition. With the revolving co-workers and managers, you truly are not valued as am employee. For the richest company in the world, we have the MOST sad company events and work gatherings. Most of them are run by employees on their personal time and budget. Work more for less. Get more stuff done with less. And if someone doesn't do it, pick up the slack for them because eventually it will come back to you. You also wonder how certain managers and co-workers got hired. It's astonishing how desperate the service department has gotten. If you pay more and are selective with your hiring process, maybe you can find the right people? The hourly thing for technicians can get old because they honestly have no incentive to work harder and faster unless internally motivated with $$$ like most automotive environments. Management. Internal greed and toxic culture. Especially at a mecca center like Tyson. This place breeds toxicity and I know there are are less intense and chill service centers out there. Over time that toxicity will bleed through.

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Pros

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Cons

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3.0
27 Apr 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Completely casual dress code Flexibility to work from home when needed Always interesting to work at the factory If you look at the SEC filings, you can see that the top people are basically compensated the same as the other employees, which is a pleasant surprise. Many “beautiful people” here (male and female). Lots of eye candy. A lot of people complain about the pay, but they paid me more than my last company, where I had the same title LGBT friendly The product is cool, and really fun to drive If you’re in the right department, you might be able to drive a Tesla somewhat regularly. If not, there is an ongoing contest where you can be randomly selected to take one home for a couple of nights The company is still growing There is room to move geographically within Service, since Tesla owns the Service Centers Lots of “car guy” coworkers to keep conversations interesting Benefits actually got better and cheaper every year from 2012-2015, and stayed similar after that. I guess this was due to the company growing and getting better group rates. Regardless, not many people can say that. You’ll frequently come to work that day expecting to work on a certain project and end up on something totally different. This can be good and bad. Starting hours are typically flexible, which is a really nice perk. Nobody is making sure you’re in your seat at a certain time. Most employees are surprisingly responsive and friendly. Very heavy email-based communication, and it mostly works quite well. You get good at doing the best you can with the resources you have, rather than doing the best possible job. This isn’t necessarily a complaint, since it’s a valuable skill to have, but you should consider if you’re going to be okay in that kind of environment before applying.

Cons

Rare to be recognized, let alone thanked, for going above and beyond to accomplish something out of the ordinary. Once you've "done the impossible", it's just assumed that you can and will do it again and again from now on. Literally hundreds of people in one room, desks on top of each other, as many as possible in every little space. Companies claim that they’re being “modern” and “progressive” by not having offices and cubicles, but they’re just being cheap. Look at pictures of offices from the 1950’s. You’ll see the same hundreds of desks in a room. Yearly raises are typically less than the cost of living Work/life balance is mediocre at best Smallish yearly bonuses in the form of golden handcuffs. RSUs that vest over 4 years, so you’ll wait a long time to benefit from them Those who were hired before mid-2013 made a lot of money off stock options, but many of those people are leaving now that all of their options are used up. Revolving door. It’s hard to last more than a couple of years here. It’s always seemingly a few steps away from massive failure Very few processes in place, so work is done extremely inefficiently Very common to compose an email and see “This is no longer a valid Tesla address” The entire Service organization shares one budget. I am scrimping to save $50 on software while a barely-related manager wastes literally tens of thousands of dollars a week on cool toys, and it all comes from the same place. Everything’s urgent, and people try to name-drop that Elon’s watching this very project so I need to stop everything for them. Luckily those of us who have been around for a while see right through that charade. Technically, no 401(k) match, though if you’re careful with the health benefits you choose, you can end up with some leftover that can be diverted into the 401(k). Middle managers are very hit-and-miss. Many were promoted because a manager was needed and they were the only one who knew anything about the department. Much room for improvement here. Minimal leadership training. No real employee development opportunities. The results are just as bad as you’d expect. Massive inter-departmental struggles. Most of my problems can be traced to one power-hungry manager of a sister department. It only takes one person to ruin the work lives of many people. There are more meetings than I expected from this kind of company. Elon sent a great email about how wasteful meetings are, but people have fallen into old bad habits. Completely ineffective HR department Every department is grossly understaffed, just barely above the point of collapse. Nearly everyone has to work harder than they would if they were doing the same job at another company. Anything that they can do in house, they’ll do, rather than outsourcing to a supplier. There are people who spend their whole careers deciding “make vs. buy”… no need for them here, it seems. This is corporate arrogance, and it reduces quality, wastes human resources, and slows time to market in many cases. A positive side effect is that more products are made here in California than would be if they were outsourced. Inadequate parking Note to hiring managers at other companies: Watch out if someone from Tesla has “Project Manager” on their title. Many of these people are just general office workers with no skills beyond harassing people via email.

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