Working with a PDA?

[crank39]

Doncaster

I hear thats a very nice place! Loads of nice people live there.

Thats a massive area! What's tha do?

Double glazing service engineer, Certass inspector and also carry out detailed inspections and write reports for Insurance companies i.e when firms go bust and the homeowner needs to claim on the IBG the insurance company will send me to inspect, we do anything from broken hinges/handles, steamed units right up to conservatory base subsidence (under pining), complete re-roofs and everything else in between.

So unfortunatly i bring a lot of work home with me, still emailing and writing reports till the early hours most nights

 

[skyboy]

Doncaster

I hear thats a very nice place! Loads of nice people live there.

Thats a massive area! What's tha do?

Double glazing service engineer, Certass inspector and also carry out detailed inspections and write reports for Insurance companies i.e when firms go bust and the homeowner needs to claim on the IBG the insurance company will send me to inspect, we do anything from broken hinges/handles, steamed units right up to conservatory base subsidence (under pining), complete re-roofs and everything else in between.

So unfortunatly i bring a lot of work home with me, still emailing and writing reports till the early hours most nights

Shorten your emails mate just write , 'it's fooked! might cost a few quid to fix'. on them all.

 

[conny]

Our fridge engineers have them now. But they still spend an hour each side of doing the job sat in their vans. I dont know how they get away with it.



The bad thing for us is that they solely use them. We no longer get a written report, which is bad for us because we relied on them to see exactly what they have done, and could refer to it if something went wrong again. All we do now is sign the PDA.

Under ISO90001 you should receive, and file, hard copies (written reports/estimates/quotes etc), of all work undertaken. If you have an outside Audit they may well want to see these documents. If your company can't produce them they will lose their ISO status which will have a 'knock-on' effect to the business. Are you sure head office don't get the reports?

 

[matt1e]

we all use PDA's now at work, I find it is a lot easier now.
I download my jobs late night or early morning so no need to go to the office
they also are loaded with tomtom so I can load a job ,hit the tomtom button then automatically load the address into the sat nav,
Our company is pretty lax so if we damage our PDA then we dont have to pay for it (unless it's every week) we can also use them for personal use no probs (unless you take the total P)
as others have said, yes the company can track the phone and also monitor phone usage (dont know if they do but they could if they wanted to) but I dont mind that its a small price to pay for a system that makes my job easier, a free phone, free but admitably not great internet access and free tomtom
but as I say we are lucky, we don't have to sign for the phones,pay any penalties, and sometimes get to keep them when they are upgraded

Matt

 

[joinerjohn]

If the company supply anything that's necessary to do the job, then replacement is usually up to them. Last firm I worked for gave us all these JCB, indestructible phones (like a red rag to a bull) The lads found ways of (ahem) testing the indestructibility of the phones. Ranging from dropping them 20+ft onto a concrete floor, throwing them at the wall and running over them with various vehicles. The only thing that seemed to do them for sure was a forklift truck. I "accidentally" dropped mine out of some racking in an M&S warehouse. Must have been 25ft to the floor, and the bloody thing bounced like a rubber ball , all over the place. But didn't break. Gaffer was ringing me at the time too (I swear that's what made me drop the phone) It was still ringing when it stopped bouncing.

 

[AssociatedAlarm]

Me too. I sit in the middle lane on 65 and pass the benefits on to all those behind me. They often thank me when they overtake. I can't hear what they say but they seems very animated.

Again you show you cannot read, this time the highway code.

 

[r.bartlett]

If the company supply anything that's necessary to do the job, then replacement is usually up to them. Last firm I worked for gave us all these JCB, indestructible phones (like a red rag to a bull) The lads found ways of (ahem) testing the indestructibility of the phones. Ranging from dropping them 20+ft onto a concrete floor, throwing them at the wall and running over them with various vehicles. The only thing that seemed to do them for sure was a forklift truck. I "accidentally" dropped mine out of some racking in an M&S warehouse. Must have been 25ft to the floor, and the bloody thing bounced like a rubber ball , all over the place. But didn't break. Gaffer was ringing me at the time too (I swear that's what made me drop the phone) It was still ringing when it stopped bouncing.

Let me guess, you were chairman at MENSA ?

 

[joe-90]

Me too. I sit in the middle lane on 65 and pass the benefits on to all those behind me. They often thank me when they overtake. I can't hear what they say but they seems very animated.

Again you show you cannot read, this time the highway code.

I just knew some dullard would bite.

I actually sit on 70.

 

[kirkgas]

Whats a PDA?

Still don't know what PDA stands for, but from Crank's description it sounds like a spy-in-the-cab computer system.

Big Brother!

Personal Digital Assistant
they do spy on you, but if arent doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about, and if the manager is ok you can still nip to the bank and dentist etc, its all about having a good working relationship

 

[kirkgas]

Our fridge engineers have them now. But they still spend an hour each side of doing the job sat in their vans. I dont know how they get away with it.

They come in, look at what needs doing, go sit in their van doing "paperwork" or on the blower, then come do the job. Then they go sit in the van again, on the blower or tapping on the PDA, stare into space for a bit, eat something, then come and get a signature off us.

The bad thing for us is that they solely use them. We no longer get a written report, which is bad for us because we relied on them to see exactly what they have done, and could refer to it if something went wrong again. All we do now is sign the PDA.

the sytems can be set up to auto send you what you have just signed as an email as soon as you sign

 

[kirkgas]

there are pros and cons to every system depending on who you are, we used them for 30+ engineers when i was aa gas manager, the first complaint was "you will be able to track me all day" reply "i pay you £34k per year to work all day so im entitiled to know if you are home at 2pm)
they soon learned that if they did their job fairly then nothing was done the odd time they disappeared, its all about woking fairly on both sides, they were warned that if the tracker reports (which can be downloaded showing the last 28 days times and journeys) constantly showed fraud they would be dealt with but the odd thing was fine, most guys were ok as they were doing a good job anyway
it cuts out tons of paperwork and admin on big contracts, the system we had cost mega bucks to develop but when a service was done you completed the CP12 on screen, a bit at a time and it was set up that you couldnt go to the next screen till you completed the boxes so it made the cert a better quality, it auto sent a copy to our secure server and the client, ok that meant someone can track how long the job took but no major issue, the big bonus for us was that once input into the system the CP12 would auto create a new appointment for 11 months later, it also auto printed appointment letter which were scooped up and posted every day
on balance i thought the system was brilliant as i was the manager, would i have been as happy 5 years before when i was the guy in the van? TBH yes as i wasnt robbing the boss

 

[EddieM]

Doncaster

I hear thats a very nice place! Loads of nice people live there.

Thats a massive area! What's tha do?

I work in donny, and i can assure you it is a complete s******e