WOW now even the customer trainer is going out in Xerox. Xerox found some more $$ to VRIF!
Looks they are positioning them self out.  :ph34r:  

 KT & boatbum ,

you guys are correct about trainers and to my knowledge , there's only a few trainer slots ( ? 2 ? ) left on the west coast and those slots are filled by tech specs that have to go into the field periodicly and help tec reps with problem machines . it's difficult for a trainer to hold a class when he's in the field . ? ?

 hello KT ,

the ratio of tech reps to managers in my old district now is about 35 reps for each FSM . we only have one FSM left . at one time we had several FSMs for over 50 tech reps state wide . we have one trainer that was kept pretty busy training within our own district and a few techs who would travel in from other outside districts . now , because of the retiring / earlyout / layoffs of trainers on the west coast , our resident instate trainer spends about half his time out of state training our people in other districts . we also used to have several instate / indistrict tech specs that were available for different machine volume bands . those are all gone now too .

so , end result , is a one part time trainer / tech spec that is over worked and trying to do the work that several different employees used to do before . course , the situation i'm talking about in my own district is happening nation wide . and , of course , the reason for all this is because of competition pressures from other vendors that do not have the same level of overhead costs . it's the new world out there . just as the airlines are finding out right now .

one of the reasons i keep up with the pension issues for the airlines right now is because that industry is on the ' bubble ' now for retiree / pension / retiree benefits at this moment . it'll be the auto industry next and , of course , us , in the copier industry are still sorting out who will be left in the end , even now . xerox still isn't out of the woods yet and our retiree benefits could still disappear at any time . so i'm attempting to educate as to the current issues so WHEN - not if - it happens to us as retirees , we'll be better prepared . hopefully it'll never happen to us xeroids . and i wish mother ' X ' the best so we can continue to enjoy our retirement .

so stay tuned and thanks for your input KT .

 hi KT ,

i can tell by reading your numbers that we were / are pretty small potatos up here in Alaska    . i don't think we ever had more than 80 reps at one time in the state and not much more than 3 or 4 FSMs , even when we were at our prime , as far as machine populations & volumes and our own district years ago .

Alaska now comes under some kind of a western / northwestern organization umbrella . in the beginning when i hired on in 1972 we were under the ' Seattle ' district . i was hired in Fairbanks , Alaska and watched that area grow from 3 tech reps to 11 techs in a couple of years durning the construction phase of the Alaskan oil pipeline boom . then we had our own district and i started the resident tech part of my career working by myself for the next 18 years in Valdez , Ketchikan , and Sitka before transferring back on to a team in Juneau again  . then we lost our own district designation about the time i transfered to Anchorage to work on a specialized school district contract team with over several hundred 1075 machines , and came back under a Northwestern district . now i think they divide the west coast into two districts : north & south .

as for your ideas on manufacturing , xerox has already outsourced that to Flextronics a few years ago and the new xerox machines shipping / packing boxes are now so marked . as for sales , alot of the selling is now outsourced by sales agencies especially on the low and mid volume machines . and , of course , alot of the technical work is being done by agents now too .

so gradually , xerox is coming around to your way of thinking KT .   :ph34r:  .

i'm glad you enjoy working . for some it's a life and i used to really enjoy it . but now that i've gotten used surfing every day in hawaii and rving and camping out all the time here in alaska , there's no going back to carrying a pager full of service calls and a cell phone full of messages and voice mail .

appreciate your input here KT cause it gives us another window on what's happening in the field .

 hello Xtrain ,

i could see the day where xerox out sources training . they've out sourced alot of other things . and alot of companies outsource training .  

I have a theory in business that there are 2 kinds of business. UP elevator businesses and DOWN elevator businesses. And owning a Copy or Print shop is a down elevator business. Simply because the need for such things is decreasing.

Where I come from there are more Copy Shops and Printers going out of business than starting up. Those big digital shops that start up with all the top equipment- 5 years or less they are out of business with big debts.

The scene for Xerox and other copier companies has changed dramatically over the years. Gone are the glory days where every one wants a xerox, and owning one is a licence to print money.

If copying and printing is a down elevator business, then Xerox must be one of the largest supplyers of DOWN elevator business printing devices. Which means they are in a declining market... for the "print for pay" market anyway.

Of course they can still sell desk top printers and place small multifunction devices in offices untill every one decides they dont want a hard copy of the information they are looking at and are prepared to archive it electronically or just send someone a heads up to the info over the web.

Xerox also have set up inplant printing departments in major accounts in order to bypass the commercial operators in the "print for pay" market they have supplied with their machines for years. Of course they have tried this before and failed but maybe the idea has now come of age.

After all... If I could make my own photocopiers and buy parts at manufacturers cost and service them with my own labour I too would be making a big profit instead of busting a gut to make a living paying highly inflated parts costs and waiting for 3 months to get paid by companies in a downward spiraling business.

The advent of the "Information Superhighway", mobile phones, PDA's, blue tooth, and wireless notebooks has changed the way the human race distributes information. And yes I have them all and I use them every day in my business and I am 50.

Mr Land invented instant photography, Polaroid marketed it successfully for decades and they are no more, yet instant photography is all arround us, bigger now than ever . Why did Polaroid not make the transition?

Xerox invented Xerography. I sometimes wonder their direction is not so well founded. Like Polaroid. But there is no reason to listen to me, am no expert.

Out sourcing and laying off staff is not the indicators of a growing and prosperous organisation. I know this first hand as I have had my share of failures as well.

I hope someone will prove me wrong, I am too young to retire and too old to re-invent myself.

I am surprised, very surprised we have not yet seen an influx of high production cheep Chinese photocopiers on the market. Xerox or otherwise.

Allan the chinese is there already!
I also service the roll feed system, OCE and Nipson. All varible data, junk mail. Yes it is still out there. I think getting junk mail is better than spam on my e-mail.
I have seen where varible data when from 58 hours per shift, yes they would run 3/7 shift. Operator are down to 24 hours a week and colllecting UE with it. They would run 22 million  a shift then.
Half the work when to China! Sorry to say but that is my hertiage, but I am a American.
United airlines and the German airlines which I can not spell, has there planes maintain in China. At 60 cents an hour they pay for there workers.

Well let me start by stating that I worked for 8 years in the service agency program.  I was hoping to make the move to full time Xerox Tech however they cancelled the contract with the agency I worked for.  They asked the non-former Xerox tech to enter a temp program in which after 18 months we would be "moved" into Xerox as techs.  They also said they were committed to the Agency program, so I decided to move to the other agency in the area (drafted would be a more likely term).  After 6 months with this agency Mother X anounced that they were doing away with the program entirely.  At this time I went into the temp agency with oral promises that they would move us into Xerox.  14 months later they canned us.

Well 15 months ago I was advised by a Xerox tech that Xerox was using another temp agency looking for help on older analog and digital equipment and to call this agency and check it out.  I called and it was the same speech that I heard last time so I asked for a written letter which contained an agreement to hire in it by Xerox.  The answer I recieved was we cannot do that, I decided that it was not in my best interest to apply.  The agency called me several times but I told them that with out the letter I could not /would not do it. 

I found out several days ago that I made the right decision.  They forced transferred 3 techs to this area and cancelled all the temps. 

I don't know how other areas treated there "Agents" but the techs here never complained about us and treated us as one of the group (there may have been one not happy with us but otherwise they liked us).  I have been away from Xerox for about 2 years now and miss the techs and some (not all) of the customers.  I also found out that about half of the techs that were eligible to take the vrif's, that were made available, had taken it or are taking it (last day pending).   I wish them well and wonder how Xerox can make the top 10 of the best places to work when they treat techs this way and all the job postings on the web site are for "new college graduates"?

Forgive my rant but I was wondering if any one else was in this situation or knows of those that were?