bigfooticus, what year was that?

That pretty 25 year old blonde in HR is still the best employee they have ever had! She's smart, too!

It's funny to see this thread. I worked at UCS in the early 1990s for 5 years before heading to IBM.

That place was good to me, but since I was just out of college I didn't realize that the "issues" the company has aren't shared by other companies. Let's just say that if UCS/Reynolds could get away with being all-white, all-male, all-straight, and putting video surveillance in every employee's home in would.

I'll never forget when a VP called me into his office to tell me he noticed I had gone off-site for lunch 10 days the prior month, and how he "strongly encouraged" me to use the "subsidized" cafeteria onsite.

Back in those days, you were required to wear suit and tie everyday no matter what your job was except for the maintenance staff. The all-white maintenance management staff wore white dress shirts with a UCS logo on them, and the all-black maintenance non-management staff wore blue shirts.

Back then UCS had the nickname "The Firm" because they pretty much knew more about each employee than the employees themselves did.

If I had nothing better to do I would love to get a job here just so I could drink on the job and see how long it took me to get fired.

What a thread! Had to read through it twice, but finally caught the remaining portion of the grenade story.

I saw a guy wearing a R&R shirt at Kroger a couple of weeks ago. Immediately thought of this thread.

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Back in those days, you were required to wear suit and tie everyday no matter what your job was except for the maintenance staff. The all-white maintenance management staff wore white dress shirts with a UCS logo on them, and the all-black maintenance non-management staff wore blue shirts.

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Sounds only natural that you went to IBM!

B-1 83 Daughter is out of HR, and now in sales. 6 figures await those that stick with it.

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Back in those days, you were required to wear suit and tie everyday no matter what your job was except for the maintenance staff. The all-white maintenance management staff wore white dress shirts with a UCS logo on them, and the all-black maintenance non-management staff wore blue shirts.

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Sounds only natural that you went to IBM!

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I just came from IBM and I wore polos with jeans and I was the most dressed up person there. Kinda miss that and the free snacks/cokes/red bulls/Keurig/lattes as well as the 10lbs I lost the first month away from there.

Wow this thread died off.

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still no grenade story

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bump for sharkenleo

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Oh yeah, forgot I applied there. Glad I didn't get it.

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bigfooticus, what year was that?

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Summer 1994
(Delayed response)

That's when the GB was good

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B-1 83 Daughter is out of HR, and now in sales. 6 figures await those that stick with it.

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They messed her around with training time, travel time, and salary. She finally quit.

Ha. It's been a long time since I've seen this thread.

I worked for ReyRey (formerly UCS) for five years ('07-'12).

It was pretty bad, but I thankfully worked in a pretty good department with a decent supervisor.

My wife and I went to Jamaica for a week in '09 for our 2-year anniversary. I was "randomly" selected for a drug test two times the week I got back.

I worked there in programming for 3+ years (07-10). I hated just about every day there. I liked the people that I worked with, but my direct supervisor was awful. I think I got one (very small) raise in the 3 years that I worked there.

Worked in MIN for 5 yrs (03-08). Completely dysfunctional company. Always bothered me that I knew my manufacturers and their interfaces better than anyone in the company but my supervisor was Product Manager for all of them. Supervisor literally cried when I left because he knew how screwed he was. I was the only guy in my department to ever be kept the entire 2 weeks after giving noticed. Spent the entire 2 weeks surfing private island for sale website (one of the few non-automotive sites you could get to with the filters) because the guy replacing me put forth NO effort to learn what I knew.

This thread was actually started a couple weeks before I started at UCS. Unfortunately I didn't join TA until I was 3-4 yrs into the job.

Applied there out of college and so thankful they didn't hire me. You could tell something was really weird after spending about 15 minutes inside. I don't think they liked that I pressed for what the salary would be at the end of my interview. And the number they finally provided was pretty terrible.

And then the tobacco thing. So if I work there I can't have an occasional cigar? GFY

I started at UCS in 1991, Hollister location. I got to travel all over the US installing the hardware and infrastructure in all of those dealerships. I was reprimanded several times for going over my phone "allowance" I was also reprimanded for going off site for lunch on several occasions. I also worked at the Dacoma location on the "VIPARCAT" project (VIsual PARts CATalog), what a joke! After almost 10 years with the company UCS/Rentsys) the canned me 1 month before my 10th anniversary for lack of productivity! My father had just passed away and within a 2 week period a dear friend also passed, needless to say I missed a few days of work so they decided to "let me go". Sorry SOB's

The Christmas parties were awesome though, I was at the Beach Boys party and had a blast! I remember missing the Christmas party a week after I started (Dec. 1991) and was hounded to no end as to why I missed it. I had to explain to my boss why I wasn't there and what I was doing instead. There were a lot of good people working there when I was there and most have left since then, on to bigger and better things.

I know the grenade story but will refrain from telling it since it may upset some folks, let's just say they dodged a BIG one!

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The first ever girl in the one year sales training program had to quit. One of the enterprising sales reps in the field found pictures of her posing in a college playboy edition and faxed them into the home office. It made for quite a story.

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Ahhhh, Leah. I remember her well. Girls of the SWC if I'm not mistaken. She was very friendly and quite attractive.

I worked there through the summer of 09 I think and one semester. I rebuilt keytrax systems... My group was fun. Strangest place I have ever worked at. Keycard to go to the bathroom! It was weird but a good college job because I could make my own schedule and as long as I maintained everyone left us alone for the most part.

Who knew the Wolf of Wall Street had an office in College Station?

All you people have battered woman's syndrome not wanting to tell this grenade story. Just tell it!

I worked there for four years, 06-10. I was fresh out of the Army so needless to say it was quite a change! I was on the toner team with some pretty good guys. Otherwise yeah, it was a pretty weird company to work for. I miss the hot girls in the parts department downstairs and the food was pretty good in the cafeteria.

Let's add some more fuel...

• My current company hired some UCS/R&R installers a couple years ago. 2 guys applied and were hired. Others heard about us and applied after those 2 were onboard. Hired a total of 8 I think. One of the 1st guys got a cease and desist letter from R&R lawyers because his management assumed that he recruited all those people.
• Had a coworker that got fed up and on his last performance review he opted to not fill out the "what do you like about UCS" question on the review. His supervisor gave it back and told him that he wanted to fill it out. He handed it back blank and was walked out a few hours later. Didn't try to understand why he was unhappy, just walked his butt out. Last I talked to him he was a supervisor at HCAD.
• VP of my dept (MIN) up until the R&R merger openly refused to hire "black people", especially men. Said they were too inclined to sue for discrimination when they had to be fired for not doing their job. At one point SPG merged with my dept and the SPG manager wasn't nearly as biased. He ended up being lectured for bringing and African American guy to the VP for final interviews.
• Everyone in mgmt is completely paranoid about locking their computers. My old supervisor however was an idiot. He would perform written test interviews in our cube farm by logging into a spare PC and having the prospective employee complete the test. Then he would leave the PC logged on all damn day. I took a short lunch one such day and snooped around his network drives. Ended up finding some sensitive material regarding his assessment of everyone on his team. High praise for the brown nosers and no future for the independent thinkers per his assessment. Gave me the last kick in the butt I needed to get out.
• Witnessed 2 managers/supervisors in other departments leave for a better opportunity only to come crawling back. In both situations a condition of their rehire was that they had to give a speech at the monthly BDay party about the grass not always being greener. There were always rumors of mgmt keeping tabs on certain employees that left for situations just like this. In the year after I quit I had 6 or so current supervisors/managers try to connect with me on LinkedIn.
• When I finally left UCS/R&R, I took an entry level Eng Tech position in the O&G industry. That entry level position paid me $12k more than I was making at UCS. I am now at another software company and making over 3 times what I was making at UCS.

And for those that have been patiently waiting for the grenade story.... Disclaimer, I was not there. My recount was 3rd hand info as the story is retold regularly to "encourage" employees to do the right thing.

Basic gist was... In a rush to head out for a vacation, Employee A dropped the ball on a responsibility they had. A couple days after they left for vacation, Employees B&C noticed the mistake but opted to do nothing because it wasn't their jobs. Eventually B or C raised a red flag to management and avoided a huge loss for the company but management wasn't happy that it took so long for action to be taken. After A came back from vacation A, B & C were set down in a room and each handed a hand grenade (no they were not live). The metaphor was supposed to be that the company was like a battalion at war. Everyone had their part but when a hand grenade is thrown into the bunker, someone has to step up and jump on the grenade or everyone will die.

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Let's add some more fuel...

• My current company hired some UCS/R&R installers a couple years ago. 2 guys applied and were hired. Others heard about us and applied after those 2 were onboard. Hired a total of 8 I think. One of the 1st guys got a cease and desist letter from R&R lawyers because his management assumed that he recruited all those people.
• Had a coworker that got fed up and on his last performance review he opted to not fill out the "what do you like about UCS" question on the review. His supervisor gave it back and told him that he wanted to fill it out. He handed it back blank and was walked out a few hours later. Didn't try to understand why he was unhappy, just walked his butt out. Last I talked to him he was a supervisor at HCAD.
• VP of my dept (MIN) up until the R&R merger openly refused to hire "black people", especially men. Said they were too inclined to sue for discrimination when they had to be fired for not doing their job. At one point SPG merged with my dept and the SPG manager wasn't nearly as biased. He ended up being lectured for bringing and African American guy to the VP for final interviews.
• Everyone in mgmt is completely paranoid about locking their computers. My old supervisor however was an idiot. He would perform written test interviews in our cube farm by logging into a spare PC and having the prospective employee complete the test. Then he would leave the PC logged on all damn day. I took a short lunch one such day and snooped around his network drives. Ended up finding some sensitive material regarding his assessment of everyone on his team. High praise for the brown nosers and no future for the independent thinkers per his assessment. Gave me the last kick in the butt I needed to get out.
• Witnessed 2 managers/supervisors in other departments leave for a better opportunity only to come crawling back. In both situations a condition of their rehire was that they had to give a speech at the monthly BDay party about the grass not always being greener. There were always rumors of mgmt keeping tabs on certain employees that left for situations just like this. In the year after I quit I had 6 or so current supervisors/managers try to connect with me on LinkedIn.
• When I finally left UCS/R&R, I took an entry level Eng Tech position in the O&G industry. That entry level position paid me $12k more than I was making at UCS. I am now at another software company and making over 3 times what I was making at UCS.

And for those that have been patiently waiting for the grenade story.... Disclaimer, I was not there. My recount was 3rd hand info as the story is retold regularly to "encourage" employees to do the right thing.

Basic gist was... In a rush to head out for a vacation, Employee A dropped the ball on a responsibility they had. A couple days after they left for vacation, Employees B&C noticed the mistake but opted to do nothing because it wasn't their jobs. Eventually B or C raised a red flag to management and avoided a huge loss for the company but management wasn't happy that it took so long for action to be taken. After A came back from vacation A, B & C were set down in a room and each handed a hand grenade (no they were not live). The metaphor was supposed to be that the company was like a battalion at war. Everyone had their part but when a hand grenade is thrown into the bunker, someone has to step up and jump on the grenade or everyone will die.

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Thanks for finally telling the grenade story.

That being said, why did anyone hesitate to tell this? It illustrates how crazy R&R is just like all the other posts, but it's nothing sensitive...

That is one of the biggest let downs ever.

I was row ting something along the lines of
"when the leadership was all getting ready to head out to the deer lease, a grenade fell out of one of their bags and sat on the floor for hours because everyone was sure it was a test tones if they would steal something."
Or
To motivate everyone they rolled a grenade into the crowd at one of the monthly happy birthday meetings
Or
Someone in a leadership position made a comment like " sometimes being part of our teamsis like falling on a grenade and banging the fat friend, so your buddy can do the hot one."

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If that is the true grenade story **** all you *******s who hyped that story up

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No kidding. It is nothing compared to what Don used to do at the chicken. I remember getting thinly veiled threats from him about rattle snakes or getting shot by the gun he had laying on his desk.

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That is one of the biggest let downs ever.

I was row ting something along the lines of
"when the leadership was all getting ready to head out to the deer lease, a grenade fell out of one of their bags and sat on the floor for hours because everyone was sure it was a test tones if they would steal something."
Or
To motivate everyone they rolled a grenade into the crowd at one of the monthly happy birthday meetings
Or
Someone in a leadership position made a comment like " sometimes being part of our teamsis like falling on a grenade and banging the fat friend, so your buddy can do the hot one."

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Could of been 2 or 3 as well but that was a quick recap of what I was told by my manager 10+ yrs ago.