Sierra (Installers)

dubmick

Anyone know of this company?
they were supposed to install Sky + for me today but came out yesterday and now it'll be the 13th of February before they can come out.
Extremely pisssed off!

djpaul

dubmick wrote:

Anyone know of this company?
they were supposed to install Sky + for me today but came out yesterday and now it'll be the 13th of February before they can come out.
Extremely pisssed off!

This company name has popped up a lot lately, letting down a lot of people
including myself. Would not recommend them to anyone.:mad: Pity sky still use them.

whippet

the problems with Sierra are well documented on these boards ... you can't call them, even sky can't contact them.

Unfortunaltly sky will not even prioritise your call if they don't show, it's back to the back of the queue !!

They are quite a large company but they obviously outsource the Sky installs, their website http://www.sierra.ie/has contact emails of senior people, I emailed them and did get a response, not a very good one but a responce none the less.

JohnC.

They installed our Sky, thankfully without incident. They also made most of the NTL visits when we had regular NTL problems. In fact, I'm pretty sure the guy who installed Sky is the same guy who made the second last NTL visit.

L1011

The only company I've ever seen do diagonal cable runs (!) and no drip loop (!!!!).

Sparky

MYOB wrote:

and no drip loop (!!!!).

Now thats bad workmanship, everybody who would do a cable run knows that you have to do a drip loop.

Ive even seen a case in a new house in wicklow where it was clipped so far appart that the weight of the cable made it sag, it looks so bad and to add insult to injury they used like a no.12 bit through the wall and didnt leave a drip loop or fill it with silicone, resulting in part of the wall near the skirting so damp that it caused the socket to trip, hense we were called.

Some cowboys out there i tell ya.

Tony

Sparky-s wrote:

Some cowboys out there i tell ya.

A Cowboy would never do that:)

Sparky

Tony wrote:

A Cowboy would never do that:)

He would do worse i suppose, no dish maybe or dodgy box

Tony

Sparky-s wrote:

He would do worse i suppose, no dish maybe or dodgy box

You took me up wrong, lots of my friends are Cowboys are they are the most honest hard working and dilligent people I know. I dont know how/why it became a derogatory term here in Ireland

Aquos76

Kahless wrote:

They installed our Sky, thankfully without incident. They also made most of the NTL visits when we had regular NTL problems. In fact, I'm pretty sure the guy who installed Sky is the same guy who made the second last NTL visit.

Sure that would be Mick, (a real cowboy only kidding). He was employed by a company from carlow who has the mmds contract from ntl, but he has since left them and now works for seirra, so thats why he visited you twice. Btw he is from Slieverue.

Sparky

Tony wrote:

You took me up wrong, lots of my friends are Cowboys are they are the most honest hard working and dilligent people I know.

i better re phrase it so, damn eh...robbers

Tony wrote:

I dont know how/why it became a derogatory term here in Ireland

I dont know either tbh, when i first heard it many years ago i assumed a cowboy was somebody who rode on a horse and gathered cows.

englander

I have had 9 job numbers and have received over 25 'Welcome to Sky' letters from Sky trying to get an engineer to come around and install things.

Its either no Sky Card or engineer talking out of their arses.

I was told by Sierra engineer that I couldn't have a phone line install with broadband (I later realised he thought it was ISDN).

One engineer said he was at the house but no one answered. I had taken yet another day off to be around for them, sat at the window waitinbg for them to come.

I was told that the Sky dish would have to go on the neighbours chimney. I sent him away. Later turned out he was talking rubbish.

Each time I was put at the back of the waiting list, typically 2 weeks wait

Eventually all the planets were aligned, received my Sky card, got competent engineer (who installed it on side of house), arrived when he said he would, attached everything up nicely. Tried to activate card and it turns out that they have cancelled my card. They have sent a new card - but still waiting.

Its only been 11 weeks since I ordered it and still haven't received what I ordered !!!

Chorus were never this bad..................

bigpaddy2004

Aquos76 wrote:

Sure that would be Mick, (a real cowboy only kidding). He was employed by a company from carlow who has the mmds contract from ntl, but he has since left them and now works for seirra, so thats why he visited you twice. Btw he is from Slieverue.

Mick? who is Mick? I dont know any Mick up there

bigpaddy2004

englander wrote:

I have had 9 job numbers and have received over 25 'Welcome to Sky' letters from Sky trying to get an engineer to come around and install things.

Its either no Sky Card or engineer talking out of their arses.

I was told by Sierra engineer that I couldn't have a phone line install with broadband (I later realised he thought it was ISDN).

One engineer said he was at the house but no one answered. I had taken yet another day off to be around for them, sat at the window waitinbg for them to come.

I was told that the Sky dish would have to go on the neighbours chimney. I sent him away. Later turned out he was talking rubbish.

Each time I was put at the back of the waiting list, typically 2 weeks wait

Eventually all the planets were aligned, received my Sky card, got competent engineer (who installed it on side of house), arrived when he said he would, attached everything up nicely. Tried to activate card and it turns out that they have cancelled my card. They have sent a new card - but still waiting.

Its only been 11 weeks since I ordered it and still haven't received what I ordered !!!

Chorus were never this bad..................

For the bad luck you have had, probably another 100 had the good luck and were installed 11 weeks ago. It does happen from time to time, not everything runs smoothly, or do you know a system that does???

Aquos76

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

Mick? who is Mick? I dont know any Mick up there

Up where?

I was referring to a mate of mine who is from Slieverue in Co Kilkenny. He worked as an installer with a company called KBO a couple of years back, then switched to another company who done all the MMDS work for NTL. He is now back doing Sky and I assumed that he was with Sirrea because my sister in law recently got a relocation carried out and was told that Seirra would be doing it. As it turned out my mate mick was sent out to do the job.

Tony

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

For the bad luck you have had, probably another 100 had the good luck and were installed 11 weeks ago. It does happen from time to time, not everything runs smoothly, or do you know a system that does???

C'mon lets be fair there are so many bad reports about Sierra engineers that its not just a case of things occasionally going wrong, same could be said for Finlays. A sign of a good company is how they rectify matters when things do go wrong and putting people to the bottom of the waiting list after they were not installed for whatever reason is just plain bad customer service. Having said that these guys are so badly paid that its hardly surprising they dont go out of their way to get difficult jobs done.

Its not bad luck its just somebody not doing their job.

bigpaddy2004

Tony wrote:

C'mon lets be fair there are so many bad reports about Sierra engineers that its not just a case of things occasionally going wrong, same could be said for Finlays. A sign of a good company is how they rectify matters when things do go wrong and putting people to the bottom of the waiting list after they were not installed for whatever reason is just plain bad customer service. Having said that these guys are so badly paid that its hardly surprising they dont go out of their way to get difficult jobs done.

Its not bad luck its just somebody not doing their job.

Been put at the back of the queue is nothing to do with sierra, nor is customer services everything is controlled by Sky. As regard's being badly paid, Sierra only have about 5-6 of their installer's now, every county is nearly subbed out to local contractor's whom are being well paid to do a good job.

St Senan

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

Been put at the back of the queue is nothing to do with sierra, nor is customer services everything is controlled by Sky. As regard's being badly paid, Sierra only have about 5-6 of their installer's now, every county is nearly subbed out to local contractor's whom are being well paid to do a good job.

At one point there was 6 of us subbed out to Sierra here in Co Wexford, The jobs were pleantiful but the money was crap. John Molloy was in charge of the sky installs in Sierra. No customer was ever put back to the end of the list
they were usually installed the next day regardless. There was also a Guy from Kilkenny {quality controller} following us around checking the standard of work carried out by us.

Well it looks like times have changed, The 2 guys subbed out to Sierra now in Co Wexford are creating a mess. eg nowshows, bad cabling and over charging
we get a lot of calls from annoyed customers who either have been let down on install dates {one lady was let down five times }or are fuming over the work that was carried out and looking for us to rectify it.

bigpaddy2004

Wexford is not subbed out to 2 guys, it has been taken over by a company called dmc cable & satellite in wilton cork which employes over 50 installers to cover waterford, wexford, cork, kerry, clare, all tipperary, and galway.

Aquos76

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

Wexford is not subbed out to 2 guys, it has been taken over by a company called dmc cable & satellite in wilton cork which employes over 50 installers to cover waterford, wexford, cork, kerry, clare, all tipperary, and galway.

DMC, now thats who my mate (mick, whom I referred to in earlier post) works for.
Are they in anyway connected with Seirra. Do Seirra sub contract out to them or is their work given to them direct from Sky?

St Senan

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

Wexford is not subbed out to 2 guys, it has been taken over by a company called dmc cable & satellite in wilton cork which employes over 50 installers to cover waterford, wexford, cork, kerry, clare, all tipperary, and galway.

When did this company take over installing in Co.Wexford ?
lately when talking to annoyed customers who were either installed or let down. they told me that they were dealing with 2 guys from Co. Carlow who worked on behalf of Sierra. Do Sierra or any of its sub contractors have quality controllers checking the standard of installs now

JohnC.

Aquos76 wrote:

DMC, now thats who my mate (mick, whom I referred to in earlier post) works for.
Are they in anyway connected with Seirra. Do Seirra sub contract out to them or is their work given to them direct from Sky?

If it was Mick who you think installed for me, the docket did say Sierra. The installers name isn't on the docket, just some code number, so I don't know if it is Mick.

Does Mick work using a red Ford estate car?

Sponge Bob

Sounds trés very dodge to me if its called DMC anything

bigpaddy2004

Aquos76 wrote:

DMC, now thats who my mate (mick, whom I referred to in earlier post) works for.
Are they in anyway connected with Seirra. Do Seirra sub contract out to them or is their work given to them direct from Sky?

Sierra sub it all out to them...at the moment anyway...could very well be changing very shortly....hush hush!!

Aquos76

Kahless wrote:

Does Mick work using a red Ford estate car?

Not that I know of. Whenever he calls to me, he is driving a grey 05 D van.

skyman2010

hey

im a sierra engineer in cork.
any questions i will try ta answer

bigpaddy2004

skyman2010 wrote: »

hey

im a sierra engineer in cork.
any questions i will try ta answer

Your about 4 years too late pal

John mac

bigpaddy2004 wrote: »

Your about 4 years too late pal

4 years and 3 months.

bigpaddy2004

John mac wrote: »

4 years and 3 months.

Sorry, I am a bit sleepy right now! ;-)

Squegee

skyman2010
how would i go about working as an engineer for sierra.
do i need qualifications or will they train me?
TIA

skyman2010

u need to phone sierra in dublin and find out when the next training course is.you will need to do a 3 week course.one week in dublin training and then 2 weeks out with one of us,then you do an exam and if you pass then your in.they will give ya work providing ya have your own tools and ladders and equiptment

Hi Guys. It's a pity I'm late to this discussion. But I was a Sierra employee from 2001-2006. In the beginning when John Molloy was sky manager, things were good and customers were always treated right. And I was too! But then A guy called Keith became manager and it went down hill from there. My area was Wicklow. I had to work Monday to Saturday NO exceptions, I was up at 5 every day. We got no respect what so ever since Keith took over, he didn't care about customers or Installers. The area I had to cover was ridiculous, covering all of the county of Wicklow in one day, while another installer would be in the same area as me, we were not assigned to areas like east Wicklow or West, that changed though, but the pressure was incredible so much jobs and 1 man crew. I got 1 pay rise in all my time with Sierra. If the weather was bad we were not told to stop and if we did that days jobs were included in the next days work. I know my quality of work suffered as a result of abuse from Sierra and I know people don't want to hear sob stories, but at least that might make them understand why installers attitudes and work can be bad. I always tried to treat customers right in every way, but sometimes the pressure got to me and there is no way I could do all the things they wanted me to do and still have time to finish my last job. Sometimes I ran cables and put dishes where it was easiest for me that's the way it was! I went in to a house with one thing on my mind, get the job done and get out, sometimes I did have time for a cuppa or a chat! There was no way in Hell I was going to run phone wire, customers got the cable and I told them to run it themselves. Usually the phone socket was a mile away from the tv anyway. What really got to me was the fact if we had 4 boxes to install or 1, it was all treated as 1 job. Service calls were a nightmare as Sierra thought a service call should only take 20 mins MAX. That's why most installers did not go near the dish and only swap the box, because it was much quicker than going near the dish! We were also payed per job, so we had to install a lot to make money. I believe all their installers are contractors now! They don't employ installers any more.

What really annoyed me was the health and safety. At the end they were paying people to go around and photograph us without our hi vis vests, harness etc. It takes a lot of time to put on all the gear and noone used it most of the time! 1 man crews were the greatest dangers on ladders. But really all that safety milarky was to protect Sierra if we fell, we would have a hard time putting in a claim!

I.C.L in Carlow, contractors for N.T.L or U.P.C as it is now, was the only other company I ever worked for that had total contempt for their employees. They had many many good installers and completely wiped the floor with them. There should be some kind of Union for installers, but Sierra locked the gates to the yard and threatened to close the company if there was a union brought in, That will tell you the kind of cowboys these companies are. And the fact they moan about not making money and force people to work for nothing 6 days a week, no bonus nothing. I.C.L even have tracking on the vans now to have more control on their employees, I could tell you stories about them but hey, Enough for now.

Anyway that's an x I.C.L and Sierra employees insight into the world of Installers! LOL hope you enjoyed it and apologies if ever I was one of those installers that pi**ed you off, really I'm a nice guy!

watty

Squegee wrote: »

skyman2010
how would i go about working as an engineer for sierra.
do i need qualifications or will they train me?
TIA

No installing company uses Engineers on domestic premises, or even Technicians, unless employees happen to have these qualifications and got the job anyway.

Graduate Engineer is a starting salary outside Dublin of €22K to €30K, and experienced Engineers €45k to €65k depending on job.

Good installing companies use trained Riggers and Fitters.


A Small but Professional local outfit is more likely to be run and have people with Engineering Qualifications "on the ground". Not a large contractor.

Cantona's Collars

A lot of people get confused when it comes to Satellite and Terrestrial installers and refer to them a Engineers.
On the Sierra note,I did contract work for them some years ago in the ESB Networks upgrade scheme and imo a shower of little hitlers in charge,treated employees and contractors like dirt.If that division of the company was anything to go by I couldn't see the rest being any different seeing as they shifted some of the supervisors etc. over to the satellite division when work on ESB slowed down.

bigpaddy2004

Mad Lad, you must of been there the time I was there, when Keith was in charge and then along came Darren. Do you remember him!
I can back up MadLad 100% on what he just said.
Out of the bed at 5 in the morning, and be lucky to be home by 11pm.
They had me covering Laois, Offaly and North Tipperary on my own!

I can still remember been up on a roof in Roscrea town at 1:30am in the morning doing a service call.

You are not an employee to these people, but a number.

Over the Christmas period I was single handedly handed 25 jobs per day!. Now all the satellite guys know that you would be lucky to get 7 done a day. But no Sierra knew this and advised us to ring all customers in the morning and tell them we would be with them, then when it came to the evening ring the customer back and tell them to reschedule jobs. They didnt give a **** about customers either.

Madlad do you remember the time Darren came up with this great idea to track the jobs that werent done by the installers? Even if a customer cancelled the day before this went against you, a lot of lads lost their jobs because if this.

Ha, eventually a year later Darren was threw out into his own van with his own rules and lasted only 2 weeks on the job before he was sacked. Big man then he was.

If I hadnt got what I have now and my only choice was to work for them again, I would go on the dole on and lay back.

Guys no matter how desperate you are dont bother even applying to these people, remember there is no job security, your only a number, and this is what the head guy Keith told us one day in a meeting.

Thats my 2 cents!

steveon

I had exactly the same problem working as a sub-contractor for UPC, the pay was brillant if and only if there was a Line of Sight signal possible, no payment if you couldnt get a signal. Unlike work with Satellites which are always found easily with a sat meter, I was sent all over the country and expected to know every single transmitter, type of equipment used there etc, and NEVER EVER GIVEN any technical information or told what the transmitters name even were when sent to a new area...so Id spend countless time wasted trying to figure out what needed to be done in order to get a signal.

As a result I too was under serious stress and pressure to produce the goods, and where a multiroom situation arose there was never enough time to do the job properly.

I covered anywhere from west clare to Kilkenny and anywhere in between...so I feel sorry for any Sierra, Finlays and Muskerry installers...

A job will never be done right when the installer is put under pressure, a proper install done will leave to a better service and a happy customer and less time will be spend doing unneccessary service calls as a result.

bigpaddy2004

Its very hard to fully express how bad Sierra was, you would have to be there to see it. it was like having Hitler running the show.

I remember one time I was up there at 7am in the morning, after been up since 5am and there was even guys coming up from Tipperary, Carlow, Kilkenny, even guys up from the north. We were told there was a meeting to be held with us, about 20 installers. 10am before Darren showed up and I swear to god the meeting lasted 10 seconds. That was them, did'nt give a **** about the installers, wasted 3 hours for a 10 second nonsence meeting. We then would have to work late into the night to make up for it.

The best company I ever worked for was Cables & Utilities, a contractor for Irish Multichannel at the time, many many moons ago!. The best time I ever had. When I woke up in the morning I could'nt wait to get up to Newbridge.
I loved the job.
All jobs organised for you in the morning when you went up, If you couldnt get to a job, they would look after it. No pressure, no stress and everyone was treated as an individual, and not a number.
Broke my heart when I had to give it up!

Solair

A friend of mine had an Sky installer drill into the WRONG apartment and straight through electrical wiring in the other unit.
The neighbor then threatened legal action against her as she'd hired the satellite installer.
She ended up having to pay about €1000 in repair costs to the neighbour and never got a cent back from Sky.

I'm not sure which subcontractor it was, but I would always advice anyone to supervise Sky and Cable installations very carefully.

Anto69r

bigpaddy2004 wrote: »

Been put at the back of the queue is nothing to do with sierra, nor is customer services everything is controlled by Sky. As regard's being badly paid, Sierra only have about 5-6 of their installer's now, every county is nearly subbed out to local contractor's whom are being well paid to do a good job.

Complete bull. I've worked with Sierra for the last 18 months. €32 per install and supply everything except sky box and fish. Some jobs use 30meters of cable at €0.50 prr meter plus connectors, clips and everything else including your diesel. A lot of jobs end up costing you money but as self employed you are caught until another job comes up. WORST JOB EVER

Anto69r

bigpaddy2004 wrote: »

Been put at the back of the queue is nothing to do with sierra, nor is customer services everything is controlled by Sky. As regard's being badly paid, Sierra only have about 5-6 of their installer's now, every county is nearly subbed out to local contractor's whom are being well paid to do a good job.

Complete bull. I've worked with Sierra for the last 18 months. €32 per install and supply everything except sky box and fish. Some jobs use 30meters of cable at €0.50 prr meter plus connectors, clips and everything else including your diesel. A lot of jobs end up costing you money but as self employed you are caught until another job comes up. WORST JOB EVER

Anto69r

bigpaddy2004 wrote: »

Been put at the back of the queue is nothing to do with sierra, nor is customer services everything is controlled by Sky. As regard's being badly paid, Sierra only have about 5-6 of their installer's now, every county is nearly subbed out to local contractor's whom are being well paid to do a good job.

Complete bull. I've worked with Sierra for the last 18 months. €32 per install and supply everything except sky box and fish. Some jobs use 30meters of cable at €0.50 prr meter plus connectors, clips and everything else including your diesel. A lot of jobs end up costing you money but as self employed you are caught until another job comes up. WORST JOB EVER

MrFrisp

Anto69r wrote: »

Complete bull. I've worked with Sierra for the last 18 months. €32 per install and supply everything except sky box and fish. Some jobs use 30meters of cable at €0.50 prr meter plus connectors, clips and everything else including your diesel. A lot of jobs end up costing you money but as self employed you are caught until another job comes up. WORST JOB EVER

Probably not "Bull" at the time.

The post your referring to now is nearly 4 years old.

Zombie thread!!
.

icdg

Indeed. We don't drag up four year old threads (and post the same thing thrice).