[Due to the threat of retaliation by DISH management DISH workers requested that we keep their identities anonymous, the following are accounts of their experiences with the recent layoffs and current business practices of DISH bosses]

Account #1

I have more information about DISH network. They have not only laid off employees at the site in Christiansburg, they have been laying off every site in the United States. This including the site in Colorado. They claim it is due to low call volume. This is not true.

Since the lay offs started, the call volume has been the same. The equipment DISH has is very faulty and has been the reason of all the lay offs. The employees that were laid off because of their performance had no choice but to send out replacement equipment and get a mark against them.

The employees that send a technician or replacement equipment get punished by helping them. For example, if you sent out too much equipment or technicians in two quarters you will be placed on a development plan. If you continue to send equipment or technicians. You will get fired.

The real truth is they are struggling and are cutting as much costs as possible. The strange thing is, the corporate office has received many promotions this month. Every promotion, there are emails sent out to all employees.

They lie to their employees constantly, they tell employees to tell customers stories just so DISH does not have to waste money on helping customers. Recently, they have made sending out remote controls that have failed on the customers count towards sending out equipment and making easier and easier to fire employees to save even more money.

I’ve seen many of my good friends laid off because of this and I am sick of it.

Account #2

This whole thing has just been a mess. When you first get on with the company, in their training courses they tell you you can go as far as you want within the company, they get you motivated to come to work and to love your job, at least that’s how my class felt.

At the beginning of the training, my class started out with 11 people. At the end of training it was only me and one other person left. Everyone else had quit because of management. Once you actually start training out on the floor, your bosses become so nit picky about everything. They wouldn’t praise you on what you were doing right, they would bash you and yell at you until you wanted to cry.

I left my split shift crying because of how my boss treated me that day. They give no regards to your well being or your feelings. They are a company and only care about the money you get them. Before they announced the lay-offs, every one knew a big change was coming, but no one knew how big. It had been drilled into our minds that “Dish cares about its employees, they are always looking out for us” They also told us that no one would be losing there jobs or anything like that, they lied and said the site was not going to close. Even when they did announce the lay offs, they told us no one would be losing there jobs, we would all still have a job.

The next day everyone came in and they had a box setting at almost everyone’s desk. Some of the best employees there were let go. After that people had nervous break downs, peoples anxiety went up, because no one knew who they could trust, and if they still had a job. Before I quit due to health reasons ( which DISH did not respect ) we had 98 employees left. When I got hired in December, there were over 600. I am heart broken by this and I want to see a change or something done to them. They also gave us the option to move the WV site, which I’m sure you know, is closing. They keep lying saying that its because of low call volume, but its not. They are trying to shrink the company while the call volumes have soared.