Welcome to the unofficial guide to IBM Greenock
This is some useful stuff Manpower and Adecco do not brag about in their job adverts. This is why they sue or harass everyone who goes public. The likelihood of harassment is why I have chosen to stay anonyme.
This alone is a good reason you should not accept any job offers in IBM Greenock.
Just some facts about IBM Greenock itself: It is an industrial estate, 5 km from Greenock and 40 km from Glasgow. It is served by regular buses from Largs and Greenock and by one train an hour Glasgow (prone to delays or cancellations without warnings). There is no shops, banks or any services on the IBM Greenock campus.
Manpower and Adecco offers 2 years long employment contracts in IBM Greeenock. The penalty for breaking this contract is financially very severe. Many have found out to their cost that they are trapped in this employment with no opportunities to get out.
It is also very important to understand that nobody are employed by IBM. The employers will be either Manpower or Adecco. At the end of an employment; you will not get a reference from IBM. If your reasons to join IBM Greenock was to get a reference from IBM, you have come to the wrong place. Neither will you receive any recognition or gratitude for your work.
For Manpower, the start wage of 12 000 13 000 is so low that it is more or less impossible to live a decent life on that wage. For an employment in Adecco, the start wage is slightly higher, but they may also demand a IT degree of some sort. A degree which require a student loan. Those with student loans has found it impossible to manage the repayments and have sunk deeper into debt and financial chaos.
Both Manpower and Adecco does not offer any sufficient annual pay rises which offset the inflation. You will in effect every month earn less and less money in IBM Greenock.
Here is this years living costs broken down to figures:
- Relocation costs to Scotland from Europe (average): 1000
- Room prices pr. month: 250 - 450
- Flat prices pr. month: 375 - 700
- Council tax pr. month (flats only): 140
- Gas and electricity (average) pr month: 100
- Transport pr month (average): 70
- One piece of bread (average): 0.75
- One pint at the local pub (average): 2.00
- One bottle of whisky from a shop (average): 15
These costs are from February this year. The costs will rise very sharply near the end of this year.
It has been argued that the wages here is lower and the costs is higher than the rest of Europe.
Both Manpower and Adecco also advertise with good career prospects in IBM Greenock. That is not true. There is no meaningful career prospects here. You will probably never get promoted to anything useful.
The work itself is anything but what the adverts and recruiters tell you. There is endless hours on the phone with angry customers and with no support from supervisors. After some weeks of insufficient training, you become cannon fodder in a very stressful environment. None of this work has any relevance to any IT qualification you may have taken.
Neither Manpower, Adecco or IBM Greenock offer any type of benefits you would expect from a serious employer.
The working conditions is very bad. Both the air-condition and the heating systems is insufficient. This creates health problems for everyone. Due to a design fault from IBM they have never bothered to fix, the entry to their IT desk building is always flooded during rain. The result is wet feet for those entering this building.
Our workstations breaks down on a frequent basis and the network and our online tools is very unstable and unreliable. This means more stress for us.
The supervisors only concern is to make as much money on you as possible and they do not offers you any motivation whatsoever.
As stated in the beginning, everyone here is employed by either Manpower or Adecco. If any problems occurs, they are the one you have to contact. Because both Manpower and Adecco is working for IBM, they will always take IBMs side in matters of bullying and unfair treatment from the IBM supervisors. In these incidents, the victim either loose their jobs or is told to keep quiet and accept the degrading treatment. It can be argued that the British and Scottish legislations in these matters are being ignored, although I will not make this argument here.
If you politely complain about the working conditions, you get a lot of problems from both IBM and Manpower/Adecco. Disciplinary hearings is the normality in these incidents. IBM does not accept any criticism of any kind.
None of the promises made to me by the recruiter has been honored. These promises were the reason why I left all my friends and family to move the 3000 km to IBM Greenock.
It can be argued that the business model here is to fool skilled workers into IBM Greenock on their good name and false promises.
Dominic
Greenock
United Kingdom
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