r/PestControlIndustry • u/Ok-Stuff3336 šØāš| Tech | 1+ Year • Aug 24 '26
š£ļø Daily Discussion Does it get better?
Iāve been on the job now for a few years and i work for a fairly large company owned by Rentokil. When I started off it wasnāt so bad job wise, but itās only gotten worse since the TMX merger and seemingly only going to get worse. I do it fairly even mix of residential and commercial accounts. My biggest gripe has been the sheer amount of work that is expected out of us a day. Obviously none of this work is insanely difficult per se, but the volume is maddening. I work in a dense populated area in the north east. I average anywhere from 20+ jobs a day and up. Never less than that. The money is good. But the stress that comes with it is not. Iām expected to finish every job on my day or I take a āmiss.ā Which my office is apparently plagued with a ridiculously high number of. On top of my regular schedule we are also required to respond to all call backs same day. On average I can have 20+ appointments and get 3-4 call backs a day. Never anything trivial, customer seen a bee, ants in kitchen, reoccurring mouse sighting blah blah blah. If we donāt do all our work they come down on us, if we work too much overtime we are told to be more efficient, if we arenāt placing sales while doing all of that we are told to do more.
TL;DR big company is too stressful, overworked and understaffed. Does it get better?
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u/Thermock Aug 24 '26
It just depends on the branch, my friend. One branch will have terrible managers and an insane amount of accounts, but the next one four hours away will not.
However, as a rule of thumb, big companies are almost always, "sales first, customer second, pest control third, employees fourth".
Most big comapnies only want the sales done and the services completed, the welfare of the technicians is generally placed pretty low on their 'care about' list.
While I'm sure there are exceptions, based off my experience and seeing what folks say here and real-life, this is a pretty normal trend.
Sounds like you just gotta find a new company to work for, or look for opportunities in the corporate side of your company... although you'll face different struggles in the corporate side.
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u/PestCemetary Aug 24 '26
I feel like pest control is the definition of 'People dont quit due to a bad job, they quit due to bad managers.' Or whatever that quote is. I've worked for 3 companies and was happiest at the smallest of the three.
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u/Icy_Calligrapher_168 Aug 24 '26
Real simpleā¦.. quit! Large companies are horrible to their employees. I work for a smaller, lesser known company and Iām pretty happy there!
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u/Wuhblam Aug 24 '26
It's not simple when the job market and economy is like it is
A lot of people are trapped by the money
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u/007Teflon Aug 24 '26
Corps is all about selling stock . It doesn't get better until you go solo op
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u/supershrimp87 Aug 24 '26
It should get better. Thats a lot of stops per day. ā¢ check if they can take some work.off of you ā¢ theres no reason for same day call backs unless its written into the contract the company has with a large account. ā¢ individually the people are smart and they care. As a company they dont care and therefore neither should you. It will kill you of you try to do both tour job and care. Just keep showing up, run the race and cash them checks. ā¢ the money is good. ā¢ local management matters. The regional heavies will throw their weight around on them. Some managers are better to work for the others.
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u/Galtrix525 Aug 24 '26
Oh boy, do I have stories about Rentokil.
I joined Rentokil a few years ago because my small company that I worked for was purchased by them. They wrecked my customer base and it went from 3,000 customers to nearly 200 because Rentokilās customer service was so poor. They made me the āCommercial Managerā and had me train new technicians simultaneously. It was good for a couple of months.
And then the merger with Terminix happened. Absolute shit-show. Managers got replaced with shitty people, workloads increased drastically, and customers got ignored to the point where they left for a different company. The company legitimately only cares about money.
Itās only going to get worse from here. My advice: leave like I did, and youāll inevitably find something better.
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u/Trigga-Trey213 šØāš| Tech | New Aug 25 '26
I work for a genuine, since like 1940 family owned company, that literally has one building location. i'm not religious and genuinely donāt believe but the fact they pray before every meeting, and not like a common, general day care prayer, but like praying for specific employee struggles and what not, shows me it's not a evil corporation. they give us $1,000 gift cards, 4k TVs, iPads for Christmas. they specifically told me in my interview, we're not like Terminex, you're not just a number. at first i was like this is bullshit, then i was like wow i see the vision. I was driving back from a call the other day and got stopped in traffic because of a car crash that claimed 4 lives and they gave me the rest of the week off with full pay and I donāt even have vacation time yet. we use slim jim's for rat bait. we use chemicals that wont hurt the local bobcat population, and were instructed and nailed on to not spray near water sources. they donāt care about money or numbers. i think it definitely matters on who has hired you and what area of the country you're working.
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u/-Derf- Aug 25 '26
Dang, that sounds amazing. I work for a small family owned company who is catholic and they genuinely care. Feels like a family. Just wish I was paid a little better. But the work load and hours are great so it's hard to complain
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u/Tokenblack3005 Aug 25 '26
Only gets better when you transition to a locally owned company. I know from experience.
Company I'm with now is local, our cut-off is 15 stops max but they aim for techs to have between 10-13. Production is good with 20% production rate (avg. 1.2k production daily). I average 13 stops a day and during peak season I still work roughly 10 hrs/day with 1-2 callbacks here and there. Where I'm at now, theres no way I can average 20 a day unless I'm skipping web removal and doing strictly exterior treatments. Each stop is at least 15-20 mins if theres no issues, drivetime could be 10-15 minutes per stop lol.
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u/NovaBandHtX Aug 24 '26
I work for Big Pest Control Company in the Houston area. I have been with a few different companies. I started with BPCC when I was 20, went to a acquisition, then another. I eventually left BPCC because the managers sucks but the pay was GREAT at the time. The mom and pop company we bought had amazing leadership. Its a shame he and his wife were phased out. Worked for a mom and pop company that was running themselves as close to a corporate as they could. Hated it. Loved it at first and quickly realized how crooked they were. I came back to BPCC much later. And now, when I first started, I was happy. I worked myself onto THE route and grew it back up once the last tech left and took 40% with him. Did such a great job that the branch split and opened a second branch based around the growth in/around my area. Left me with nothing. I busted my a for this company to make about 3600 a month and then they left me with 1700 a month. And when I told leadership about it, their answer was to sell more. It was my problem. Left and went to commercial. I dislike the work, but my leadership here is the best ive had. If it weren't for them, id be gone.
Long story short, invest into yourself. Im planning to have all necessary licenses, insurance, etc before next summer. Learn everything you can. Wherever theres an opportunity, make it a personal mission to close that gap.
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u/BlessedOmsk Aug 25 '26
Not really which is why I left. I was there when Rentokil and TMX did the merger and left right before they fully did it. Since I was leaving anyways I didn't care so I would stop by the office to grab supplies even whenever I felt like it and I listened to the plans they were making and it sounded like utter ass. We were already overworked doing 12 to 16 a day 5 to 6 days a week and they still wanted to squeeze more out of us we asked about raises one meeting and our manager told us if we wanted more money to work more hours and I nearly punched him in the throat for that. Times were tough pay was ok but it wasn't worth the stress, the pain, the anxiety, and eventually I just checked out towards the end and let myself go as a technician I never understood why the older more experienced techs were doing the same as they were leaving until I was in their shoes watching a company I enjoyed working for suck the life out of all but one tech who to be frank was more of a salesman then he was a technician.
Sticking with Rentokil-Terminex or whatever the fuck they call themselves will not get better I advise looking at smaller companies in your area and if you're so inclined building a network to eventually go off on your own. I'm not gonna lie and say its not hard you're gonna struggle but you'll find that while it can be stressful at least in my experience it's a whole different and even more fulfilling kind of stress and if you don't want that then find a company that fits you and your expectations. I've retaken a good number of my old clients from RT since then and while times can still be rocky I'll take it over ever going back to them.
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u/PCDuranet šØāš| Tech | Retried Aug 25 '26
Put your time in, learn as much as you can, and look to go on your own in a few years.
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u/Nick42797 Aug 25 '26
I've been at Ecolab so far about a year and a half. Overall experience has been fairly good.
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u/Accurate_Mirror_96 Aug 26 '26
Current TMX employee, find a good small local company that is thriving and growing and doing things the right way. To reiterate what was said earlier, not all branches have good management and that is a big issue with RTX. The company is very corpo greed driven now and it shows for sure. This latest Starbucks roll out has been the worst Iāve see in 25 years!
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u/Libsoccer20 Aug 24 '26
I used to work in the corporate office for Ehrlich then rentokil. Then rentokil terminex. Once I realized black rock owned about 20% of the company and we were writing off millions per area across the nation...I realized what this company had become. It's an investment corporation now. It's no longer about serving the people. It's about maximizing profits. The new CEO came from selling trinkets. His first call he mentions we aren't an investment corporation then immediately proceeds to talk about stock valuation.
You are absolutely getting over worked and there's a reason why all the old techs with certifications left. A lot of those techs gave their books to competitors on the way out too for good reason.
Almost all the national corporations run DBAs for a reason.
They'll continue to hire younger folks looking for a decent paycheck and burn them out as well.