Working at Enterprise Rent-a-Car — Reviews by Employees

As a recent college graduate from a prestigious college I also applied for a position with Enterprise referred to me by a college buddy who had recently been hired and was offered a final interview before I turned them down. I want to thank the members for sharing their experiences and testimony. I was convinced to approach this job with a open mind but while conducting my own research I was fortunate enough to come across sites like this and others who all seem to share one common message: working for Enterprise is the equivalent of selling your soul to the devil...without even being fairly compensated in return. It is certainly hard to shrug off the hundreds of poor reviews from current and ex-employees who all have all had very similar experiences all across the country as people who just couldn't "hack it" at Enterprise. I hope the former and current employees who have had the misfortune of suffering at Enterprise can gain solace by knowing they saved one soul.

I'm a recent (female) college grad and I recently interviewed and got one step away from the hiring stage for their college grad program but after my face-to-face interview I turned them down....

I pretty much knew what kind of company I was interviewing for based on the reviews on sites like this one and others... but I wanted to go into it with an open mind and give them a chance.

My face-to-face interview was horrible. ( I'm a recent college grad, and although the job market it tough-- I want to find something that I truly enjoy.) First off, my interviewer was 15 minutes late to arrive at the office, and I was seated in a chair behind the desk to wait for him until he arrived. I'm not a crazy feminist or anything, but I was seated next to a basketball, golf clubs, football, etc that the entire staff of men apparently played with in their off time. That was what first clued me in that this office was geared towards men.

When I got into the office with my interview, he obviously wasn't prepared to ask me any questions- instead he asked me to ask him questions. (I know that's normal... but I quickly ran through my page of pre-written questions I had brought with me.) He told me how cut-throat Enterprise runs their branches, pulled up that particular office's employees and told me how if you are not number one-- your failing in his eyes and are failing the company.

What really ticked me off is he told me how my generation doesn't know the value of hard work. I understand how that can sometimes be the case, but he began directing it at me. He told me how "our generation" will go crying home to mommy and daddy because we can't pay our bills, how we were passed along in school without ever learning how to work hard. To this I replied how I graduated from high school with a 6.1 and know how to work very hard thank-you-very-much. He told me his life philosophy-- that hard work and working long hours is the only place in life for true happiness.

"Hard work is the only place you will find true happiness in all of life, I've known many CEOs of companies, and they are not as happy as me-- because I know that true happiness comes from how hard I work."

---- I'm not kidding, he said this at least 3 times during the course of the interview. I actually felt bad for him by the end. Hard work is very important, and yes, it can make you happy with results you get--- but by no means is that the source of true happiness.

Sad.

That's why I felt to take a position with this company would be a bad decision on my part. I actually love to work hard, contrary to what this man feels me and my generation are ever capable of, but I want to work hard in a company that values me as an employee-- not just a number who lives to be a work-a-holic. I felt I failed the interview to be honest, he spent most of it talking about how hard he worked to get where he is... but evidently he didnt' think so and I received a call (to my shock)- telling me that they wanted to interview with me with the highest ranking person in my area.

I turned them down, and I couldn't be more happier that I did.... I won't be renting a car from them anytime soon either.

Everything I read is true. I would recommend staying away from this company. Never was told about the hours and alot of their hiring is based on looks. We would play with the rates in order to sell and include the Damage Waiver in the contract. Brutal hours to go along with alot of bad ties and dealing with bottom of the barrel clients. AVOID!

I did not want to write a review about ERAC the day after I left or while I was working there. Too many people write scathing, venomous reviews after they’ve worked a 7 hour Saturday after a 50 hour week with 4 cars, 15 customers, no car preps, and 3 phone lines that never stopped ringing. I’m not claiming these reviews are false or unwarranted, but I wanted to wait until after I had time away before writing a review to try to give a somewhat objective look at ERAC.
Pay: 32K-36K for a recent college grad isn’t terrible, until you consider what you will go through for that money. Expected to do anything and everything it takes from SALES to corporate leads to completely satisfying customers to cleaning cigs and dog hair out of the back of a Chevy Aveo. If you do manage to scrape, claw, lie, and have the right people get ESQI calls and make Branch Manager, the pay and fringe benefits become decent. Getting a company car, gas card and insurance is a very nice part and your commissions can be high. That said, a good deal of your pay as a BM is beyond your control. Flip “used car sale profits” can really boost your check, but just as easily and more frequently, that shady character who had to have that “Chaaaggga joint” wrecks it because his blunt fell in his lap, costs you a ton b/c he lied about his insurance and vanished leaving your branch with the tab. Don’t be fooled by the cash the Area Managers-RVP’s throw around at after hours functions. That’s purely window dressing to keep you chasing that carrot they are dangling.
Respect: Customers range from sympathetic all the way down to criminal… seriously. Many feel sorry for you busting your butt in your shirt and tie. Some are pis5ed at the world because their car is wrecked. Some are complete idiots who shouldn’t be allowed to ride the bus they took to get there. Some are the shadiest people to walk the Earth that will do some of the most unholy thing. Respect from upper management is a complete sham. They make the regions run by distracting employees w/ happy hours, casino nights, high fives, & lunches at Chili’s. … “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…”
Work/Life Balance: Will NOT have it…ever. Ones who get ahead take a big gulp of the kool aid and become friends with, date, kiss up to, live with & hang out with fellow ERAC’ers. Easy to fall into this trap as these will be your fellow inmates who feel your pain. Choose to keep your personal life separate, you will slowly realize it no longer exists. While your friends are otw to the beach, you’ll be working your 4th Saturday in a row. Want to take a Friday or a Monday off? Not so fast, those are the “busy” days. How about you take your vacation from Tuesday thru Thursday in October? W/LB is one of the single biggest reasons to avoid ERAC.
Job Security : A funny thing at ERAC. You really have go above and beyond to get fired. Ironic. They can and will try to force you out if they want to, but they HATE paying unemployment and the higher ups are promoted based strongly on retention so they literally will not fire you, short of committing a crime. They keep idiot MT’s for years..way beyond what a company like this should. It’s laughable. If you refuse to quit and are willing to keep dealing with the avalanche of BS on a daily basis, you will endure a hostile work place, get “written up”, threatened, ect. but I NEVER saw a rental employee actually fired for performance.
Career Potential/Growth: Unless the ERAC stars align, the vast majority in rental will NEVER become an Area Manager…EVER. Short version of how to get promoted. Sell ALWAYS. Sell waiver, upgrades, GPS and your soul. You will have to toss your morals in the shredder if you want to succeed. “Good” people do not get ahead here for a reason. See a person that doesn’t speak English or is elderly? Sprint to the counter and force waiver on them by talking fast and scaring the BeJesus out of them. Seriously though, if you don’t sell, you are dead in the water. The obstacle course of BS you have to endure to make it to even a Branch Manager is ridiculous. You not only need to perform at a high level, but you need luck and to avoid the ERAC pitfalls that can kill your career growth regardless of how hard you work. Examples: Get moved to a branch with a bad manager? WHAMMY! Your career is crippled until they leave. Get moved to an office where it’s impossible to sell? WHAMMY! Donzo until you can get out. Again, the stars need to align perfectly to get to the promised land of Area Manager. Idiots have done it, but aren’t these the ones that win the Powerball too?
Location: Not a reason to avoid… there are plenty of others.
Competence/Environment: Lumped these 2 b/c they are dependent on one another. When people who pull their weight, the work environment isn’t as dreadful. Most the people who work there aren’t complete idiots when they start, but work there long enough and the job and ERAC can melt a person’s mind to the point of insanity…crushes good people. I’ve seen this company take bright, happy person & 8 months of ERAC causes that person (guy) to literally shed tears, throw a phone across the branch, walk out and was never heard from again …seriously.
In the end, you have to be mentally tough to deal with the rigors this job brings. There are some cool people there who I am still friends with but this company is abysmal. There’s a good reason www.failingenterprise.com exists. The corporate/promotional structure, takes a naturally hard job then endorses backstabbing, outright lying, cheating, pilfering in order to get ahead. It has it’s good points and made my current job seem like and absolute joke, where I get paid more and actually have a life outside of work…it’s glorious. ERAC work isn’t like other work. I’m not just someone who couldn’t hack it. I was very much in the “inner circle” through my career, but there is something rotten about this company and I feel lucky to have gotten out

Worked on contract in the I.T. department at Corp HQ in St. Louis. Extremely rigid procedural environment! Field location called in with a modem problem, but the people who supported that weren't answering their phone so I helped the caller myself. Caller was fixed, I was fired that same afternoon...escorted to the door!!

Enterprise is one of two clients that I will NEVER work with again.

A little background info: I started out working for National/Alamo as a service agent, who was bought by ERAC approximately two years ago. When I first started, the job was pretty decent for a full-time college student. However, it didn't take long once ERAC took over for things to go to pot.

Pay: it was decent to begin with, nothing special. Once ERAC took over, I didn't see a raise for over two years, and even then it was only $0.25. Monthly bonus of $150 helped. Until you came to realize that neither your pay (/raises) or bonus was affected by your performance. This was all dependent on the magical SQI numbers! There were several months where I did not get a bonus because of a rental agent's mistake, or the customer wasn't happy with the keys (no joke: we have more complaints about "keys" and "key size" than we do dirty cars).

A coworker of mine summed it up great: "With what you're paying me, you're lucky I'm wearing pants." Paychecks were also referred to as "bi-weekly insults".

Respect: Depends on location. As with most reviews here, I had some people I considered awesome, and yet others I would ask myself "How did they make it passed the age of 15 without earning a Darwin award?" My boss was nice... at first. Later she turned into a feminist man-hater who would take the female side of any conflict, regardless of fact. Note: I am not sexist, and I have zero problems with women in the workplace.

Benefits: My health insurance was laughable. For me and my wife it was $200 a month in out-of-pocket premiums. Not terrible, I know, until you try to buy some prescription meds. There's another $200-400 a month! Office visits were pricey enough to try and avoid them. ER visits were worse, to the point where we'd debate going or not. On the joke of a wage that ERAC pays, this insurance is horrid. Vision was good, though.

401k, life insurance, etc. were also good. Although I don't have much to compare to as far as 401k/retirement plans go. Seemed pretty standard. Vacation, holiday, sick time.

Job Security: Meh, I never felt strongly that I'd ever get canned. I did my job, better, harder and faster than others we had working there.

Work/Life Balance: I can't complain too much. I was a full-time college student with a full-time job. However, we were always so damn short-staffed that it was near impossible to get some time off.

Career Potential/Growth: absolutely none in my location.

Location: No issues, wasn't far from my place.

Co-worker Competence: More often than not my co-workers were complete genetic defectives. 40-50 somethings and still working as a car washer is pathetic. Still others were either too lazy or didn't care enough to do their job.

Work Environment: the worst... winters were bad, with forced work even during a blizzard. Damaged my car badly once because I couldn't get the day off. Had to pay out of pocket for that. Summers are even worse, with 100% humidity in our garage.

Overall: typical college worker drone job. If you're still here after 30, you were either very very very lucky to get a great position, or are absolutely insane.

Pay- I made more and worked less hours in the jobs I had while I was in college. Prepare to live at home forever and I hope you enjoy Ramen noodles. When they tell you dont take tips, tell them HAHA. Your best bet is to be overly nice and hope someone feels bad for you, sees your torn dirty "DRESS CLOTHES" and spots you a 10 or 20.

Respect- HAHAHA unless your ranked 1,2, or 3 dont even think about respect. If you are ranked in the top 3, thats great.....now do it every month or your on their sh*tlist. Also everyone is fighting for these jobs and will take you down if they can, most will even do that for a little DUB sale.

Benefits- They are great, but dont become sick or think about seeing a doctor because its a snow storm and we need you shoveling out cars and then cleaning them outside in dress shoes. You can rest when your dead and if you work here you can permanently reitre (from life) at age 27. Your better off selling fruit in a stand roadside and screwing the benefits and just hoping it "all works out".

Job Security- See respect, one day your GOD and the next day you somehow caught leperacy in your 5 hours of sleep at night. Also they will plot on you, so document everything and keep it all in a folder NOT in the office. You will need it and it will come in handy. I saw them do some nasty things to people.

Work life balance- I heard this so many times there, yet I never experienced it. Between working (on and off the clock) and your "lunch" your there about 55-65 hours a week. Also when I first started I was told about working Saturdays and was ok with that, and then suddenly I was being shipped to another branch to work some sundays. At one point I worked something like 16-17 straight days. Also was shipped to other branches in the area who were in need. So your short drive home just became 45 minutes, add that to everything else and it is a suprise more people dont intentionally crash on the way home.

Job growth- Yes!!!! Hopefully I can be an assitant manager and make 50 more cents an hour and be there 7-10 more hours a week. Wait some one crashed a cobalt and they purchased damage waiver? Now I make less then my Trainee....wait car prep!

Location- Great just minutes from my house, but to bad your there 12 hours a day and are in a coma on the ride to and from work. Then as you move up forget that short ride, your heading an hour away.

Co-worker competence- Some know the job and are cool, because they understand it blows and just do it to get by. Others live by this job and it makes my stomach hurt. Overall the people are cool because everyone is in the same boat.

Work environment- Sweatshop is a fitting word. You literally wake up early everyday to get things ready, get screamed at all day by some of the angriest people, run around in dirty and tattered suits and ties, try to "sell" a product that maybe 15% could actually use, and finally you are so tired but need to drive for hours picking up cars dropped at every bodyshop in a 5 mile radius and some at other branches that could be 1 or 2 hours away. Then when you talk to your area manager your just never doing good enough eventhough theres 50 more cars in your fleet, but you didnt push damage waiver on a slow adult that had no clue what was going on and had no money to pay.

It was honestly the worst time in my life and to this day cant imagine how I did it for as long as I did. The thing is people do see it on a resume and know you are quick on your feet, are happy with being paid decent and will work like slave labor. Plus you'll always be smiling because your no longer there. To this day I still drive by and feel bad for the people inside that building, but then I smile because it aint me anymore!

Only thing good about the company is 1 benefits are alright and 2 location is close to your home...most of the time. Pay as a branch manager is commissioned to 50k your first year. I made 62k my first...now that seems good but if you take an average of 65 hrs a week working...factor time and a half pay its 4030 hours a year = 15.39/hr...MTs and MAs make I think 12.50 and 13.50 respectively....what a salary increase and I was apparently one of the highest paid managers in the region. So you can see there is no work life balance as a manager. Enterprise is downsizing a and deleting opportunity to grow by eliminating branch manager spots and replacing with assistance managers (so 1 assistant manager for a small branch with no branch manager). The work environment was good because everyone was also fed up with Enterprise and out the door anyway so we made it entertaining. Enterprise is one of the best places to launch a career so they say but never place to keep one either...work for them for 1-2 yrs if you must and get your "sales experience". Most of the time you'll be too busy to actually go out marketing to gain any real experience.

CAREER GROWTH/POTENTIAL:


If you do get tricked into thinking that you can actually catch the cheese in hanging in front of the treadmill, then you are just like the rest of us. They preach all of this bullshit about how they hire from within and if you hit all of your numbers and pass all of your tests then in no time, you will be making “Bank” as E Chimps call it. First and foremost, whenever did making 40,000k a year as a manager for working 60 hours a week without even getting the luxury of an hour lunch anymore become “Bank?” You will quickly learn that all of the assistants and managers lie about how much money they bring home when you have them coming to you and asking you if it is a difficult process to take out money from the local dollar loan center. The only reason they even try to force you to promote is because they know that in order for you to even have a chance at promotion, you must have stellar sales numbers which means that they can work you like a slave and not pay you shit to sell a ton of their products for no commission. It is a well oiled scam machine.


BENEFITS


The benefits are pretty good one of the only good things about the company, definitely not the best though. The only problem is trying to find an opening in your schedule to get in and see a doc if you need to. Which you will once the severe depression kicks in at about month 5-6


LOCATION


Starting off, the location is generally okay because typically they try to keep you on your side of town. That is until one morning when you show up to work and they out of the blue inform you of the news that effective immediately you have been transferred to another location clear across town. No advanced notice, and no consideration for the inconvenience that this may cause you or your family. And I guarantee you that this WILL HAPPEN because they do it to everyone. This is not the end however, you are then forced to go work at the International Airport location “Da Port” as E Chimps call it, which at an extremely busy airport like Las Vegas McCarran will absolutely drain the soul out of you (A whole other story within itself. )


JOB SECURITY


You will not be fired or laid off unless you do some completely stupid shit like steal or break the rules in any way or if you cannot sell, they will slowly black ball you out of the company, I have seen this happen in many occasions.

CO-WORKER COMPETENCE/ WORK ENVIRONMENT


To keep this short, you work with two types of people. Those who are just brainwashed to the point of no return “E CHIMPS” and those who are just like yourself who are desperately looking for the first opportunity to sprint for the door when another employer comes calling. The E Drones will do any thing to get to the top. The fact that they have a 1 in 20,000 chance of one day becoming an area manager is very motivating to them. They are brainwashed into believing that their opportunity is just around the corner and they must do whatever they have to do to seize it. I saw everything from people cheating other employees or in most cases flat out lying and deceiving the customers in order to hit their sales numbers, to people tattling on one another to management about bullshit in an attempt to have an employee fired just to improve their own chances of getting a promotion. Everyone is pitted against one another in this huge rat race to get the cheese which leads to a very hostile environment of backstabbers and cheaters. Many people within this company truly have neither character nor morals. Unless you hang with the inner circle of the e chimps, you will find yourself with very few true friends.

Anyone considering working for Enterprise Rent A Car PLEASE READ CAREFULLY!!!


Enterprise Rent A Car is an honest to God CULT! I served 10 months at the enterprise correctional facility in Las Vegas, NV. I advise you that besides selling your soul as a prostitute this IS the worst job that you could ever take. I told myself that I would not waste my time venting about this job once I was blessed enough to finally get out but I just cannot help but feel that it is my duty to prevent someone else from making my same mistake and becoming the brainwashed E Drone that I once was.


PAY:
The pay will make you feel absolutely Miserable. Although I was grateful to be receiving a paycheck during the worst economic crisis in U.S . history, I must say that there was no worse feeling in the world then when I opened my 2 week paycheck. You will make around 34k per year which is abysmal (at least in my eyes) for a job that requires you to have a college degree. Not only do you make less than $1000 dollars per paycheck, you are forced to work a mandatory 49 hour work, which actually ends up being 55+ hours once you factor in clocking out an hour a day and your commute time to and from work. This is not to mention the type of work you have to do for these mere pennies. THE PHONE WILL NEVER STOP RINGING!! EVER!! And no matter if you are with a customer or not in the middle of a busy transaction, argument, collecting payment, etc. you are commanded to answer the calls before the second ring and tend to the customer’s b.s. concerns on the phone as well. Some other job duties you are expected to do for the petty change: Wash FILTHY, DISGUSTING cars in a suit and tie in the dead of winter or the heat of summer by hand under disgusting wash bay conditions. You will learn that you are a complete slave to the customer as you are trained to bend over and take it up the ass from every ignorant, incompetent, uneducated, ass hole that comes through the door. You have to give them whatever they want so that they don’t give the branch a bad ESQI “Customer Service Score.” Don’t expect to be treated like a human as your managers will bark orders at you instead of showing you some type of respect by asking you to do tasks, they will belittle you and undermine you in front of customers. You have to constantly pick up and drop off customers all day long as well as go to body shops and take it up the ass even more by angry insurance customers who don’t believe they should have to put down a mere 50 dollar deposit for a 30,000 dollar rental car. You will be forced by your manager to make reservations that you cannot even honor once the customer arrives (and you have no cars on the lot to put them in) so that your branch manager can “Run Tight” for the day, But don’t worry about that, as enterprise will teach you to become an excellent liar in situations like this when the customer is about to rip your head off for something you have absolutely NO control over. You will make about 30+ callbacks to customers about various things throughout a typical workday. You will also be sent out to re-possess cars from non paying customer’s homes at the crack of dawn with total disregard for your personal safety. And on top of all of this, plus much more, you are under a lot of pressure to make your sales numbers for a commission check of exactly $0.00 “No Commission”

WORK LIFE BALANCE:
This has got to be the biggest lie that they will tell you in the beginning “We believe it is very important for our employees to have an excellent work life balance.” You will become a different person after you put in time with this company. After a long and stressful VERY STRESSFUL day at erac, you come home and find that you have absolutely no extra energy to do anything but try and eat a little food before you crash out for the night. When you finally get to your weekend you are honestly to tired to hang out with your friends and family. I have always been an extremely outgoing person but when I worked here, I couldn’t even bring myself to go to church on Sundays. The company also frowns upon family life outside of work, you are expected to eat, sleep, breathe Enterprise and vacation time except for having all of the major holidays of is HORRIBLE. My family noticed that I had become a very angry, irritable and bitter person during my time with erac. Also, if you are a top sales person as I was, you will be invited to what is called Elite to eat, where you will be forced to drive clear across your city on un paid time after hours, just to sit and eat a meal and have a bunch of corporate heads pretend that they are so proud of what you’ve done, just another well orchestrated way to suck every bit of free time from you that they can. I am thankful to God that I was even able to break out of this hell and get a new job, working these wretched hours made it damn near impossible for me or any other employee to even have time to look for other employment outside of work. For some reason I don’t think this setup was a coincidence. Oh and I wont forget the mandatory unpaid Happy Hours after work where they invite you to get hammered with as many beers as you like and then drive yourself home. All in good team fun right? Yea until you get pulled over and get a DUI and enterprise turns a complete blind eye to the incident and fires the employee by nights end! I saw this happen twice in my time with the company.


RESPECT:
I wont even dig deep into this one, you get NONE. Most of your customers will even ask you why you are wasting your hard earned, expensive education on a dump like this. And they are absolutely right. Everyone looks down on you and the only reason some customers even try to befriend you is so that you can hook them up with some type of discount. Enterprise policy is that you have to give a customer whatever they want within reason, and the customers know this and they will take advant