USIC buys out CUS in Louisiana

**NoNameNeeded** · July 29th, 2011, 11:36 PM

I am a current CUS employee in Louisiana, and found out today that USIC has bought CUS.

Nobody has any answers to any questions about USIC that I, and other co-workers have. Can anyone give me any info on USIC so that I know what to expect?

It would be greatly appreciated.

**paintitnow** · July 30th, 2011, 12:34 AM

You are about to get more information than you may want to hear lol. Just take about an hour and look through the older post and you will see usic gets a beating on here. If CUS has GPS and supervisor always stressing production or get calls about idle times then you will be use to it. Both usic and cus is owned by that Canadian pension group. I use to work for usic in a state where sm&p and cls were before the merger. After the merger a few months later the bumped up everyone with a year or less to the starting wage of cls since it was higher. For the more experienced locators it was oh well. So in the state you had guys with anywhere from 1-3 years making more than old sm&p locators. Some up to $5 more an hour. Yet they called on the more tenured techs for difficult locates. If the other guys were making more money shouldn't the go do the locate since more money should mean a better tech. When told "do not hate the player hate the game" since these guys bent the leveraged the companies before the merger to get more money. At the time i had a most excellent supervisor and a real good crew and bit into the loyalty to the team. Try to find that now.

**ihoby** · July 30th, 2011, 01:19 AM

I have been with SM&P now USIC for over 15 years. I could complain that the company is not what it used to be. Gone are the days of great raises, stock purchase options in parent companies (nisourse. nipsco, lacleade gas) , awsome quality/performance bonuses, freedom to run how you want, no deductable insurance. However I am not blind and have seen many friends in other so called secure industries weather downsizing, large increases to health insurance premiums ect..... . There is alot of mirco managment at times, but if you are not trying to hide anything and do your job well you will won't have to worry about. People often forget that this industry is no longer in it's infancy. Contract prices have fallen, overhead increases and it's no longer the Baker brothers ( founders of SM&P) running a family bussiness. It's now only about profits for investors. So it's about good to work for as any average corporation in America these days.

**Mr810** · July 30th, 2011, 08:18 AM

Originally Posted by ihoby

I have been with SM&P now USIC for over 15 years. I could complain that the company is not what it used to be. Gone are the days of great raises, stock purchase options in parent companies (nisourse. nipsco, lacleade gas) , awsome quality/performance bonuses, freedom to run how you want, no deductable insurance. However I am not blind and have seen many friends in other so called secure industries weather downsizing, large increases to health insurance premiums ect..... . There is alot of mirco managment at times, but if you are not trying to hide anything and do your job well you will won't have to worry about. People often forget that this industry is no longer in it's infancy. Contract prices have fallen, overhead increases and it's no longer the Baker brothers ( founders of SM&P) running a family bussiness. It's now only about profits for investors. So it's about good to work for as any average corporation in America these days.

very well said, i have about the same amount of time with them also, and you summed it up very well

**Paint'n & Flag'n** · July 30th, 2011, 03:19 PM

As Ive said before...it all depends on the type of management you have within your district. If they abuse power and micromanage then everyone is going to be unhappy.

Here's an example...

My super is always calling me when he needs to be see where I am at???? I'm always like you tell me you have the GPS and he constantly tells me that he doesnt have time for that BS...meaning the gps tracker. His thinking is that if he has to micromanage his crew then he doesnt need them working for him. Rarely does he use the tracker, he rather call you.

And before anyone says that he just letting on that he doesnt use it. The other day he calls me and says where are you...as I was waiting on him on location...so I tell him that Im at such and such just as I said I would be in the email and he's like...dang Im way over on the other side of town thinking you were on this street. I asked him didnt he read my email and his response was yea but I was thinking of last week when I meet up with you over here.

He always calls to see where we are at to meet up. Never has he just rolled up on us or me unexpected.

**Locatingart** · July 30th, 2011, 05:19 PM

Originally Posted by ihoby

I have been with SM&P now USIC for over 15 years. I could complain that the company is not what it used to be. Gone are the days of great raises, stock purchase options in parent companies (nisourse. nipsco, lacleade gas) , awsome quality/performance bonuses, freedom to run how you want, no deductable insurance. However I am not blind and have seen many friends in other so called secure industries weather downsizing, large increases to health insurance premiums ect..... . There is alot of mirco managment at times, but if you are not trying to hide anything and do your job well you will won't have to worry about. People often forget that this industry is no longer in it's infancy. Contract prices have fallen, overhead increases and it's no longer the Baker brothers ( founders of SM&P) running a family bussiness. It's now only about profits for investors. So it's about good to work for as any average corporation in America these days.

I miss the old days of SM&P

**6feetunder** · July 31st, 2011, 09:37 PM

Originally Posted by NoNameNeeded

I am a current CUS employee in Louisiana, and found out today that USIC has bought CUS.

Nobody has any answers to any questions about USIC that I, and other co-workers have. Can anyone give me any info on USIC so that I know what to expect?

It would be greatly appreciated.

Good thing for you in Louisiana is that there was no overlap so you all will be mostly unaffected except for policy changes and what not. I would imagine most of your local management if not all will remain. Who knows though, if CUS has policies that USIC management thinks is better they may adopt some of them as they did with the merger of CLS and SM&P they went with manily CLS policies and ousted most of the SM&P ways. I think the states with overlap have the most to worry about.

**yahoo** · August 2nd, 2011, 08:12 PM

thru the years here at the cablevine....cls and smandp (now usic) is the worst talked about company of all companies!!! advice for you ...my opinion....jump ship to Dpg the janitor service company

**yahoo** · August 2nd, 2011, 08:13 PM

I don't expect you to believe that......

**The Big-E** · August 9th, 2011, 07:35 PM

If some higher ups in USIC read this... since you bought CUS, then you should own T-rx Ticket managing software also...

Find a way to merge T-rx with the UPM and you should have a kick=butt ticketing system... mobile dispatch is way less efficient to use in my humble opinion and experience using both...

PLEASE!!!

**Paint'n & Flag'n** · August 9th, 2011, 07:39 PM

Since USIC owns/created MD I dont see them doing away with it. They have full control over the app and from what I hear have more so called improvements in the works.

**The Big-E** · August 9th, 2011, 10:18 PM

I dont see them doing away with MD either, just thought I'd offer my experienced opinion after using both. I hear they have some improvements in the works too for MD, but it seems like they just keep making it more and more laborious to use...

On a single address locate with say two utilities that takes an experienced locator say 10 mins. to locate and take pics, it sometimes takes almost as long to properly close out the ticket in MD...
would take less than 90 secs. with T-rx ticketing system...

I do like the UPM though and can see that as the one thing I liked better than the way CUS attached photos...

jus my two cents...

**jamiepuck** · August 14th, 2011, 01:48 PM

i like t-rx its easy and fast to use. havent seen usic but i guess i will soon if the chose to use it.

**Reece** · August 15th, 2011, 09:28 PM

Don't you really mean more options to make billing more tedious and harder. We waste so much time on billing, it is stupid. It will more than likely be something that help micro manage us to death

**Jcbro86** · August 15th, 2011, 11:08 PM

md is really easy to use and very streamlined in my opinion, my 2 or 3 way locates take 10 seconds or less to bill, maybe a little more if i have to type in alot of notes but as far as just tabbing thru fields and using shortcuts to autopopulate its super fast under normal conditions.