College Works Painting Aka Student Works Painting, Aka CWPNC Inc, AKA, SDP Inc, NICA1 Have written contract to piant house by 5/28/07-no show no call- No choose paint Englewood Colorado

I am a successful manager in Northern California. While I cannot attest to the different divisions/states across the nation, our division is a tightly run ship with great leadership and training. While I won't be making much more money than I would have working at Raley's all summer, I gained so much more in knowledge and experience that I am pretty much knowing that I'm going to run another successful business in my life. Besides monetary gains, relationships with clients are huge and I am doing alot of local charity work for hospitals and churches. I'm sure that sounds super-cheesy, but don't judge College Works Painting until you have an estimate with your local rep and get references from people in the area. Then you'll see what we're made of.

I worked for them for a summer in 2005.

TO ANY COLLEGE STUDENTS LOOKING TO MAKE SOME GOOD MONEY - DO NOT DO THIS.

It's a massive pyramid scheme. My manager quit halfway through the summer. He was promised more money than he was getting. Our crew was promised more money than we were getting. Very shady.

Here's how it works:

They under estimate the time it takes to finish a house. Meaning they give you X hours to finish. In reality, it's near impossible to finish in that time. After that time frame you get a small portion of your pay. Our first job we got like $4.50/hour. We all said we're done with this blah blah and agreed on an hourly wage regardless of time. If we never threatened to quit, I'm sure they would have taken advantage of us the entire summer.

I suggest you do something less physically demanding for bad bad pay.

College Pro and Student Works are NOT the same company. Student Works Painting (at least in the western half of Canada) is run very professionally although territorially it always depends on who is the owner. I'm sorry you had such a poor experience (it seems not too uncommon - remember, these businesses are student run and not all students are up to the challenge) but I know for a fact that I myself pride myself on having happy clients. Please don't lump us all together.

Best of luck choosing a painting company in the future.

In response to the consumer in Colorado who filed a report following her experience with CWP.

I worked as a branch manager and district manager for CWP for four years (2001-2004). Each year the company hires college students to run a branch (much like a franchise at your favorite fast food restaurant). CWP has an extensive training program which starts for most the students in January or February each year. They also have a mentor who's been successful in the program before that goes out with them and holds weekly phone meetings to provide training and guidance.

In the spring they learn sales and marketing (thus the reason he came by in March). The painting doesn't start until school gets out in May, and for a portion of them they don't start until June. As with any franchise or business the service will vary from manager to manager. The CWP program is intense and many of those the company hires can't handle the rigorous hours it takes to get their business going. CWP knowing the nature of their business have put the following things in place to ensure that customers receive the best posible service. 1). after booking the manager is to stay in contact with the customer, at least every other week until the job starts. Get the managers cell phone number when you book, not just the national 888 number. 2). the manager should request to do nightly "walk arounds" once the job starts. This serves two purposes, it ensures that the project is being done the way you both agreed (time line, prep, color, ext). It also allows for communication between the two of you.

In fine, I apologize that you had a poor experience with the company and it does look bad for them. Realize however that each manager is different and the majority of the clients are very pleased with the results. I painted over 200 houses during my time with them and I worked very hard to ensure that every project was done right. We used the 100% acrylic paint from a top paint store (mine was Kwal Howells). I still drive by the houses I painted my first year and I'm proud of the duration of my work. When hiring a CWP manager, make sure you trust that manager. The company is solid and as you said they gave the money back when their manager couldn't hold up his end of the bargin.
In case you were wondering why I left the company, I joined the Army after graduating from college to fulfill my lifelong dream.

Scott

It is true that the estimation algorithm that CWP uses is fundamentally flawed.  They assume that you can do a certain task at a certain pace, which is actually fairly reasonable for that one task (for example: 15 minutes to scrape, sand, and apply primer to one square foot of surface).  It is true that I can do that task at that pace, and easily "beat budget", however, There is no way I could keep anything near that pace for a 10 hour day and still produce quality work.  That is one of the fundamental flaws.  As an experienced construction worker (aside from being a student), I am confident in my ability to work efficiently and get high quality results under normal circumstances.  In this job, however, I was completely incapacitated to do so and found myself falling far behind the estimated job time in order to satisfy our clients (I refused to hurry and do a shoddy job).  In some cases it took me and my crew more than double the time (and consequently we got paid much less for our time)...and this was after our manager (the intern) had become fairly experienced at estimating and was doing a near-perfect job with it "on paper."  Our manager was wonderful and would bend over backwards as far as he could for his crew (us) and his clients, but company policy prevented him from being totally fair and honest with either.  I will say that most of our clients were satisfied, and we were very good to them, but much of it was at the painters' expense in time, effort, and lost pay.  Another complaint I had was that the company (CWP) had policies against paying the painters and marketers for required marketing hours with payroll funds.  My manager had to resort to gift cards to stores in order to pay us for the company-required 10% of our hours to be spent marketing.   Also, we were encouraged to bully potential clients while marketing.  I believe that if my manager had started his own independent business I would have been much better taken care of as an employee and that both I and my manager would have made a lot more money, all without risking client satisfaction.

I had a similar issue getting this company to come out to my place as well. They did show up to the paint choosing, but I never saw them again after that. It took a small claims court to get my deposit back from them, and I went with a different company who lived up to my expectations.

I'm not sure what the deal with this company is, whether it be poor management or an all-out scam, but they need to get their act together.