New Horizons Employee's Stories - Page 1

I was an Account Executive with the Wellington New Zealand office, from 1997 to 2001. When I began work at NH, the office had been open for only about six months and had only 2 tutors, 2 AE's, the office manager and a part time receptionist. The business trebled in size within 18 months, so there were a lot of "teething problems".

I'd like to tell you what it's like to be a NH Account Executive.

Account Executives, like the tutors, have a set of rules and NH laws that must be followed ("don't mess with the genetic material", says the manual) - this is part and parcel of being part of the franchise, which I accepted.

The "formula" for sales was as follows: 50 cold calls, 5 coupons, 3 tours, 1 sale. You cold called prospects who had never heard of NH, and invited them to attend a NH class so that they could evaluate the training. The "coupon" is their ticket to the class. The tour involved walking the client around the NH offices and showing them how awesome the place is, and asking them leading questions to ascertain sales opportunities.

The days were like this:

7.30 am start - most office workers in New Zealand begin work at 8.30 a.m, so this was a bit of a shock.

7.30 to 8 am - prepare a list of 50+ prospects for cold calling ("we will provide you with quality leads", says the manual. Yeah right, this is called the telephone directory!)

8 a.m - start cold calling

8.45 am - meet and greet clients; give new clients "the tour"

9 am - continue cold calling

10.30 a.m - meet clients during their tea break (classes would "break" anytime from 10.15 to 11 am!)

10.45 continue cold calling

12.30 - meet clients during their lunch break, and try to get some lunch for yourself

1.30 pm - call prospects whom you cold called 3 days ago who expressed interest in the training, then catch up on existing clients

2.30 pm - meet clients, continue touring (the tea breaks could be anytime from 2 pm to 3 pm)

2.45 to 4.30pm - continue calls to existing clients

4.30 to 5 pm - catch clients before they departed (sometimes classes finished at 4 pm, other times they would run until 5 pm!)

5 pm - prepare the 5 coupons to prospects who had accepted offer to evaluate NH, prepare letters, stuff everything into envelopes, put on stamps, then drop into letterbox 5.45 meet and tour night class students (two nights a week)

When Saturday classes were held, we were expected to "meet and greet" our clients, and sometimes to stay all day and man the office (NH would not pay for a receptionist to do this on weekends).

How were we paid for all of this work?

A basic salary of $NZ 25,000 (later raised to $NZ 30,000), which is the basic rate for an office junior in this country, for the first eight months, plus commission of 5% on sales above $10,000 per month. No overtime for staying late to look after our clients who attended the night classes, or for giving up our Saturdays for the classes. After 8 months the remuneration was based on the following:

• up to $10,000 - 5%
• $10,000 to $20,000 - 10%
• $20,000 to $30,000 - 12%
• $30,000 to $45,000 - 13%
• $45,000+ - 15%

No commission was payable on courseware or kits that we sold!

The commission was based on money received by the company during the previous week, so if your client went bankrupt etc, then you missed out. We used to spend a lot of time during the last week of each month desperately ringing and/or visiting clients to get their money. One of my clients owned a series of brothels; I didn't know that until I had to visit her office to get my money!

I'm the only woman who survived more than 12 months at the New Horizons Wellington office. My best take home pay for a month's work was $6,800, but there were several months when I took home only $380! All AE's, upon joining, are given the spiel that if they "follow the system, you will succeed" and they within 12 months we would be earning $50,000! I know of only one AE who earned that sort of money at New Horizons!

Did we get much sales training? There was the standard NH 2 week programme, which we covered in 3 days, and the occasional "coaching" from sales managers, but nothing structured or sustaining. It was continually drummed into us "if you follow the system, you will succeed" and if we weren't succeeding then it was our fault!

What prevented us from succeeding and reaping the rewards from our efforts:

• Classes cancelled (sometimes without us being advised) - I had several clients booked for "high end" training (at $2,500 per day) who turned up at the office (and found that the classes had been cancelled. This was particularly stressful for clients who had traveled significant distances to attend the class, and/or had made childcare arrangements for the day.
• Classes not available to meet clients' needs (eg lots of my clients wanted evening and weekend classes, but very few were available)
• Classes finishing early (some as early as 2.30 because "we covered all that was required") - clients felt short changed and cheated
• Clients disgruntled with the lack of expertise/experience of trainers (who would provide only the set answers for the particular course that they covered; sometimes they just read from the book)
• Poor working environment - we worked in cubicles that were very similar to large cardboard boxes, in a very crowed office with few facilities
• Outdated and unreliable technology (we were using Office 97 in 2001, and our decrepit server failed several times). On rainy days our internet classes would not work!
• No systematic ongoing training or personal development programmes (if your sales were lagging, then you were given a "refresher" in the NH methods, then a letter to advise you to improve your sales or else or employment would be terminated!).

This is probably a bit much for one story, but I'm happy for you to use it as you wish! There's probably 1000's of ex NH Account Executives who would be able to identify with my experience!

NH is known as the "McDonalds" of computer training - so true in many ways!

My name is Tom Anderson, and my story is simple. Thanks to my finding a link to your site on a New Horizons competitor's website, I read most of the stories published there and became concerned enough about the operation to turn down a job offer.

Edward Sanford is the owner of the Fairfield, Connecticut New Horizons franchise, as you know. I responded to a job board ad for an Education Counselor position. Sanford told me during the interview that this was a new position, not only for his operation but in the company. New Horizons only focused on the Business-to-Business market, he said. The Omaha, Nebraska franchise had pioneered the concept of attracting the unemployed or career-changers with an opportunity to enter IT. Part of the hiring process was to take the documents he provided about the Omaha operation and present a business plan for starting up a similar EC position in Fairfield. When I read your wife's story, I began to question Sanford's assertion. Well, that opened the floodgates of doubt...

In a nutshell, I grouped the complaints voiced on your site into three categories: sales practices, training/trainer issues and employee turnover. Each and every one of those areas impacts the position I was interviewing for. I was skeptical at first about the extent of the problems in these areas, but when clear patterns emerged, I became convinced that the problems are endemic. The clincher came when the Fairfield New Horizons specifically was mentioned as a source of some of these issues.

Even if only a fraction of the stories are true and not just people whining and looking to deflect attention away from their own shortcomings, I decided not to continue on in the hiring process. Thank you for saving me from making a major career mistake.

Sincerely,

Thomas G. Anderson

[Temporarily removed by request]

I worked for possibly the worst NH, it was in the San Francisco office. I worked there for 9 months and in that time I had paychecks bounce, wallet stolen (I believe by management) and the most miserable experience of my life. They even granted me five weeks leave of absence but when the day came for me to leave they fired me!!!! even though I had just brought them in $42,000 that month. We worked from 7 to whenever and had to complete 80 cold calls a day with 2 1/2 hours of talk time, the president, Ken, is a true to life blood sucker and a pathetic excuse for a human being. I felt like I was in the movie boiler room, I was told to get as much as I could on credit card and then the peoples classes would be cancelled without a refund. I'm ashamed I worked there and was pressured into stealing off people, i'm in a much happier place now. Just recently I found out that my company was going to do onsite training with NH of San Francisco, luckily I was able to talk with boss before he had signed up and yes they were looking for payment up front on a credit card!!!! I told them to use Learn IT instead.

Every employee I knew there last year has been fired, to all of you guys i'm sure you can agree with all that I said and hope your doing better now, how could you do worse????, you know who I am.

My name is Brenda Milloy, and I am a very recent ex-employee of New Horizons. I have worked at the New Horizons of Portland, Oregon, for four and a half years. I was an account executive assistant, and sales administrative assistant.

I believe in what New Horizons is supposed to do, teach people how to use their applications, and the tekkies how to keep the systems running. I worked with a great bunch of people, from the instructors, to the sales department itself.

However, I can't say much for the president of this individual franchise. What would you say if you were told that your pay was being cut 10%, and that work loads would increase? Given the recent economic woes that the whole country is facing, that's understandable. But what would you say if after being told that cutbacks are being made to save the company, the president goes around spending money on food rewards that nobody really cares about? I mean snacks and treats, all dispersed oh so gracefully from the president herself, lovingly and compassionately passing out bagels and coffee and juice, and dove bars and chocolate dipped strawberries, and oh, all the fancy foods we crave. We the employees would rather have seen that money go to a fund for coworkers who were struggling because of the pay cutbacks.

Or the fact that they dumped good instructors, and cut back classes, and hired not one, but two more sales managers to increase sales? How can you increase sales when there's nothing to sell, because you've cut back on the service you are selling? How could they justify the hiring of two more sales mangers in light of the cutback in pay to the rest of the employees?

When I first started at New Horizons, I was hired as an AE assistant. Earlier this spring, the gal who was our sales administrator assistant quit because she could not afford the 10% pay cut. So, they gave me her full time job, on top of my AE assistant duties, and expected me to take it, and make it all work, by cramming a full time job into four hours for this, and four hours for that, and box up the hours spent on each responsibility into even, four hour blocks.

My timesheet reflected this struggle. As I was diligently working on the monthly Leadership Report, which the president first told me must be completed by the 12th of the new month (and then later, changed her mind and insisted that it be done 5 days after the end of the sales month), I got a call from our president, wanting to know how I could justify all my hours spent on the sales admin job. I reminded her of her edict regarding the Leadership Report, and invited her to spend half a day with me so she could get an idea of what the sales admin job entailed. She declined. She then proposed a meeting between her and the three sales mangers to resolve the problem. She did not include me in the people attending the meeting. When I suggested that my input might prove helpful in resolving the situation, that was declined.

So, as I understood it, I was to take a 10% cut in pay, and increase my workload by 100%, and then verbally abused because I was not able to perform the impossible, be disrespected for my opinions and thoughts, and barely treated as a live, human being.

Well, I gave it my best, and struggled in this situation for two months, until I got the call about my timesheet. My account exec urged me to go speak to the president again, to try to resolve the situation. When I stepped into her office, the first words out of her mouth were "don't think I'm going to talk you out of quitting, because I'm not."

I was speechless! I had never even uttered the words to anyone about quitting! I was still working on a resolution to the problem! But, given the president's first statement to me, I knew immediately that her mind was made up, and no amount of discussion was going to change her mind. I also think it highly unprofessional of this woman.

So here, in Oregon, the state with the worst unemployment rate in the country, I quit. I have responsibilities, both familial, and financial. I am a stable person. I do not quit jobs at a whim. But, for me to up and quit, without benefit of unemployment assistance, says a lot about how the president runs her company. And believe me, she's running it all right, right into the ground.

Hi, I am a former employee of New Horizons Milwaukee in Wauwatosa, WI. I felt as if this franchise was a great place to work and the people were very nice except for that backstabbing Alozie Aguwa. He talks nice to you in one aspect, but before you know it he is talking bad about you to someone else and has the nerve to think that it will not get back to you. Everyone that leaves New Horizons leaves because of him. He is not businesslike at all, and only thinks of one thing, MONEY! I wish New Horizons that best and I met some wonderful people while working there, but they need to really get rid of the Alozie because he is dragging the company under and before you know it he will be the only employee left because noone wants to work with a LOSER like him.

I was a previous employee of New Horizons Salt Lake City but this information affects many many other New Horizons. There are only a few centers that actually provide the Cisco training to the majority of the New Horizons network and Salt Lake City is one of them.

When I first joined New Horizons Salt Lake in 2001 they only had a CCNA class. Now they have CCNA, CCNP, and a huge number of specialty classes. Anyone with a little bit of sense can see a problem with that. How can you develop about 10 different Cisco networking classes in two years? The answer: all of their material is stolen.

Their version of developing classes is to acquire the Cisco training material and then change the PowerPoint slides to say New Horizons and revise the labs to be done with less equipment. On top of all this, the owner Dave Butterfield put everyone under a severe time crunch to get it done. As a result, the slides are incomplete, the labs are faulty, and the instructors who are teaching the classes are not fully prepared to teach them. At one point, an instructor was even sent to a Global Knowledge VoIP course so he could steal the material and the labs and then turn around and teach it to a New Horizons client 3 weeks later.

The point of this story is: If you are getting Cisco training from any New Horizons make sure and find out who is actually providing them the training. It is probably either New Horizons Salt Lake or New Horizons San Jose. If it is New Horizons Salt Lake run, don’t walk, away for 3 reasons. #1-you’ll be getting basically a pirated Cisco course. #2-you’ll be getting pirated labs however, because Dave Butterfield is too cheap to buy all the necessary equipment, the labs are sub-par. #3-The instructor probably has no real world experience and in some cases – may not even have much experience with the class itself.

I hope this information can be useful to potential students.

I started my role with New Horizons, Milwaukee (yes, the branch where all of this stemmed) in January 2003. I should have trusted my instincts, because I was extended an offer in December 2002, but for some reason, all communications ceased for about 2 weeks after the offer was made. After about 10 days, 5 messages and 2 emails to find out details/status, I called and ironically was connected with Alozie Aguwa, who now calls himself General Manager. I explained that the Sales Manager had interviewed me twice and extended an offer, and while I knew he had a planned vacation, I was having trouble reaching him. To anyone who works with this center, if you ever ask "Where did so-and-so go?" and you are told "He/She has taken on another responsibility here" they have QUIT. I'll come back to this point in a bit.

So, the gentleman that hired me, left without any type of transition call to me. In my professional experience, I believe the organization had no idea this person was planning on leaving, otherwise why would they have given him the responsibility to staff for future business dealings? Regardless, this is only one of many shortcomings in the business dealings of this center. From our conversation, it was obvious Alozie has no idea who I was or what my qualifications were. Before I can fill him in on my qualifications, he jumps the gun and states they are very interested in me, and will I be able to start 1 week earlier than originally discussed. He wanted to start 3 people on the same date. Hind sight being 20-20, he was desperate for bodies. They were down to 2 AE's (2 AE's and 1 Sales Manager resigned from mid-December to January 1).

I began my training with the oddest layout I'd ever seen. The 3 of us were left in a training room to read a manual or surf the company website for days on end. Every couple of hours, Alozie or Sixtus would come in and read verbatim from the material we just read ourselves. Then we watched videos showing us the "New Horizons way." After 10 days of the same thing, we were getting antsy, afterall, two of us had already been in outside sales. The day before, we spent 2 1/2 hours waiting for someone to come in to do our HR work. Within the first week, one of the three of us new recruits already quit. Around day 8, the remaining 2 asked what we would be covering that afternoon, we were told we would be viewing the videotapes AGAIN, because it can't hurt. Reinforcement is always good, but I felt my skills were beyond that and our time would be much better spent focusing on other methods of learning. It was a time filler because there was no one around to serve as a trainer.

Back to the turnover issue in this center: Since I had started, 15 people had resigned, some with notice, some without. There are now only 10 employees (Alozie, Sixtus, Operations Manager, 2 apps trainers, 2 tech trainers, 1 AE, 2 assistants) there from about 22 when I began the process. That's about 3 people per month!!!! Some of the losses include: 1 Sales Manager, 5 Account Executives, 4 trainers, and 4 assistants. From what I understand, prospective sales position seekers, they're looking for bodies to fill seats again. Three people were hired and quit inside the 6 months I was there.

I was made aware of this site back in April and when I read how it got started, I was amazed because I can see it happening just as Joe has described it. Things are probably worse now than they were then. The economy is blamed, but it's more because of a substandard service and lack of money. I sense a lot of truth in many of the reports on this site. Trainers are not given enough time to prepare. Trainers are not paid enough ($17000-$20000 per year) and many commercial clients have indicated they were disappointed because the trainer had absolutely no knowledge of a real-world experience. Much of the material is self-taught from online courses and textbooks. Afterall, what kind of experienced professional can you bring on staff for $17000 per year?

Dale (who was mentioned in the original experience as the basis for this site) left this center in January. Buy the time he left, he was a very fluent, qualified instructor who took a more lucrative position with our competition.

Coming from the inside of this organization, I am amazed at the amount of deception that takes place to get a client in the door. Fabrications of the qualifications of instructors, denial of previous conversations, even when email documentation is present. Cash flow problems exists and I spent the last 3 months wondering if I was going to receive a paycheck on payday. Delay tactics like receiving unsigned checks as well as not having the promised direct deposit (instead, receiving a paper check) were used perhaps to buy time. I constantly received calls (4-6 per week) from other New Horizons looking to get paid from our center as well as creditors for the business itself. That made me very uncomfortable. One that really put me over the top was when another center would not add my student to their class because Milwaukee owed them money from training they conducted last November. It got resolved and my student was enrolled, but I felt like I was pulling teeth to get it fixed.

Pricing for programs is not consistent. If there are any students reading this, if there is a next time you attend the class (especially a technical class) ask the person sitting next to you what they paid. I'll guarantee there can be up to a $5000 difference in a technical track from one person to another. "Specials" are a joke. The pressure to get a club or a class track at a certain price will not go away if you are persistent after their drop dead date. It's all about getting the most money in the door.

Something else that made me uncomfortable was their practice of copying manuals for students. The manuals are provided by a third party organization and they own the copyright on the material. For a recent technical class, instead of having an updated manuals sent to the center, an assistant parked in the copy room and made additional copies of the parts of the newer version of the manual. Since NH sells the books at a profit, copying them beyond reasonable use is illegal. Alozie seemed alarmed and would get to the bottom of it. Whether things were squared away or not, I don't know, but all week, the assistant and either the instructor or the operations manager spent part of the morning making additional copies of the manuals. This occurred because instead of going to the vendor originally for the manuals, I understand this center would call around to other centers for the book. What happened from time to time is the centers have an older version of the manual, making it obsolete to the course. It seemed that instead of paying to ship the older manuals back to the third party vendor for credit and paying to have new manuals sent, they thought they'd save a few bucks and make their own copies.

I have never in my professional career (15 years) walked off a job without anything else lined up. I reached a decision that I could no longer be a part of an organization that was jeopardizing my professional reputation with clients I had been working with for years prior to joining this organization.

Why does this happen? Processes may be in place to get workflow completed, but I rarely saw them followed in an efficient way. From my calculations, the center was profitable for 2 of the last 8 months. Evalauations from students are constantly saying they encountered equipment problems and they workstations were very slow.

Priorities are out of whack and to emphasize this, one day last week Alozie indicated he'd be in around 10. 10 turned into 11, 11 to 12. Another coworker called him repeatedly on his cell phone to get an ETA because we had things pending that needed management signatures to move forward (i.e. revenue!!). In the cubicle with my coworker when the call was made, we found out Alozie had been sitting at the Midas distributor getting his car fixed all day. An offer was made to come and get him that was denied. He said he'd be there in the office in an hour. He finally made an appearance at 410pm. We leave the office at 430p.

I have never seen a more REACTIVE organization. If an instructor calls in sick, chances are the class will be canceled. There are no contingency plans in place. In fact, many times they were not able to even call upon other centers in the area for assistance when things like that happen. If you ask Alozie why that is, he'll state other centers are running just as lean as we are. My opinion is that he's owing so much money to the other centers, they don't want to do business with him any longer (if Milwaukee sends a student to another city, money is exchanged between the centers to balance out the costs for the delivery and administrative aspects of the class). I believe there are some centers that prefer not to do business with him and deliberately don't answer or return his phone calls.

I think this is a good organization, but the franchise set up in this facility is dismal. I spoke with a counterpart in Chicago (a corporate owned facility) and the differences in process and capability are astounding. I can't speak for other New Horizons facilities, but I do believe the Milwaukee training center is probably one of the WORST run businesses I've ever seen on all aspects...lack of respect, honesty, product/services, equipment, pay, benefits, and process. Against my desires, I wish I could email the link to this site to some of my clients.

Just to reiterate my sentiments exactly, here's a statement made by a former Principal Instructor in August 2001:

"First, ask the Account Executive who calls you how long he or she has been with the organization. I had many students who had six month club memberships that had three different AEs during that time. Some of them actually had to ask me who was in charge of their account, because their AEs had changed so many times.

Second, if you do come in on one of their "free classes," don't be afraid to ask the instructor about his or her experience with the program being taught, or IT experience in general. Those of us who know what we're doing are usually glad to answer. The ones who are trying to "fake it before you can make it" will duck and run.

Third, watch out for little red flags, like "That's not part of this course." In New Horizons-speak, that means, "I don't have the faintest idea, but I don't want to tell you that." "

He couldn't have said it better.

I started out at NH as a student going for my MCSE, Novell and A+ certification. I had attended about 3 months when I heard they were having a hiring information/application session and was invited and encouraged to attend by one of the instructors there who I had befriended. After about 3 months I was finally hired. In the beginning it was the most wonderful job I had ever had and it was so much fun. I loved all my co-workers and the environment. The romance lasted only 5 months or so before the fall of my love and loyalty.

When I was hired I was told that they start all employees at $19,000, NO MATTER WHAT, until the end of the probation period which was 3 month. After your probation period and your review you would get a raise to $24,000 and additional money for any current certifications you hold. I began with 2 other people who didn't make it past the first month. One of them was a guy who was the friend of the Training Manager's girlfriend and he was started out at $19,500. I could live with that, after all sometimes it is in who you know, not what you know or who you are. After my probation I was given the promised $24,000 and my story of the long hours and work environment from here is just as the other over worked, under paid stories so I'll spare you.

My beef is this. I was told that EVERYONE (instructors) are hired at a fixed rate of $19,000. Lie #1 was a fellow employee hired at the same time was hired for $500/month ($6000/year) more.

Then I found out from a co-worker who was too proud of her computer degree but had no real life experience, disgruntled with the pay freeze on her way to finding a "better" job, talk about how she could not and would not accept a job for less than $36,000 (here, that is a very decent wage and it is NOT entry level, and that's with a few years of experience). She was hired about two months after me at $32,000 and so was another guy with the same qualifications she had. They were also taking tests to excel in the pay scheme and instructor classification. I was told by everyone there that you could not take any exams until after your probation period. They received the pay raises with each successful test they took before their probation period ended. This little confession put me over the top.

There was also another guy who came in with my same qualification, former student of NH who was looking for a career change. I harassed him too because it was odd that he didn't seem to care about the probation review or his evaluation scores, which I was told was a factor in whether or not you would get the full amount of the raise if your scores weren't good, and under sworn secrecy he told me. He even told me how they were repaying his student loan to Microsoft because he was now an instructor. I was so angry, hurt and wanted to be vindicated for their lie so I went to talk to the Training Manager and said I understood that they could give me the same salary because my I didn't have the same qualifications so I suggested that they refund me the money I paid to be a student there and we could call it even. I was willing to sign a contract that stated I would have to be there for at least another 6 months to make it fair for them and me. Their response, no. They never repay any monies from the time any instructor was a student when they become employed. I swallowed hard.

A couple of months ago when my anger and discontent was rising I started with my new chain of command to speak to everyone that it takes to get more money because I felt like I deserved it for the hours, effort and more importantly, the loyalty. I was put off several times by the new Training Manager so I went to her boss. He seemed so caring and kind. The wolf in sheep's clothing. He told me that it was really too late now but had I requested this before the pay freeze it could have been done. Was I any less angry? Being told that they NEVER repay any monies and IT COULD HAVE been done?! I wanted to talk to the former GM who was now the regional GM but he was out of town. I was encouraged to talk to the current GM whom I really didn't like because he seemed so obscene and rude but I did it nonetheless. The result? He told me that since I was so dissatisfied with my job he would call in the Training Manager and begin my termination paperwork. I was at a total loss. I NEVER said I didn't like my job, I have kids and I'm not independently wealthy so I wouldn't want to quit working without having another job lined up. I told him to stop just a minute and I needed a little time before this seemingly forced resignation he was expecting unless he was going to fire me so I could at least collect unemployment. He okay and I left his office in tears.

Quitting was no piece of cake either. I did go and find another job, gave my notice and did my homework on what I was and wasn't going to be paid on my last check. I went into the finance office and spoke to one of the girls that worked in there and told her I wanted to know how much vacation pay I would be getting. She called headquarters in CA and gave me an exact amount. I asked her if I would be getting one or two checks and she told me one. The check came in on time and the local NH location promptly tore up the check and told me it needed to be reissued because they overpaid me. When I got the check it was for the right amount, less the vacation pay. I was furious. I called and spoke to deaf ears because all they said was they don't pay vacation pay. I took it to the Texas Workforce Commission and filed a complaint. Shortly thereafter another instructor quit and she was told she would be getting her vacation pay. She asked this of the Training Manager and another manager who was at the location from California to "check" on how this location was doing and they both confirmed that according to the handbook she would be getting her vacation pay. I encouraged her to file a complaint too.

After months of waiting and playing hardball with them we both got our vacation pay AFTER we signed a "gag" agreement with them. It shouldn't be so difficult to get your benefits that are promised but after all, if they can screw the general public, why should they care about any employee?

The stories I will tell are from within the management structure of New Horizons and (at least the ones in this e-mail) are common to many of the centers in the US, especially the franchises. I would prefer the specific center I worked for not be revealed since I am still in the same market they serve and "its a small world" as they say.

I am a former employee of a New Horizons in New York. One of the last big insults that I have documented from the management of the NY centers (I have also seen the evidence that this is happening all around the country) is the blatant lies and deceptions they have published and told potential students to sell classes.

After leaving NH last year I discovered while searching the internet job postings, many advertisements for "paid internships after completing 5 week course." After exploring further I discovered and was able to obtain printed ads and other documentation indicating that they were promising unemployed people a paid internship if they signed up and completed certification for Microsoft's MCSA track in 5 weeks. I won't even go into how impossible attaining that certification would be for anyone without any IT background within 5 weeks time. What I will say is that as I discovered, they bring these people in to an open house type of environment and sell them on putting it all on the line and sign up for this training track for many thousands of dollars (most of the potential victims are unemployed so this is big risk for them) and what they will get is a paid internship as a System Administrator afterwards so they can gain experience for the $65,000 job they will get afterwards.

What they don't tell them is the following: the price has been bumped up to cover paying the students $100 per week of their internship from their own money; the companies that will provide the interns "jobs" have been convinced by New Horizons that they will get free labor as long as it is loosely affiliated with the companies IT group, and they only have to keep the victim (I mean student) for a month; the IT market especially in the North East is flooded with experienced IT people who were laid off from Telecom and other victims of the past couple of years economy, and that all of those people including myself have years of experience and heaps of certifications yet when we apply for the few jobs that are out there we are offered far less than the $65,000 that they claim is the average salary (the grain of truth is that those who still have jobs on average may well be making that salary, but that is only because they have much experience and luck to still be employed); the state governments have started actively investigating their claims; most of the centers are going belly up, so good luck getting the rest of your classes or your money back; the articles they try to use to support their claims are at least a year old and from studies that are twice that old.

Much has changed in the world recently. If you are not already in IT, its not the time to "bet the farm" on a career change into one of the most depressed job markets in the country. Pay attention to where the jobs are and put your money there, don't lose your house for these people. Trust me they only want your money, I have been in the belly of the beast, I know!

I worked for New Horizons in San Antonio, Texas. I was in the third group of instructors hired for that location. Things were great at the beginning but after a few years, it matched all the stories on your site. Long hours, no time to study, and no help from management. My last year, I worked 26 weeks of nights and had to cancel my vacation three times. The last time I was "asked" to cancel my vacation plans, the general manager offered in exchange and "extra week of vacation". I already had two weeks of vacation they weren't giving me time off to take. What would a third week do for me??

The story I really want to tell is about my signed contract with New Horizons. I had signed a technical contract in order to be the first certified programmer employed at this location. When I turned in my letter of resignation, I stated that I had trained over 350 students in my programming classes and if New Horizons had charged each student only $1000 per class, I personally had earned them $350,000. I felt that was enough profit for the $12,000 they had spend to have me trained. There for, I had no intention of paying them anything. Remember, I wrote this in my resignation letter.

About 1 1/2 years after I had left, I received a letter from a law firm in Houston saying they were representing New Horizons. They wanted the money or they would sue me. I quickly called the lawyer and said I had told New Horizons I would not pay and she could start paper work to sue me right now. She said would contact the general manager in San Antonio and be back in touch shortly. A month later, I called her again. When was I going to be sued?? She said she was still waiting for a reply for her client. Three months later, I called again. I wanted an answer. When am I going to be sued?? Again she had no reply from the general manager of New Horizons in San Antonio. She wasn't sure why and was shocked by me wanting to be sued. I explained that New Horizons didn't really want to take me to court. It would cost them more to pay her bill then my $12,000 and they didn't want me to contact Microsoft and talk about all the Microsoft certificates I was told to sign for class taught by uncertified instructors.

This all happened over a year ago and I still have not been sued for the money New Horizons says I owe them. I'm not telling anyone to call the bluff like I did. I'm just sharing my experience.

(More than) A few words on the way New Horizons works their instructors:

I worked for 20 months as a Technical Instructor at an NH franchise that had just opened. Shortly thereafter I assumed the role of Facilities manager as well. The previous Facilities manager went into business for himself and is still doing quite well. For probably three months, the tech classes were held to a minimum, as all new franchises do. The apps classes are the meat and potatoes for any franchise newer than two years old. I enjoyed the multimedia and made do with the Office Apps.

For a while, stuff wasn't bad. Then came the technical classes and new apps packages. I was pulling a double duty schedule:

6:30-7:30 AM: Arrive and make sure all machines are imaged with proper software. If the imaging software hadn't worked the night before (a regular occurrence), this had to be sorted out.

7:45-8:15 AM: Get my own classroom ready and sort out various problems other instructors had with their machines

8:15-8:30 AM: Pry the Account Executives out of my class so I could start on time.

8:30 AM-4:30 PM: {insert totally inane teaching story here}

4:30 -5:30 PM: Prep classrooms for evening classes. This sometimes consisted of physically moving computers from one classroom to the next. No, don't bother scheduling a decent amount of classes as per the number of computers we have, go right ahead and fill every classroom every day and night, Mr. Sales Manager.

5:30 -10:00 PM: {next teaching story, complete with snoozing students. 10:00 PM??? c'mon..}

10:00 -11:00 PM or later: clean classroom, prep classrooms for next day, image apps class computers.

11:30PM - 5:30AM: Six hours of sleep if all goes well. Average 4. Even on weeks I didn't teach nights I still stayed until 9 because of internal issues. Wait. I need prep time. What's that? A poor substitute for sleep.

Let's add up the hours. Looks like 15.5 hours of work to me. 16.5 if something goes wrong during the morning classes and you're forced to fix it during lunch. Let's just say 16. That makes for an 80 hour week. Couple this with a six hour day on Saturday (either breaking down classrooms or teaching yet another class), and four to five hours on Sunday (isn't that breaking the Sabbath?). If you're counting, that's roughly 90 hours. Out of 168 for an entire week? Granted, a 90-hour week doesn't come along that often. Maybe every 4 weeks (yow!). I'd say I averaged a 70-hour week during my time there. If we take a year's pay of $38K, after taxes that'd be about $30K take home. Hourly? At 40 hours/week you're making about $14.42/hour. Not all that horrible. But at 70? You're pulling in $8.24. At 90? $6.41. Last time I checked minimum wage was $5.15. An MCSE/MCT making that an hour? I pay some guy $40 to detail my car. Takes him about an hour.

Sure, sure, these are the horrors of salary, but come ON! One major issue with NH has always been underpaid instructors. Ask any of us. It's also motivation and thanks. Funny thing was, the Training Team I was a part of was one of the better ones in the country and a model for many locations.

If we were still miserable for the most part, what were the other locations going through? Heck, we had fun at our meetings, but that doesn't top the Sales Manager handing out cash and gifts for selling a few more dollars worth of training to pack MY schedule. If some idiot Account Executive tells me to go get another job and quit whining, well.that's what I did. I'm now a Network Admin for a major manufacturing company with a fat 401K, great benefits and a sweet office. Give up 70 hours a week for 40 and more money with greater respect? Shoot yeah.