Active Network reviews

Middle management is all pretty great, but they don't seem to like each other, and different departments (like most other places) just don't get along well when it comes to work. I was brought on with the image of "making the world a more active place", but that dream was sadly crushed very fast. It is a business and the goal is to make money; lying, cheating, stealing and killing are not off limits by any means. Upper management doesn't know enough about the departments which they are respectively in charge of; sales guys don't meet their unrealistic numbers, support guys don't fulfill unrealistic quotas of satisfaction, marketing doesn't drive unrealistic numbers and product does not make unrealistic deadlines. In a sense, everyone is setup for failure. As one of the early employees to be employed after the initial move from CA, it was expected that people would be upset about losing their jobs to TX. We knew there would be bitterness from the old and confusion from everyone being new; that just comes with the move. However, a couple years later, morale has gotten worse among the employees and turnover is scary. In addition to turnover with employees, the solution to cutting cost to make numbers look better comes at a price, which tends to be layoffs. When teams find out someone is about to be let go, we have vouched for each other, knowing that we need them on the team to get things done, but that is never taken into consideration, and the answer is generally "work harder/longer and get it done". Work-life balance is non-existent. I, personally, believe that is one of the reasons Vista (parent company) decided it was a great idea to hire so many fresh grads; they're all trying to prove themselves and don't know any better. Hard work AND cheap!

- Direct management is a joke. They spend about 90% of their time in meetings - for what, I have absolutely no clue, as they do nothing of value the other 10% of the time they're actually at their desks. To make matters worse, they're rude and gossipy. The group of managers/supervisors feels more like a high school clique than a group of leaders. They pick favorites, and if you're not one of those few, your life sucks here - which translates to being under constant scrutiny, loaded with extra tasks that you must complete without appreciation, and robbed of yearly raises without any legitimate justification. - Zero attention is given to your personal career growth. One-on-ones with my manager consisted of talking about video games and her life problems - while this was fun, it did nothing for me professionally. They actually seem to frown upon applying to other positions internally, so I had to do so primarily in secret. (Boy am I glad I found another job before they could finish my interview process). - Grossly understaffed teams. If more than 1-2 team members needed to be out on the same day, the remaining team is met by a living Hell of constant calls. In fact, the only time I saw the managers actually do work was when they had to frantically jump onto phones or complete the responsibilities of a tier 1 support rep because of this understaffing issue. But anytime you bring it up, managers just shrug it off. - Practically everybody that works here becomes unhappy quickly after they're hired. I walk through the doors in the morning and am just blasted with the negativity. The environment is toxic because of direct management. - If you are in any department (other than sales), you will be unappreciated. - This place is a madhouse. It feels like it's run by a bunch of turkeys with their heads cut off a vast majority of the time. Expect to manage your team by yourselves - like working out a schedule on your manager's behalf to compensate for a day's team meetings/attrition, which I've had to do more than once (as they were too "busy" to notice or do anything). - My team was forced to work after hour phones, so virtually we were given a cell phone and paid $125 extra for that week, which comes out to roughly $80 after taxes. This was not discussed in my contract, and we were told to "avoid going out or making social plans during this time". Work/life balance is not valued, nor given at this company. - The communication is virtually nonexistent between direct management and the team. Feedback and suggestions we give to supervisors amount to nothing. - Just be aware of the terrible reputation this place has. You will hear it over the phones, too. Expect to offer to submit a "feature request" to the IT/development team on the client's behalf a ton, as the software Active provides is outdated garbage.