Active Network reviews

- 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.

The cons grossly outweighs the pros. The most mentally abusive work environment I have ever worked in. To start, the pay is $5-10K below industry standards. The responsibilities for each role is usually at least one level above your title and pay range. The expectation is that you’re there from 8am to 6pm, and it’s frowned upon to be absent from your seat (even if it’s for your legally required lunch or a meeting - yes management will frown upon “whole teams being gone”). I was on one of those teams that was all about appearances, thanks to management. It was normal to work 10 hours a day in the office plus 1-3 hours at home if you worked with China, and receive passive aggressive "reminder" emails to the team about when work hours are (god forbid you leave at 5:15 when you’ve been there longer than your manager who doesn’t do any actual work). But it’s all in the name of “dedication”. There is no such thing as a work life balance here, unless you had a manager/director to protect you, or you were one of the favored few. I witnessed a handful of lazy, favored employees with big egos and subpar work get babied and handed free days off, “work from home” days, and unwarranted bonuses in the range of $4K… then again, they were male. Some people have your best interest in mind, but a lot of management will look down on you and disrespect your opinion and work if you’re female. There’s an overall attitude that the workplace is a measuring contest and you have to put other people down so that you can move up and get ahead. The C-Suite is just as bad if not worse. In passing, I’ve heard a few of their unsavory comments about female employees and witnessed inappropriate favoritism for underperforming male employees. They try to lead with fear and threats. It’s normal for C-Levels to patrol the floors throughout the day to see who’s in their seat. The C-Levels will give office tours to public figures and put teams on standby to fill seats and look productive for them (until 7pm on some occasions). The Sales floor is a circus, with Sports Center type scoreboards showing the amount of calls and sales each day and a cash machine in the corner. Every other Friday, someone would take at least $1K in cash from their paycheck, put it in machine, and the top sellers would get in while people screamed support, meanwhile the ring leader would shout insults. They also have rewards (almost strictly for Sales, but only recently branching out to other departments) for leadership and top performance - surprise, only one person from the tech/development department was chosen in the last year to attend the paid for overseas trip with Darko. The CEO is focused on business growth and making money as fast as possible, which is fine if you’re one of the few profiting from this place, but his communication with the company is not honest. Did I mention that they have “Performance Dashboards” on every C-Level’s widescreen TV? It’s connected to their project tracking system to see how many hours are logged on bugs, and who’s completing the most tickets. There’s a huge amount of micromanagement and fear based motivation mixed with dishonesty on the C-Level. Even when the company was bought out and there were rumors of relocating to Texas, the CEO deflected the question by saying “We’ll always have an office in San Diego.” Add that to the mass layoffs soon after and it doesn’t leave a good impression. The turnover rate at this place is ridiculous. In the last year, some teams only have 1/4 of the people stay longer than a year. There’s a reason why so many talented, dedicated employees leave so soon. This place lacks humanity, honesty, and respect.