sales representative

customer service representative

information technology intern

sales account manager

operations intern

American Fidelity Assurance Company

A typical day at work was spent in an office, alone, with minimal guidance or training from my manager. I was responsible for "thinking through" issues before I was even comfortable with the culture of the company or my responsibilities. In short, what I'm saying is that I did not have the training in the job to succeed. Instead of talking with me about projects, etc, she would send a lengthy email detailing exactly what she wanted me to do. It was weird. She would have a senior person in the department (who has worked there for 10 years without a promotion) "monitor" the rest of us secretly, and then confront us about anything that she didn't like on Friday afternoons. I got the sense that she did this so that we would have a bad weekend and be scared about our Monday morning meetings. The senior co-worker I mentioned worked so hard to earn her respect. She would repeatedly - in meetings and in passing - criticize this poor guy. She constantly told stories about how smart she was about everything in every situation. I've never seen a manager toot their own horn the way she does... especially while being so critical of others. I left after she confronted me one Friday afternoon about one thing, and then 10 minutes later, another thing. And then she called me in my office and said something like "I can't believe you don't know the difference between X and Y." That was actually false. I did understand the difference; she was putting words in my mouth. So there I was, defending that I did know the difference while she was attacking me for something else. That episode was followed up by 3 harassing (in my opinion) emails that weekend, followed by a fourth email indicating that it was time for my yearly review. Who does that? In addition, the company culture seemed cult-ish, with all kinds of AFA promotional items all over the place. I also felt uncomfortable with the Christian prayer at the beginning of every meeting. I know it's a private company in one of the most religious states. But I have never worked for a corporation that does this.

AFA is largely a great place to work. But it's also a mixed bag for an engineer. For one, the corporate hierarchy is ridiculous. You as a software engineer have a manager. Your manager works for an Applications Manager. The Applications Manager works for AVP Software Solutions. The AVP Software Solutions works for the CTO. The CTO works for the CIO. The CIO works for the "Chief Tech Strategy Officer" whom by the way only a couple years ago was a sales person from a sister company. This guy works for the COO. The COO. The COO works for the President. The President works for the CEO.

You > Dev Mgr > Apps Dev Mgr > CTO > CIO > Chief Tech Strat (recently promoted from sales) > COO > President > CEO.

That is EIGHT layers of management from you to the AFA CEO. 

Almost none of the dev managers have any experience developing modern applications. The "architects" are actually quite smart and skilled technologists. The company has an old school, political oriented culture. Once you start working for the company you get addicted to the money and the relative stability of it all. So, for the most part, you don't care about the bloated management because you really just want a good job to feed your kids. Which this will do. But if you actually want to make a difference and do something interesting with your life, this is not the place to do it.

They play Fox News in the cafeteria exclusively. If that tells you anything.

AFA is an insurance company. It is a sales organization. You as a technologist job in the organization is to facilitate the sales organization. You are a cost center. The company makes lip service to understanding the role of technology and software but in the end it is still a sales organization. Like working for an oil company but more stable. This is not a bad thing really. If your primary concern is feeding your kids this is a good place for that. However, if you are looking for meaning and purpose as a technologist this is absolutely not your place in my opinion. My advice would be to work for a company that is at it's heart a technology company not a sales company.

You can actually believe the hype with this company, and that is very rare. You do feel like you are applying for entry into a government job or an elite club. That is for good reason, they are one of the best company's to work for in America. They go all out for their employees and make you want to come into work and go above and beyond because you feel valued. They prefer to hire internally and will allow you to train for other positions within the company and the training is paid! My advice is to get your foot in the door and I promise you won't regret it. There are a handful of positions that have a high turnover rate or they just are not a good fit for that person, but you do not have to stay where your at -so once you put in your time you can defiantly find something that will work if you happen to find yourself doing a job that is not well suited for you. It really doesn't get much better! They offer competitive pay, excellent company and holiday bonuses, 8 paid holidays, pension, 401k, heath, dental, vision, other supplementary coverages, generous paid time off and you do not have a long waiting period to access all of these benefits.The new building has its own gym with personal trainers, basketball & tennis courts, onsite Dr office that did not even make a dent in everything offered to employees.  Perks are actually too numerous to list them all. I'm so happy I made the cut and don't see myself going anywhere for a very long time!


I worked with AF for a few years. If they tell you there is room for growth this is a lie. They will never let you transfer out. They will only allow you to move up in this particular department. The company as a whole is amazing but if you start off in this department you will have to stay here. They do not allow HR to pull their departments job applications from coworkers trying to switch departments. If you apply they tell the VP who then blocks you from transferring or they make the new dept wait months before letting you start another position. They expect you to be available to work 7-7 m-f and be available for weekend OT. They are extremely short staffed. Expect to never have time for family. The service level is consistently below 8% meaning the call volume stays extremely high with roughly 150 calls holding at all times and only 8-10 people available to take them. Management will act like they care but trust me they do not. They pay well and expect everyone to be okay with the work environment because of the yearly bonus. I’ve never had a job keep employees from advancing their careers until this place. If you speak to other departments like adjusters they will tell you that they have no idea why customer engagement will not let employees transfer out even if they are qualified. The reason is because they can’t keep the dept staffed so if someone is good they hold you hostage.

Watch out and keep an eye on your manager. The ability to enroll people in this company's supplemental insurance products really depends on what the base salary structure is in a district. If it's a low paying district they simply can not afford much. And most of the districts that have a good salary structure are given only to the more senior account managers so it was very difficult for new employees to make quota and keep their jobs. So the culture in this company is certainly tiered between salespeople who have been there for a long time, work all the rich districts and do well and the constant revolving door of everyone else who are disposable, their to fill territories for a year or two and then shown the door when they can't make quota. This is also evidenced by so many of the districts I worked in which were SURPRISED to see me a second year in a row with the comment "we've never seen the same rep twice in a row- always someone new." 

Work life balance is non-existent when you spend 150+ nights a year in a hotel.




Work/life balance is tough if you have a spouse and kids as it may leave your spouse bothered at how much you are gone.  If you are single with no at home responsibilities, this job is ideal.  Working long hours does't equate to making more money as you have to have a good territory or at least a decent one.  During busy months, you'll be gone Sunday-Friday, so be prepared to miss birthdays, anniversaries and if you have kids, school plays/sports, etc...  A nice perk, you can keep the hotel points.  Company car is a nice perk, but may not have the bells and whistles of your own personal car.  Management is very supportive and a team player atmosphere.  The only thing one would need to know ahead of time is you have to get your 7-series licensed within two years of your start date and pass or you will be let go (saw this happen to someone), so must get on that within 6 months of being hired.  HQ is nice, everyone is pleasant/helpful and a plus is you don't seem to deal with "drama" of gossip that one pay have experienced at previous jobs.  Impressed with corporate management, their knowledge and professionalism.  If you like a family feel, this company is unlike the Fortune 500 companies where you are just a number.

Small company with big company ideas both good and bad.
IT Direct managers are efficient and generally knowledgeable of dealing with problems but lack resource assignments with right talent, sometimes stagnating employees potential.
Upper management has problems keeping focus with what works for the company and create more problems by implementing ideas that work for companies like Google. They get too close to the bleeding edge, and try to evolve a solution instead of laying out a thoughtout plan to all involved causing confusion and slow productivity. Blame is not equally distibuted and can be disturbing to those who get caught in the middle.
Advancement is very slow unless you are in the right place at the right time, well educated, and willing to dedicate hours of personal time.

Common high competitive medium US company, so you'll have to deal with good, bad, and ugly like any other likewise.

I did decent money-wise and the free car/free gas was nice......but I have never worked so hard for so little money. Managers play favorites. It's ALL ABOUT the accounts you get and the senior reps hoard them like gold and the managers will lie and say they have your best interests at heart, but in reality they only care about the team quota so they can get bonuses and go on trips. The one caveat here is IF YOU ARE YOUNG AND SINGLE, it is a great opportunity to learn how to be a sales person and overcome objections. You will learn this on your own, mind you, the managers mostly could not sell their way out of a paper bag and training is a joke. But you could do a lot worse than to use this company as a stepping stone to greater things. But travel is brutal. You will spend HOURS in the car after waking up at 5am. Home life will suffer. People can make a ton of money here, but you will never have heard so many people making $200+ a year complain so much about how much they hate their job.
Salary starts at 32 k which is a joke in most states. You get commission but only a very few people make any kind of good money in their first 12 months.

The typical week has you leaving on Sunday and Driving 2-10 hours to get to a district... you work a typical work week except you have a BUNCH of paperwork to do at the end of each day. You finish and leave on Friday afternoon and drive 2-10 hours home... Get up Saturday and prepare to leave on Sunday. That's a good week,  if you don't have to travel between jobs during the week. There is down time when school isn't in but you must maintain your sales quota during those times, despite not having anyone to sell to.. and there is meetings and training that you travel to when you are not enrolling... You will make about a third of what they say you will.. BUT, at least you have the constant threat of being terminated over your head at all times to motivate you... The ones that actually make it, you will soon learn, are broken, soul-less, and have probably forsaken their families to make it... I wish I had my 5 years back. They kept me going by continually promising that it would get better...In case you think I wasn't cut out for this, I was a state rep of the year and was one they "liked."...good luck.

The upper management seems to not care what middle and lower management does.  In some departments, the work/life balance is great and some it's not.  In some departments, the people and the work run smoothly and in others - complete dysfunction.  I've worked in both.  I don't understand how upper management can see such high turnover and low customer satisfaction and horrible turnaround times and still let the managers run as their usual.  I was unlucky enough to get merged from a high-functioning, mostly happy people department with the complete opposite.  It was horrible.  I was naïve enough to believe that they would see how we got things done and want to emulate it.  But the management was just interested in their power and maintaining it at any cost.
I heard that other departments were just as bad and other departments were great.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Sales representative 23 salaries reported	$102,283 per year
Customer service representative 3 salaries reported	$21.33 per hour
Information technology intern 4 salaries reported	$20.50 per hour
Sales account manager 6 salaries reported	$97,463 per year
Operations intern 6 salaries reported	$15.17 per hour

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