customer service representative

solderer

quality control inspector

technical support representative

test operator

Armstrong

Rating: 5 stars at home, 3 stars in the office, I’m giving an overall 4 stars.

I have been with the company for almost 2 decades and have been promoted multiple times. The company pays pretty well, though not amazing, the health insurance and retirement investment plans are solid, and the free cable TV and internet service is great. Paid time off is very generous and grows the longer you’re with the company. There are opportunities for some tuition reimbursement and discounts on Guardian security services as well. If you’re in a management role, you are invited to attend yearly educational and developmental courses and have an opportunity to become trained in first aid and CPR as well. 

I feel that my job matters everyday. It’s awesome to work for a stable company that provides a vital service to the community. I’m proud of where I work and what I do. 

Upper management is very accessible. The President and Vice President are friendly and know many employees by name. The vast majority of my co-workers are great people and the company has a family feel despite being fairly large and covering many states. Even when working at home during COVID, it still felt like we were close and all working together. 

Even if you’re a great employee and score well on your yearly reviews, you’ll hit a wall, a “pay cap”, as far as raises go and you’ll start only getting around 3% per year. This is frustrating. I feel that poor performers shouldn’t get raises and those who do well should get more than the minimum. 

Good Promotions can be hard to come by and can take years to surface, but that’s one of the cons of a smaller company. It’s nice that people stick around, but that makes it difficult to “climb the ladder” when additional positions are not added very often. 

The company’s work from home policy could be improved…and that’s putting it mildly. COVID forced Armstrong, like many other companies, to implement work from home. The transition was a very seamless one (thanks to our awesome IT department) and everyone worked well at home! Despite positive employee performance, the company has decided to eliminate the opportunity for the vast majority of office based employees and forced most people back to the office full time in the summer of 2021.  We were told in an e-mail from upper management that “we are not a work from home company”, however COVID proved that we can be and we do it well!

It would be great to see senior leadership loosen up and allow work from home for their top performing and trusted office based employees. Many of us can focus and work a lot better at home than in an office full of noise and distractions! Far more time is wasted by people in the office gossiping, debating lunch orders, talking about non-work topics, making personal phone calls, and taking smoking breaks than actually working. These productivity killers do not exist at home. 

Yes, we should talk to one another and meet up in person from time to time, but it simply is not needed daily. Technology allows us to communicate using text, voice, and video very effectively. As an internet service provider that prides ourselves as being on the cutting edge, we should be among the leaders in remote work! What better way to promote our network strength and speeds and Plume wireless capabilities than boasting that we all work from home using it?

I will also add that the Armstrong company founder Jud Sedwick quote, “no job is so important that it should not be done safely”, should apply to COVID as well! Remote work cuts down on exposure to the virus, so why not allow those who are able to work at home to do it? Especially since you can be fully vaccinated + boosted and still catch and expose others to the virus, why risk it? Let’s play it safe until COVID truly is behind us. 

Finally, I will note that like many companies, Armstrong has issues acquiring quality talent for job vacancies. Permitting work from home would allow the company to attract better applicants, no matter where they are located! 

Armstrong is a respected company that provides quality service. Don’t worry about Cable TV dying, internet service has been their focus for quite awhile now. Their investment in the network is smart and ensures a bright future and solid subscriber base. Hourly pay for CSC positions ranges between $17.00 for a part time phone agent and over $30.00 for a management position. The Health insurance and retirement plans are good, but the big perk is free internet and cable TV. Paid time off is pretty generous as well and you can roll over up to 5 days to the next year if you don’t use all of it. Overtime is pretty much always available, so if you’re so inclined, you can work it and make some decent money. 

Unfortunately, Armstrong just refuses to be flexible at all with remote or hybrid work. This knocks their rating down big time in my opinion. If you’re like me, you felt that working from home during COVID was great! It really showed me how much more happy I could be working without all of the needless distractions and drama that the office environment brings. 

I don’t understand Armstrong’s anti-work from home stance at all. Even if you’re a quality employee with great review scores, no disciplinary issues and work overtime, you’ll be forced back into the office full time, no exceptions. We worked remotely full time for almost 2 years with absolutely no performance issues (productivity actually went up), but the company still doesn’t see the light. This is an ownership decision though, most office based employees and managers and even HR agree that at least some work from home days should be allowed. 

Oddly, some phone agents are still able to work from home full time and some CSC departments get to rotate in and out, but many of us just get absolutely no consideration and it’s offensive, quite honestly. It shows a lack of trust and respect from the top. We do a great job, did awesome work at home during COVID, put in lots of OT, got vaccinated, jumped through all the hoops asked of us and can’t even get one day a week at home. All we got was a “welcome back” treat bag with a mask, candy bars and a bottle of water. No extra money for gas to commute to the office, no bonus check,  nothing that REALLY matters. 

If you’re considering applying here…my advice is simple. Don’t apply at Armstrong until they reverse this stance and allow some form of work from home or hybrid work. It’s unfortunate because it is a good company to work for but they are stuck in the stone ages when it comes to work/life balance. Some people have left the company for fully remote jobs and I suspect the longer this drags out and remote jobs become the norm, Armstrong will lose more employees. They need to wake up!

The work required is sometimes physically hard, but not difficult. The training was adequate, but the company is very short sighted when it comes to the employees.

Management blatantly ignored any and all suggestions from employees and there was a lot of favoritism. Some employees hardly did any work at all, and the work they did do was poor at best. Management would never say anything to them, or discipline them in any way, and let the responsibility of fixing problems they caused go to other employees. I believe management behaves like this because those specific employees voted to keep the union out of the workforce. If you even mention anything about a union, management will look for a reason to get rid of you.

They pay for the work is far below industry average, and the benefits are hardly worth the effort. Premise technicians and System technicians are required to be on-call (system techs 24/7 and premise techs 8am-9pm roughly). They give you $30 a day for being on call regardless if you work that day, or not, or if it is a holiday. There is no further compensation for being on call. The $30 was never increased for the years I worked there.

Management will actively ignore warnings and suggestions from employees about upcoming changes to policy or services. Even if these suggestions will improve the experience for customers and workers, and will save the company money. They believe they know better than every employee there and if you try to convince them, they become annoyed with you and will make your work life harder.

To start, I was 17 and right out of high school when I first began at Armstrong. I started part-time as a TSR and ended employment as a Universal Agent full time. Training is mediocre and more or less just endless powerpoint slides like a high school biology class. Let me state, VERY early on into employment it was ingrained that we had no work life balance. everything was on such a time crunch, if I needed a day off for ANYTHING it was a process. Once I got promoted to full time, I was working 3:30pm-12am sunday-thursday, whilst sometimes being REQUIRED to come in on certain days off i had. Had to work 5 hours on Christmas… and christmas eve all day 3:30-12am. You almost give your entire life to them. On top of that ALL calls are recorded and picked apart, basically stating if you said “hello” correctly. Also, customers are pretty rough. and if you give them what they want, you’re at fault, or if you don’t and they leave a complaint, you are also at fault, so it’s always you’re fault. They forced me to get trained in the EXP system (internet and cable hybrid) and once i was trained, my que was completely full of EXP and cable issues, and no longer what i got hired for with computer and internet training. I was also initially hired under the premise of remote work after 6 months; which then got thrown out the window somehow, however they re-hired someone and in 1 month they got sent work from home. Moral of the story, i could go on for days, save yourself, but if you’re single and have nothing going for you, go for it, but if you want a life, id RUN FAR AWAY

The job itself is not horrible, but it’s not a dream by any stretch. Dealing with the public is not a fun time. Working from home made things nicer, but that was taken away for many employees. No pay raises seem to be on the horizon for long time employees even as inflation is out of control and removing work from home options puts a larger financial burden on employees who are forced to drive to an office when they can do the exact same work at home. The company seems more  interested in buying popsicle companies than investing in their employees and caring about their needs. 

Armstrong has removed work from home completely for in-office employees with absolutely no reason given. Employees were not asked for their feedback or given an option. They are also asking employees to rate them 5 stars on Glassdoor to falsely improve their score to make themselves look better to potential applicants instead of actually being more employee friendly and increasing wages and allowing flexible work opportunities. 

Free internet service, ability to save in a 401k for retirement, and health insurance are the main perks of working at Armstrong. If you’re looking for more freedom and flexibility, you won’t find it here. Co workers and managers are good, but leadership at the top needs fixed and needs to be more employee friendly. 

Unfortunately, Armstrong insists on running the office like it’s still 1946 and we are using rotary dial telephones and typewriters at our desks to work. Despite making the vast majority of their revenue from being a broadband internet provider, Armstrong refuses to allow work from home for office employees using that same service. There is absolutely no reason that people who do jobs that require the use of a computer and internet in an office are not permitted to do that same job in the comfort of their own homes.

If you’re looking for a progressive company that will allow remote or flexible hybrid work, avoid Armstrong at this time. Hopefully they change this stance in the future to retain current employees and attract new ones. I’ll gladly update my rating to a full 5 stars when that happens! Armstrong needs to listen to employee feedback on work from home and they need to acknowledge the value in work/life balance that is created by allowing it. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
I unfortunately could not get over my fear of ladders like I thought I could even though i can climb on my hooks no problem at all.. i just hate ladders and  it cost me my job (fell off a ladder  when i was 13 broke and  both arms) But that is by far the best company I have ever worked for. From HR to the leads to the manger they all make you feel welcomed. Again by far the best place I have ever worked for. Im upset that I cant get over the ladder thing. And that's on me not them. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Working off a ladder unfortunately 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Everyone was awesome. Very welcoming It was honestly the best job I ever had. I actually would want to take up every day and come to work. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
You would get the work assignments for the day and go get stock or what ever you would need and out you go.

It’s okay. Pay is like $16 an hour but you get free Armstrong services too. It’s a shame that work from home was taken away now. I’m not even sure why they even have the CSC office open it’s only 1/3 full. Seems like a waste of money. I’m also wasting lots of my own gas money driving into the office when I can do the job from my house the exact same way. 

Coworkers are nice and helpful for the most part but many of the customers are entitled jerks who make every excuse in the book as to why they can’t pay their bill on time. The ownership decision to bring people back to the office when they are working great at home is stupidity. Stop worrying about buying popsicle companies and invest in loyal employees.

Generally a good company to go up in. Lots of job openings too for qualified individuals. Only issue is lack of advancement opportunities in some areas. Other employees have had progression issues as well. IT is very strict and not many opportunities arise, so that is lacking for people trying to gain a foot in IT here. 

Otherwise, if you are able to learn cable and technical roles, you get a lot of experience and applicable soft skills. Great place to work overall. 

We are understaffed, overstressed, and now work from home is taken away!! We have a hard time hiring and keeping people and management is mostly clueless. An outside company has been hired to take some of our calls but they don’t know what they’re doing and transfer most back to us anyway. This place needs help! Life was more manageable when I could at least work at home and be a little less stressed and comfortable. Being at the office is horrible!!! They forced us back into the office for no reason when we can all work at home! Senseless.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Customer service representative 1 salary reported	$16.25 per hour
Solderer 8 salaries reported	$763 per week
Quality control inspector 5 salaries reported	$800 per week
Technical support representative 3 salaries reported	$18.65 per hour
Test operator 3 salaries reported	$775 per week

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