direct sales representative

broadband technician

enterprise account executive

account executive

senior network technician

Astound Broadband

 There are really great part of working at Astound, but I don't know if they can out weigh the negatives. 

*A typical day at work:
          All roles provide you with a level of autonomy, and while the structure of leadership should be where you can find support, that isn't always the case. Entry level positions typically have meeting with their Supervisor and or Manager to  discuss the days agenda, including objectives, priorities and deadlines for project. The mid to senior level positions typically meet with their superior on a weekly basis to check in. 
         The department and location I'm  in encouraged asking for support, but everyone's work load is so heavy that it makes you reluctant to ask. The workload is the very reason you would need to ask. It is someone of a defeating feeling, the inability to  keep up, but the reality is everyone is struggling to do so. 

*What you believe you learned:
          I have never worked with a company across multiple regions before or so closely with an SVP, so it has given experience in those interaction. Things change daily so I have had to  become less attached to project because things can change at a moments notice and you need to be able to pivot. 

*Management:
         You have manager that are great at what they do in regards to  providing support and managing their teams in a collaborative and encouraging way, and on the other hand you have managers that only posses the hard skills for the position. Soft skill are what make a well rounded manager and create longevity with a team. 
          I find it contradicting that front line workers are required to have interpersonal skills and they are only making dollars on the hour, and then you have individuals with 6 figure salaries that don't know how to manage their emotion when communicating with their team or colleagues.  If their not emotional they are impersonable, snarky and or extremely particular about irrelevant things.

Workplace culture
       HR is diligent in dealing with any issues that arise, and are very serious about confidentiality. Aside from that this is a male dominate company, and they tend to be moody, and lack decorum as times. The remind me of drama kings, and divo's, it isn't all of them, but enough of them to notice. There is the other side of the spectrum where people who I will not name are generic and off putting with their performative "happiness" Teams do team building outings and the company invests back into the community, and has market specific events (chili cook offs, post lucks, Halloween costume contest ect.) A lot of the leadership roles have a work from home component so these events are a little lack luster at times. The DEI training lacks diversity and is highly focused on the smallest group represented, with others not even being acknowledged. In turn the neglected groups lack resources and their superior are not equipped to be a form of support. 

 The hardest part of the job         
        The company has added consultative work to it's employees plates on top of naturally heavier workloads due to  staff being scaled back. It is on the smaller side so there is a lack of resources and systems, and processes are not documented well or communicated clearly. It is definitely a swim or sink environment. Each side of the business does things differently and when you are working with individuals outside of your home region it can get messy, and jumble, creating performance issues.  

The most enjoyable part of the job
      There are people that work at Astound that will genuinely make your day, will be thorough, diligent, patient and  create a rapport of support and collaboration. If you like a fast work environment, and being left to do your work you may light it here.   

This place is outright horrible. There is no type of training documentation. Your first day they will pressure you to login  the phones and take calls without knowing how their systems work( they will explain it "on the fly"). You will receive hand-me-down training every once in awhile or when the lead technicians are in for that day. Weak management little to no interaction with technicians( interactions are more personal then business). Work schedule is also a nightmare, 13 hour shifts with odd off days(lucky to get to  consecutive days off). They will try to impress you with free snacks and soda.  Disconsolate  looks in employees faces. The tools and applications that are  used for my day-to-day are very poor. Most of their equipment breaks on a weekly basis causing technicians to work twice as hard, as if we are not working hard enough. If you are married or have a girlfriend or have a family be prepared to neglect them. If you are wondering how this company is hiring,  they want the desperate people with little to no lives and that don't mind working for a little over MINIMUM WAGE(but the work load can turn intermediate) basically your not being paid enough for what they expect for you to do.  The parking availability here  is also unacceptable, I hope you don't have a nice car because once you leave their parking lot you will have all types of dings and dents in your doors parking spaces aren't big enough and other employees just don't know how to  freaking park their car and on  top of that you need to have a permit visible so that you won't receive a $75 ticket..  majority of the staff that is on the 5th floor looks down upon other employees. I am currently looking for a better career move  and only have been employed with Wave for a month. At the time I signed those papers I wish I was a little more reluctant. Don't be fooled by the slick-talk they will try at your interview. No matter how educated you are they will definitely try to lowball you and use the excuse of you not knowing their systems.

Typical call center environment. High-stress, poor pay, micromanaged attendance & performance statistics. There are some good people here, both on the floor and in supervisory positions, but their hands are tied as far as company policy & culture are concerned. The entire company culture is designed to punish rather than reward employees, with mandatory overtime and very little incentive for the reps to serve customers well.

The tech support department is severely understaffed (with wait times often pushing past 40+ minutes in the evenings), and the company is doing everything it can to milk as much productivity out of current employees rather than hiring on more people. As of last week they tried to cut cost further with a disastrous launch of an "automated" outage-reporting system that - in short - doesn't work at all. The management not only gave ZERO warnings to the employees when the system went into effect (people were told mid-call that "We don't do outage checks anymore"), it had the guts to tell employees this was to make their job "easier" by helping them "focus on the customers", when in truth this was just a poor attempt to allow each agent to handle more calls (therefore not having to hire more people). The whole thing was reversed literally 2 days later because of how broken it was.

That aside, just about everyone working here try to hit the performance targets (7+ calls per hour) because they get punished if they don't. This obviously results in poor customer service as many very basic issues that could be resolved over the phone end up with a truck roll (technician visit) either because the agents cut corners for stats, or because many agents here are undertrained and don't have adequate knowledge of the underlying technology they are dealing with.

Work here for a while and you very quickly realize why people in general hate cable companies.

Basically the job began great, it was a nice environment and seemed to be good pay. As the company got larger though the pay did not seem to increase with the additional work load. Trying to move further in the company I applied for and got a Tier 2 level position. There again was no additional compensation for the change in work load. and as time went on, they added more and more responsibilities with no sort of compensation. As of late it has also been unreasonably busy and they have had mandatory overtime of an hour a day for almost half a year and there is no end in sight for it. Also having to change shifts about 3 times a year is very difficult on outside life as I can not make long term arrangements and it is very hard on the family life as well.

Typical day at work is to arrive, get logged into the system, which can take around 5 minutes. the log in for actually punching in its self takes sometimes around 1-2 minutes. Then when the time goes you jump on the phones and take calls. Since I am Tier 2 tho, I should be doing projects but since we are outrageously busy lately, they take a back burner and I take normal calls. This goes on throughout the day. sometimes it will calm down, but generally its very busy.

Wave Broadband used to be a nice mid-sized, west coast company that was fun to work for; however, they have recently merged with a larger firm and are now managed by RCN, an east coast cable company that happens to be one of the most dysfunctional organizations on the planet. With almost a year into their ownership transition, despite everything they’ve told employees to the contrary, they have not delivered on a single one of their claims, promises, or highly-trumped up mission statement values. Transparency and good communication between management and employees has been one of the highest ranking gripes from employees on Wave’s annual employee surveys. It has taken a major step backwards now that RCN has taken over. They have taken communication back to the stone age, with very little information, plans, or vision shared between corporate and the regional offices. 

They are currently in the process of cleaning house, with lots of layoffs, job consolidation, and people leaving in droves due to the poorly managed transition. The hardest part of the job is overcoming the fear of being laid off with the anxiety of having absolutely no idea what type of plan you’re operating under (because hint: they have no plan and no idea either).

At Wave Broadband we pride ourselves on customer service, in which we are leading the industry. A typical day at work involves checking my route, making sure my van is properly stocked with equipment and parts. Then I'm off to my first job. I finish about three to four jobs on an average day before my lunch. After that I finish my other jobs, most of the time they get moved around as dispatch balances work load. Any system issues or failed home certifications are escalated with a supervisor. If another technician or I need assistance, we help each other out. I have learned a tremendous amount about cable, internet, and phones, but I think with proper training my career in the cable industry could really soar. My bosses are awesome, friendly, and supportive. My coworkers are very helpful and fun to be around. One of the most difficult parts is the on the lack of training, and how they advance technicians without compensating them in pay. The most enjoyable part about my job is not being tied down to an office or store, but being out in the field, fixing any discrepancies, efficient installation, and making sure of customer satisfaction ever time.

Wave was extremely hard to work at. They force you to work overtime, and I did it for over a year, because they can't properly staff or keep people around. You may train in a class of 10 and by the end of a year just have you left from it. They constantly make changes that upset the customers and then you, as a tier 1 tech support, get to get yelled at and called names and told you're an idiot because of it. You can't hang up if they start swearing directly at you or abusing you and not the company. The office is uncomfortable and poorly located. They just really don't care about you as an employee. The benefits seem great until you realize they're the only part about the job worth having. I've had other phone jobs that were really bad but this one is by far the worst and does nothing to help you want to stay or mediate the psychological damage they force you to accept from customers. Oh, and they don't pay you enough to live within 2 hours of work unless you do nothing but pay bills with your paycheck. Oh and if you have a problem that requires hr, they are not there for you, they are there to champion for the company. They're defensive about every complaint and non compliant with federal regulations in many cases.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Well it was a great place to work with until they got Bought out by a larger company then this job and company went down fast! Very bad experience I spent about 8 years of my LIFE with them and got laid off many of us from the once great Corporate office. It was such a bad experience since they outsourced all of our jobs to Texas from WA State. Everyone was upset who spent years with this company and some even Packed up and relocated sold even their homes in Texas moved to Washington State just for this company and they all got laid off! What a joke they never cared about us at all not even for 1 second! Everything was a joke there! I will never forget it was just like a Bad Divorce working there and getting laid off after so many years! I would not work there if I was you do not apply! 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Everything when they got bought out! 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Used to be good before they got bought out when it was called Waive Broadband

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Used to be good but that changed fast

Be prepared to be overworked with no knowledge that it's coming. 

Jobs marked as all day happen at the end of the day meaning instead of winding down on your last job you'll find out 30 min before your shift ends that there's still jobs in the pool. 

Leadership does not care about technicians at all. You are 100% treated as a number and expendable. It's an Amazon Warehouse for techs. 

No communication on how many jobs are left in the pool until it's too late. There could be 10 techs at 4:30 and they'll send out an email saying there's still 15 jobs when your shift should end at 5. 

Don't bother suggesting ways to improve the quality of life for you or your coworkers, you'll just be told "No."  

Company is happy to spend money acquiring deals and possible profits, but won't invest in its technicians that make up the foundation that they can even operate on. 

If you're a new hire be prepared to run 400+ ft aerial lines solo at 3 in the afternoon because no one takes into account how long or how many people it would take. They'd rather pay you pennies to run it than actually invest in properly extending the system to reach customers. 

The culrture there was actually pretty cool, I liked the people. The work wasn't really too difficult, but it was hard to have an elderly person on the phone crying that they couldn't pay their bill and the tv was their only source of companionship. That didn't happen too often but when it did it was soul crushing.

The hardest part of the job I'd say was technical issues, I had rough time with my computer for the first month I was there. Unfortunately I became very ill, and missed a few weeks of work. I did my best to keep my lead and the floor managers up to date with what I was hearing from doctors. I even brought in a note so they'd know for sure I wasn't making any of it up. But when they said that the letter was too vague and that I would need to wait to go to the bathroom and then report when I got back so they could be certain I wasn't abusing the privilege...that was the beginning of the end.

The most enjoyable part of the job was the interactions with coworkers, and most customers.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Direct sales representative 335 salaries reported	$61,576 per year
Broadband technician 186 salaries reported	$24.81 per hour
Enterprise account executive 101 salaries reported	$79,692 per year
Account executive 66 salaries reported	$66,255 per year
Senior network technician 36 salaries reported	$29.50 per hour

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