operations associate

customer service representative

controls engineer

operations supervisor

data entry clerk

Rapid Response Monitoring

It’s very rewarding to know I have been a part of a company that has saved countless lives. Rapid Response Monitoring provides life safety and security monitoring for over 1 million clients. In the 17 years I have worked here, I have seen our company grow exponentially.  90% of elevated positions within the company are filled with those starting as a Control Center, including myself who has worked my way up from a Control Center Specialist role to senior management.  Rapid Response invests its success back into the company. We make sure we have state of the art equipment for the staff so their work is as easy as we can make it.  We give back to the employees, for example we have raised wages twice in the past two years separate from skill set increases and annual increases that employees earn. In the past couple of years we started both an Incentive Program where employees can win items upwards of a paid vacation, and an annual bonus program. Employees are provided with great benefits, everything from full health insurance to even onsite physical therapy and gym memberships. Most employees work an 8 hour day but have almost 1 hour of that as paid break/lunch time. We currently are expanding our Syracuse office, creating more state of the art space for the employees not only to work but a lot of additional space for breaks and downtime. As with any company, communication and leadership can always improve. We value the feedback from our employees (current and past) and use it as a driving force to implement change to better ourselves as a company. We have started a lot of initiatives in the past 6 months to make a lot of positive changes that we hope all employees will approve.

Saving lives and property is a very serious business with high liability and industry requirements. That requires a higher level of scrutiny of our performance as a company, and therefore the employees. Management continues to improve the type of feedback that the employees receive to be more supportive to the employee, meeting with each monthly, offering additional training and support.  Ultimately this type of work isn’t for everyone though. It is stressful work, dealing with emergency situations and customers who are vulnerable and stressed. Adherence to schedules (27/7 business) are very important to ensure adequate staffing to handle emergency alarms. Being a 24/7 company, that requires a lot of weekends that the staff have to work, however we are constantly trying to improve our scheduling process to make it better for the staff.

This place has a training class like no other, honestly my favorite part about working there was being trained.  After training you go and you work with the rest of the people in the operations department which is the biggest department of them all for this company. They pride themselves on saying that their greatest assets are their employees but when it comes down to it they don't really back that up. They will give you the idea that after you have been there for a solid amount of time you can change your scheduled hours if that is what you are looking for. But people wait months on end to change shifts but give the more desired schedules to the new hires and screw over all of the more veteran employees who have indeed earned their spot. Supervisors and trainers contradict each other on a daily basis but then don't back up what they teach when you get a less than impressive quality assurance score. As if they couldn't just decide to put supervisors and trainers on the same page and make sure they aren't giving out contradicting advice to the people they are supposed to be helping do their jobs to the best of their abilities. One trainer will say do this and you won't get marked down on quality assurance and a supervisor will say that not what you're supposed to do and teaches you something completely different but then your quality assurance score comes out and you realize both parties were wrong and you get stuck with a bad score. As for job advancement there really is none. Yes, they have small teams within operations and you could do that a few years or go to training (but again the manager isn't someone most people seem to like that are under his leadership as it is so why would you want to go out for that position) and you could try going for a supervisor role, but after that there really isn't anywhere to go in the operations department because there are only three managers and they are all relatively new but even then unless someone in an executive role steps down the managers have no place up to go. Not to mention they play favorites within the specialists. Productivity is given, not really earned. They will queue all the new hires in high priority alarms(high productivity) and then the people who have been there awhile in everything else but then when those who are actually rule followers try to follow proper procedure to get more calls and stay busy the supervisors put you in queues that are just as slow as what you were already in. The biggest positive about this place is that your co-workers are some of the best people in the world. Genuinely going to miss working with them everyday as they were what made me stay as long as I did. Also the pay sucks for the amount of pressure they put on you, could definitely be raised to at least $15 instead of $14.

I have been working at Rapid Response Monitoring full-time for 7 years, and feel that it is a good time to share some insight based on my experiences while working for my company.  

One of the most rewarding aspects of my job is being able to help people.  We monitor residential and commercial fire, burglary, and medical alarms, and each day I have the potential to save someone's life from a medical emergency or protect someone's property from fire or theft!  While I've enjoyed other jobs that I've held in the past, I had never went home with the same sense of accomplishment or fulfillment.  Honestly, that initially sounded intimidating, but I appreciate the company's focus on providing tools, software, policies, and training time to assist Specialists navigate and complete alarms easily.

The benefits are also very good!  I have medical and dental plans which I've used with good coverage and deductibles, and I have a growing 401K as well.  Some of the more subtle benefits though are an 8-hour work day, paid lunches and breaks, reward programs, and holiday parties.  This is also an environment where I learned to be a professional in an industry, which is an experience that will help me succeed in my endeavors over the course of my life.  I also enjoy the company's job security as the company has only been growing over the years!  Lastly, a very important benefit is the people!  I enjoy interacting and working with every individual in the company, learning from them, and helping each other learn and succeed.

I must also mention a fantastic aspect of Rapid Response; the many job opportunities that are available within the company.  I started with Rapid Response in 2008, learned 5 different skill-sets to become a fully-trained Specialist, joined a Specialty team, was accepted into the Training Department, and later became the Training Coordinator.  I greatly respect that superior customer service, a driven work ethic, and a healthy learning environment is encouraged and rewarded here!  Having the option to apply for vastly different departments to continue to learn and grow is highly attractive to me, and it is great that this type of movement is encouraged by management as well.

For me, there are many “pros” to list, but one of the best aspects to working at Rapid is that the work is fulfilling.  I’ve always wanted to help people in my career, and it’s very rewarding to assist a customer in need and work towards providing what is a crucial service to many people who rely on their alarm systems.  The people that I work with are great; not only the people on my Team but also my supervisors and managers who are approachable and always available to help me – even in the middle of an alarm or task.  There is a lot of support here, and Rapid has a dedicated training department that not only teaches you what you need to know to succeed, but also teaches new areas of monitoring in ongoing training as well.

In my day to day, there is a lot of variety in the type of work which I appreciate to prevent things from feeling stale, and there is always something to work towards or learn.  In prior jobs I’ve held there have sometimes been a lot of downtime and/or lacking direction, whereas at Rapid there is always something to do or learn and there is no question as to what I should be doing.  The company is very mission-focused, and focuses on customer safety and customer service.  Beyond this, Rapid always seems to be growing, and there are ample opportunities to grow with the company as well and apply for different positions within the many different departments. 

The building is pristine and had top-notch sanitation measures in place prior to COVID, and has a dedicated round-the clock cleaning and maintenance staff.  During the peak of the pandemic, I often felt safer in the building than at home!  Other than the above, I feel the compensation is competitive and benefits are great.  There are usually opportunities to pick up additional hours if I would like to, and there are several reward programs which sometimes give monetary rewards or even paid days off.  I don’t always participate, but Rapid is also fairly involved with the local community by participating in local run/walk benefits, sporting events, and adopt-a-highway community clean-up events.  There are often in-office events too like theme weeks, appreciation weeks, financial seminars and flu clinics, and even sometimes host pizza Fridays and food trucks on site.


Upon arriving at work, I would clock in, log into my phone and check my email for any important interdepartmental messages. I would go to the fax/email room where our daily work was filed by dealer and priority. I would typically grab a pile, (10-15 pages) of new contracts or change forms and work on them at my desk. While completing my first stack, I would also be answer phone calls from customers or dealer who wished to make changes to the accounts or actual dealer screens. Depending on the difficulty of the individual accounts being worked on I would tend to make 3-7 trips a night to the fax/email room. The most new accounts I placed online in an 8 hour time frame was 85-90 (including any change forms done over the phone and 2 10 minute breaks and a half hour lunch. 

Some days I would be scheduled as the email coordinator, where for part of my shift, I had to print off, collate, file and assign emails to the rest of my coworkers. I would be working on my usual pile workload and taking phone calls, but the email coordination took precedence. 

What I enjoyed most about this positions was the one on one interaction with dealers and customers. I love helping people in any way shape or form and if I could not help them on my end, I worked my hardest getting them the right help. 

The hardest part of the job had to be my hours worked Mon-Fri, 6pm to 2am and having a newborn at home with a husband who only works day shift. It placed a lot of strain on my family and marriage. This was one of the main reasons I left.

Overworked, stressful and fear cultured micromanaged environment. Pay rate is low compared to how hard you have to work all while under the watchful eye of your assigned supervisor.
 Due to the toll the job  takes on your mental health a program was started of “giving” out 3 extra days to use for “ wellness” days. You have to “schedule” said days though. So plan accordingly. 
 You have scheduled break times and lunches. Bathroom breaks must also be scheduled and timed and you be will reprimanded for taking too long. Make sure that you have a good health plan, you will need it or join a gym to thwart off the extra pounds you’ll be gaining from any stress eating due to  the mental anxiety of the job.  Because if you are healthy and  in shape when you start you will not be that way within a few months. Trust me I’ve witnessed it. Plan for a lot of back pain and body aches from sitting all day and not moving and  some form of hearing lose from the constant yelling from customers and the loud alarms you have to hear when people can’t disarm their own systems. 
You’ll be cross trained in a Ton of tasks,  because why  wouldn’t a company want just one person knowing ten things over ten people knowing one. Otherwise what would they do when those 9 others quit within a few weeks. 
Constant revolving door with micromanaging that is so over the top; that you’ll come to doubt your own sense of reality.  Employees typically last less then a month which is why they need to constantly be hiring. In a word seek employment elsewhere where you will  be a considered and treated like a valued member of the company and not an exploited animatronic. 

This company takes micromanagement to a whole new level. It’s understandable for companies to expect their employees to be productive, every company does. However Rapid Response takes it to the point where they expect their employees to be robots and they will treat you like one. The job itself is very stressful, you deal with rude customers, rude dealers and rude 911 dispatchers all entire day, and the calls NEVER stop. There is no down time. Management adds on stress by constantly calling you the second you stop working and telling you to get back to work. I would try to catch my breath and take a few minutes to myself after having a stressful call only to have a member of mamngement call me every time and tell me that I haven’t taken a new call in 2 minutes and that I need to jump back on the phone. To me this was ridiculous. Dealing with stressful calls, they should understand that a few minutes are sometimes needed in order to decompose. You literally have to be on the phone every second of your shift and they do have a system that lets them know when you are not on the phone and they will say something. 
You also have to let them know every time you use the restroom and have to press a button on your phone which records your time away. They rank you to let you know when you’re using the restroom too much or when you step away from your desk too much. 
Management will scold you for talking to co-workers, they do not allow for you to socialize in any way. 
Over all, it was a negative environment. Too stressful and I had to leave for the sake of my sanity. 
I don’t recommend this company.

While the work can be stressful and rewarding, management is what made this job a nightmare. The adversarial management is borderline hostel and have taken Passive Aggressive to a whole new level.

Performance metrics are unrealistic and bear no relation to actual work performed. Errors are not quantified against amount of work. Level of activity is also not a factor in assigning performance value. Thus you are evaluated on things beyond your control and expectation is that you will work error free processing extremely high call volumes.

As "Control Center Specialist" you are treated as not really an employee, just there to work the phones. Example, assigned separate email system from rest of employees at company to allow for reviewing ALL email sent. Outside departments do not respond to your email/phone calls or when contact is made are dismissive to operators. This is a Corporate Culture that while not actively encouraged is not discouraged making it accepted practice.

Work schedules are posted 3 months in advance. While advantageous to knowledge of schedule, non-flexability regarding time-off requests, even with 2 months advance, can be difficult to plan out. Usage of provided "Sick" time results in counseling requiring signed acknowledgment discouraging usage no matter the reason.

General impressions are this is a great company to work for outside of the Operations Department. I would not recommend this company for anyone seeking employment in the Operations Department.

The basis of the job is you login to your programs, call customers to alert them when their alarms go off for the whole 8 hours doesn't sound bad. However, you are forced to tell them you work for the company they purchased their alarm system from and due to that customers believe we know exactly how their alarm system works, can turn it off for them etc. But we do not and most of the time we have no idea what it even looks like which causes them to get frustrated with you so be prepared to be stressed and berated as we cannot do anything about it only transfer the call to a different dept. We also get to side track the police and firefighters/medics, who could be dealing with real emergencies not false alarms due to shoddy equipment which again, the customer will blame you for. The training was very thorough and the supervisors are always there to assist during calls but they often contradict each other which leads to more mistakes. They have decent benefits and its a steady paycheck if that's all you're looking for. Just be sure you don't make absolutely any mistakes because you will be micromanaged to the highest extent and written up for small errors and critiqued for everything.They really make it seem like if you are not perfect you are not good enough even the new people. I also feel like the pay could be higher for the amount of stress and things you are held accountable for. Tread lightly here.

My most recent position (Media Marketing Specialist) allowed me to use my skills as an illustrator and (to a greater extent) as a graphic and layout artist. This was my favorite part of the position. I also provided inside support for a the sales representative who prospected in the Mid-Atlantic region. I would provide backup for him when he had miscellaneous requests like: requesting price lists, price changes and putting together packages that would be used to bring new prospects online as clients.

My favorite part of the position aside from the above mentioned was my co-workers. Sales and Marketing felt more like a family than anything else since it was such a small group compared to Operations, where I was a Control Center Specialist for three and a half years.

The most challenging (but rewarding) part of the job was doing what I like to refer to as 'design in a box.' Designing in a box is how I describe the process of coming up with new, fresh designs that all fit the company esthetic. For instance, our company has signature colors. On several occasions,  I would be tasked with designing promotional materials that all had to have a certain 'look' to them; same colors, same imagery, same typefaces. Ironically, designing 'in a box' forced me to think 'outside the box,' since I would have to approach the same design tropes with fresh eyes and a different outlook.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Operations associate 7 salaries reported	$22.43 per hour
Customer service representative 1 salary reported	$19.50 per hour
Controls engineer 4 salaries reported	$20.75 per hour
Operations supervisor 3 salaries reported	$29.67 per hour
Data entry clerk 3 salaries reported	$22.58 per hour

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