Network Architects Reviews

• Blatant favoritism. If something is done wrong by one employee, it could get them in trouble. However, if that same thing is done by another employee, they may get a slap on the wrist. If you are not liked, expect to be the fall man. • Bigoted and inappropriate topics discussed openly with employees. I sat in many meetings where the CEO acted inappropriately and spoke about topics that should otherwise be left out of the workplace. Topics in these meetings vary from harmless football discussion to racist, sexist, or anti-LGBT discussion. Many of these topics should NEVER be talked about in a workplace. Especially by the CEO to his employees. • Stressful Work Environment. If the CEO is having a bad day, you will likely have a bad day as well. If he is having a good day, your day may be filled with laughs, constant distractions, and a free hotdog lunch. The good days are okay, and the bad days are very bad. • CEO Pet peeves. The CEO has many pet peeves that are “unofficial rules” at the company. These range from simple small things to things that will affect your day to day work. • Glassdoor reviews. The CFO and CEO scan Glassdoor for bad reviews from previous employees and respond to them. Once these reviews come in, that pervious employee’s perception changes quickly internally. An employee who leaves could have been “a stand-up guy” one day. But the day they put in a bad review, they were “lazy” or “never a good worker”. At my time at NA I never openly spoke about how I felt about this, but this always seemed unprofessional to me. • Little to No overtime compensation. Expect no OT pay or Comp. Time for working jobs after 5pm. When I questioned about Comp. Time or OT pay, I was told there were no official rules on OT or comp time. Expect to be a “team player” and work longer hours for no compensation whatsoever. • Strict arrival. Arrival time is 8am, however there is an unspoken rule to arrive at least 15 minutes early. If you come in any second later than 7:45am you are late. I am not exaggerating when I say, a second later than 7:45am and you are late. Depending on the day, the CEO may even be waiting by the front door for you and will comment about your late arrival. • Strict departure. If you leave a minute early at 4:59pm you are deemed a slacker and should expect to get spoken to about your tardiness. Even though the unofficial start time is 7:45am you are expected to leave no later than 5pm every day regardless of what time you came in the morning. Do not expect your schedule to be altered in any way to reflect the 7:45 start time. Be wary of testing this as well. The CEO might be hiding in the parking lot waiting for you to leave early. • No remote options. The type of work done here begs to be done remotely with all the tools given to the employees. Unless you are a favorite, do not expect to have the opportunity to work remotely. • Parking. There are parking spots reserved for NA employees, however if you take any of these spots in the morning, expect to be spoken to about it by the CFO or the CEO. You are ONLY allowed to park in one of these spots IF you have checked the rest of the lot for a free parking space. This rule applies to everyone except the CEO. • No positive reinforcement from management. You will be berated for small mistakes and will never be rewarded for going above and beyond. Expect a big red mark on your employee record for every mistake and not even a pat on the back for doing something well. • Micromanagement. Do not expect any mistake to go unnoticed here. If you are a salary employee, don’t expect to have the freedom that comes with it. Your time is recorded in tickets the second you step into the front door to the moment you leave. Every ticket will be picked apart for quality. If there is a gap in your ticket time, expect to be spoken to about it. • Sink or Swim Training. The training can be a hit or a miss depending on the workload of the other employees who need to train new employees. If things are slow, expect a thorough training. If things are busy, expect to have a day at most to learn everything, then get thrown into the ticket que. • “Game day.” In my time at NA, game day was a day where we were supposed to relax and do fun things like games. This day never came and as such will remain on the cons list.

Everything here is a con starting the minute you interview to your first day here. There are so many cons to list here but will start with the biggest cons. Management: Management here is plagued with unpleasant, unprofessionalism that starts with the owner. He is very verbally abusive towards his support staff that he will go off on random rants, and topics that are not exaggerated in previous reviews by any means. He’ll yell at the team as a whole, and make excuses for his own failures, and inability to run a successful IT company. He lacks a general understanding of IT but yet doesn’t trust his support staff unless you’re a rare favorite of his or a brown-noser like some were while I was there. He has pet peeves that range from minor things such as one of his TVs turning off which he’ll ask where his TV display is, and why it’s off. Oh by the way he has this perception that clients will walk into his office and see stats or ticket closure rates on his TVs and think they would care, but with his lack of understanding he doesn’t realize most clients could care less and often wouldn’t understand what they were reading, but it just shows his stupidity. He will also randomly just come out to the main floor and start talking loudly, and for his clients to hear without checking if someone else is on the phone. It’s no wonder he cannot keep clients because he proves his unprofessionalism everyday to clients. He also doesn’t deliver world class IT services. I could name 3-4 other MSPs that do but he doesn’t compare. The CTO is not far off from the absolute worse technology manager I have ever witnessed in IT he too lacks so many IT skills and really is just at network architects to be the owner’s personal own hand puppet. The CTO will conduct his morning meeting, and go off an agenda of all criticisms towards support staff some of it is fueled by the owner from previous comments from the day before but either way he is not looking to praise any support staff. Usually someone’s name will come up “unless you’re a favorite” and your name will come up for your lack of attention to a support ticket or a minor mistake you made which he will turn it around that the employee is not a skilled IT professional or was too lazy to work. Just look at his own childish responses to other negative reviews this is the person you’ll have right deal with on a regular basis. Polices: The biggest pet peeve they have is on time polices the management will fully disclose your start and end times, but have an unwritten rule that if you’re not at your desk by 7:45am you’re considered late instead if you show up at 7:54am, 7:59am or 8:01am your name WILL be brought up in the morning meeting or you’ll get a red mark on your employee file. If you’re not a favorite expect your job here to last 3-6 months on average. Also don’t expect management to overlook if you leave right at 5pm unless both managers are already gone for the day. If they catch you leaving at your end time at 5pm you’ll most likely get reprimanded the next day. There excuses will be that you didn’t complete your work for the day. Other things to consider if you decide to work for Network Architects. You will have to count for every minute of work on your time sheet as if you’re an hourly employee that means if by the end of the week you put in 39.50 hours you will get a e-mail from the CTO explaining your lack of hours. Seems to me that they’re the ones that do not understand hourly vs salary employees. It will be rather difficult to account for every minute because they’re really not busy with tickets they will just waste your time. I highly encourage people to consider not working here, and look elsewhere your day will be miserable on your first day.