They hire a lot of people because so many people quit, not because they are expanding. They are really strict on the timing of your lunches and breaks (the other reviewers are not joking about how difficult it is to take a bathroom break), so if you leave your lunch at home by accident, those Dale Jr. Chili Dogs are your only option during your paid lunch. The obsession with office cleanliness is legitimately creepy. You'll sometimes have a depressed custodian literally cleaning your NASCAR-themed biscuit crumbs from under you while you're eating.
The work becomes tedious quickly (because you soon realize that 99.99% of alarms are false alarms), with the exceptions being moments of extreme panic and stress. While Rapid runs an extremely tight ship and provides excellent customer service, the companies that outsource their alarm monitoring to Rapid are often quite dubious. The burglary alarms are constantly malfunctioning, and police are required to respond to them (but will issue fines to the homeowners for any false alarm.) During big east coast storms, when the wind sets off every window sensor on Long Island, you'll work mandatory 12 hour days doing nothing but sidetracking police during a time when they are needed to take care of actual emergencies. The medical alarms are of insanely poor quality, so you'll be trying to talk an elderly person through what to do while they're having a stroke through a speaker that pales in comparison to the Fisher Price walkie-talkies of your childhood.
Once you get your first 50 cent/hr raise (for being trained as an answering service representative) you see the entire picture. For sure, some of the alarm companies they represent are great, but a large portion of the customer base comes from companies that sell door-to-door and rely on "free" alarm system installations that come with extremely overpriced three-year contracts that are nearly impossible for customers to escape from. You're forced to pretend that you actually work for many of these alarm companies, and getting screamed at by customers is pretty common, whether it's for the abundance of false alarm fines caused by the shoddy equipment, or your inability to explain some predatory billing policy you know nothing about. Of course, you're still dealing with the pitfalls of customer service in general - the most common thing you'll get yelled at for is the customers' inability to remember their own passcodes or verbal passwords. You will not get through a day without hearing "I pay you to keep me safe, not to dispatch the police on me for no reason!" multiple times.
Basically, after six months, you'll be jealous of the security guard who is walking around outside in the frigid Syracuse winter.
