Slashdot Mirror
Massive Layoffs At AOL
JLavezzo writes "Several news sites are reporting that the United States' largest ISP has laid off 750 employees. My sources at AOL put the actual number at approximately 950 regular employees and 300 contractors from various departments including new technology and marketing. The contractors aren't mentioned by the news outlets. Severance packages are known to include up to four months pay and keeping laid off employees on the AOL payroll through February (to retain health insurance). With most of the layoffs coming from the Northern Virginia offices, what are their hopes for finding new jobs?"
Bah, you kids. Back in my day (2000), we didn't feel right about going to lunch unless we'd shitcanned at least 1000 people by then. And two months on the payroll plus four months of severence? Bah! Back in my day you were lucky if you didn't have any personal possessions in the building when it was locked and the contents auctioned off on behalf of angry creditors.
We *knew* how to make employees feel worthless. Layoffs via SMS! Contracted goons standing in the office in case they went postal! Taking away their razor scooters!
Now get off my lawn, you damn kids.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
waiting tables, burger flipping, etc....
Meh.
"You've Got Severance!"
Northern Virginia is probably a pretty good place, since we're right next to DC and a lot of the juicy government contracting jobs.
IMarv
Trusting software vendors is no smarter than trus
Come on... my employer cuts thousands...
Besides, hasn't anybody of worth left already?
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
I don't really understand what AOL is doing for a business anymore. Even my Mom understands the Internet enough to not need AOL to hold her hand the whole way through. Can someone explain what they do that is unique?
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
Iraqi government is hiring US contractors to help them count ballots.
if they'd only spent less on all those darn cds...
Ship 'em to India, mate!
ARGHHH!
It shouldn't take 750 people to run the entire company, let alone having 750 extra people hanging around that they really don't need.
AOL management is as stupid as their users.
http://comments.fuckedcompany.com/phpcomments/inde x.php?newsid=109601&sid=1&page=1&parentid=0&crapfi lter=1
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." - Josef Stalin
You got ... DOLE!
Jonathanjk.com
What a lovely gift. No?
Knowing how tough it can be to cancel an AOL subscription, I'll bet that those laid-off AOL phone support folks could work in a gym's membership office.
Of course, that'll be the ONLY time most of them would get CLOSE to a gym.
What are their hopes for finding new jobs?
How do they feel about warmer climates? Relocation? And how up to date is their knowledge of Indian dialects?
US (nation) for Oct 04: 5.1%
VA (state) for Oct 04: 3.2%
If these poor souls have skills, they will find jobs here. I doubt most of them have security clearances, but those that do will be immediately re-employed.
Helevius
Even though AOL is heading downhill and many people are happy to see them head that direction; it's never good news to hear that many people getting let go. I always hoped AOL would evolve and not sink.
...Slashdot Headlines Consistently Sensationalize Everything!!!
Anyone have the over/under on the time it takes someone to edit the new AOL commercials with the swarms of customers asking for change into swarms of fired employees burning the place down?
I think even McDonalds would think twice about hiring them:
Manager: "So do you have any customer service experience?"
AOL Scab: "Well, I worked tech support at AOL for 2 years."
Manager: "We only hire people who will fuck up small stuff. We can't handle AOL sized crap here"
what are their hopes for finding new jobs?" With AOL's reputation for great customer service and product excellence, I would think that former employees would be snapped up....... what AOL..... oh never mind.
Good luck! Oh, and have a Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year!
...The severance package was particularly generous, as it include two AOL trial CDs, with a combined total of 2048 free hours.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
"With most of the layoffs coming from the Northern Virginia offices, what are their hopes for finding new jobs?"
The PTO!
They shouldn't have spent all that money on sending out CDs no one wanted. Then they'd be able to pay everyone.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
See, that's why I've been honing my aggresive driving, sword-fighting and other misc. pizza-delivery skills: Jobs that can be done overseas will be done overseas.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
With most of the layoffs coming from the Northern Virginia offices, what are their hopes for finding new jobs?
What's the point? 950 regular employees were just laid off for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHATSOEVER. What's going to stop the next employer from doing the same thing? What is the point of trying to build a career that can be stolen arbitrarily?
The economy is doing VERY well. AOL is not about to go out of business. They still have millions of subscribers and they are probably earning about $40M a month in subscriber revenue. If the company were about to go out of business, that would be one thing. This is just arbitrary.
It is standard corporate thinking. Just pick 1200 people and fire them. Who the fuck cares if they have mortgages? That's their problem. Short-term money grab thinking.
Disney did the same thing earlier this year. In fact, they fired an ENTIRE STUDIO that was directly responsible for NINE FIGURES in top-line revenue. Why? Because they felt like it.
This is no different. W-4 employment is a sham. No business would ever depend on a similar agreement for anything, especially anything upon which revenue depends. W-4 employment is unfair and obsolete, and layoffs like these are cruel, groundless and destructive.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
working at AOL can be a favorable attribute on a CV for other IT jobs. I didn't RTFA. Did they get into specifics of what types of positions were let go?
In related news, the USPS today announced 1,250 redundancies after a recent analysis suggested a 90% reduction in 2005 postal volume from the Northern Virginia area.
You're lucky. All we had was office equipment and we had to defend ourselves. And we were thankful for our office equipment.
God spoke to me.
I predict that Time Warner (formerally AOL Time Warner) will soon be selling off the AOL division and is trimming the fat first. After being sold, AOL would probably become what just another brand name for internet service. AOL offers almost zero value to Time Warner... and Time Warner investors lost tons of money in the merger. (AOL investors, still losing lots of money, didn't lose as much as they otherwise would have because of the merger cushioning the fall of overvalued AOL)
When will AOL learn. People are leaving because competitors are offering cheaper and faster services. If you want to stay competitive, lower your prices. People are not going to continue to pay $23.90/mon. when they can get DSL for a couple dollars more, or dial-up for less than $10/mon.
Now, I wouldn't get too worried about this. I don't know if I'm the only who noticed from their recent commercials, but they don't seem to need employees. It's the members that are coming up with all the good ideas...
{S Goodbye
*watches post get modded away*
Distributed proteome folding @ WorldCommunityGrid.org
Team Slashdot - Members:#1 Run Time:#1 Points:#1 Results:#1
On the one hand, I feel really bad for all those people having to find places to go in the NOVA job market. Right before the holidays too, raw deal.
On the other hand, I bet that whinny, nasally actress in the commercials playing the mother sneaking into the AOL boardroom is having a fantasic Christmas. She's probably making tons in residuals for one or two days work.
AOL must have spent hundreds of millions broadcasting those commericals, I hardly even watch TV and see them all the time. It's almost as bad as the promotional CDs that still pile up everywhere in my home.
1999 taught me never to trust a company that spends that heavily on marketing.
M
what are their hopes for finding new jobs?
Who fucking cares? They worked for AOL!
Seriously, these people worked for a company that is HATED by IT professionals all over the world. Why should we care if they can find new jobs after they were used up and thrown away?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
how several of these comments are along the lines of "AOL on a resume would look awful", "AOL scabs", "what skills".
/. trying to get by in this crazy field.
many IT managers would snap these folks up. AOL is a very well recognized name. i didn't RTFA, but any IT people getting laid off bothers me, regardless who they work for. i think about what it would be like to be in their shoes.
regardless of where they work (the market seems a little tight lately), remember that they're people just like most of us on
my 2c...
Admittedly, as I'm cleared, I have a far easier time finding work in DC Metro, but this area is about as recession-proof as it gets. . .
Yeah, clearances help, but Homeland Security is hiring people, either directly or as contractors, by the metric butt-load. DOD is growing, as are some new dot-coms in Northern Virginia.
Now, if you're in Marketing or Biz Dev, it may be another story. . . .
Ask the president for a job:
well mr president - it's the bees and the spiders again - they stole my food stamps and sold 'em to the rats, and I tried to get down to my car to honk the horn for help, but the snakes are guarding it for the cockroaches! I go back upstairs but the spiders have jammed the police lock - I AIN'T BEEN INSIDE FOR A WEEK!!! And I know my wife is sleeping with the bees!!!!
Could you state that as a question?
Well, SURE Mister President! WHERE CAN I GET A JOB?
Many busy executives ask me, "What about the job displacement market program in the city of the future?" Well, count on us to be there! [JIM] Because, if we're lucky, tomorrow, we'll never have to deal with questions like yours ever again.
Oh he's just jivin' me again...
SHOES FOR INDUSTRY!
SHOES FOR THE DEAD!
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
This layoff was announced weeks ago, it's really no surprise. But for the employees who are staying, AOL rented the new Udvar-Hazy Smithsonian Air & Space Museum for the Christmas party.
Ecce potestas casei!
India On-Line
Assuming these were tech positions, if you were a hiring manager would you look favorably on someone laid off from AOL with all of the other out of work tech workers on the market?
As /. knows AOL doesn't exactly have a terrific reputation among technical people.
In Soviet Russia, vodka would solve this and any other stressful situation.
Apple. March 14, 1997. That was massive layoffs.
This? Not a big deal, by comparison. I don't think the headline is misleading, but it is a little sensationalist.
I feel for those losing their jobs. hopefully they land on their feet and get decent separation packages.
Uhhh, very good, especially considering the fact that is right on top of DC and hence a great place to work as a government contractor. Not to mention there are a few other major ISPs around. It has been called the second Silicon Valley more than once.
After reading the responses to this post, I find it interesting that most score low
(
All I can say is, good luck former AOL employees....I hope you find better positions at more promising companies...
Severance packages are known to include up to four months of FREE AOL SERVICE!
Woo hoo!
There is 2% unemployement in the DC area, and in nearby Fairfax county it's only 1.5%. I think their chances are pretty good.
"All I ever wanted was to see Larry Wall give Bill Gates a Perl necklace."
http://www.eisenschmidt.org/jweisen
"With most of the layoffs coming from the Northern Virginia offices, what are their hopes for finding new jobs?"
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
Take it from someone who lived there up until 5 years ago, and whose parents still live there -- the average price of a new home in Northern Virginia has stayed rock steady at about $600,000 (totally unscientific hand-waving based on neighborhood drive-bys). My parents' houses have both almost doubled in value in the last 5 years *and* stayed there.
No.Va. has benefitted tremendously from the steady upswing in government spending post-9/11. Last time I went back and drove around a bit the number of new and under-construction office buildings was stunning. Getting fired sucks, but if you want a liquid job market -- NoVa's a great place to look.
Point being -- don't sob too hard.
**Yes, I have dealt with them. No, I won't provide details. It was too traumatic. ;)
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
Looks like they all left to work for NetZero.
Someone from AOL (I presume higher-ups) that uses craigslist posted the news last night about the layoffs at 10:05PM EST. You can see the original post here.
right before christmas?! inhuman.
..a pinkslip!
superman runs linux
American On (the Unemployment) Line
--
make install -not war
AOL has local access numbers everywhere, whereas most cheap dial-up ISPs don't. If you travel a lot, the local dial-up is nice.
As a "portal", it depends on what you like. My parents like it, and I know some other people who do as well. The email is also easier to use than setting up POP3 or IMAP plus SMTP, especially if you want to use it from multiple locations, although with gmail that may no longer be a major strength (but most people who sign up for AOL don't have the infinite stream of gmail invites we technically-oriented people do).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Ummm how about AOL doesnt want to retain them? A company is not in business to provide handouts for employees, its in business to make money. Plain and simple.
If employees benifit, its purely a side effect.
Sounds like you need to grow up before you leave your parents basement and head out in to the real world...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
my understanding is that northern virginia is going through something of a tech boom right now. especially if they don't mind going into the defense sector. i'd be more worried if they were here in the SFBay area; things suck enough out here!
Their hopes of finding jobs of the 21st century are alright, it will be a tough fight though. Wal-Mart isn't hiring that many new stockers and cashiers right now. Taco Bell and Burger King might be a good place to start looking. As for a good paying job to replace the one they lost... Forget about it. Welcome to the new American Dream, you will be satisfied with less, you don't have a choice.
I think the military is hiring.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Erm, mail...
Hell AOL was never any good anyway, dumb ISP, ruined Netscape, ruined WinAMP....
#include <sig.h>
950 may not seem like a lot, but that's 949 other people who will likely compete with you for new jobs in the same career field and local area. Not to mention all of the other unemployed in the area.
I must give AOL credit for at least giving them benefits/severence - I got no such thing after working at "Innotech". I just wish them luck - most of them will need it.
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
i hope they layed off the entire "aol support" section. they really gave no help to us geeks at all.
And re-apply to AOL, they will hire you in an instant.
Since when is 750 a massive amount of peole. Kodak was laying off 1000 people every 4 months up in Rochester, and about another 2000 worldwide.
what are their hopes for finding new jobs?
If they don't mind working for the government, they're great. The area has a lot of tech jobs and potentially even more if the intelligence office proposed in the new overhaul bill has a technology component.
I however, am a government contractor in that area and don't want to work for the government anymore and the market is going to be flooded. Looks like I'm stuck working for the Man a while longer...
Keeping them on unitl February? Severance packages?
:|
When I was at Netscape during layoffs in 2001, I TRIED to get myself laid off by crank calling Steve Case and leaving him angry messages about our lack of a working espresso machine.
Friend of mine that was laid off got a $25,000 check, continued health coverage, and 3 free months of AOL dialup.
Recent gig (spammers) that laid me off gave me a whopping week and then screwed me out of my accrued vacation time. Bastards.
I *wish* I'd have gotten a package like those at AOL!
They'll still be unemployed, but the severance packages sure help out a lot.
With companies like SBC and Verizon expanding their high speed services, I would think there could be a few job openings.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
They'll follow their jobs, to India of course.
Yes!!Now one of the disgruntled/unemployed hackers will release AOL's top secret Linux AIM port.
Oh wait...
If you think
what are their hopes for finding new jobs?
I recommend they print up millions of copies of their resumes and mail them out to everyone in the United States. If they play their cards right, they should be able to get computer manufacturers to place an icon for their resume on the desktop of every computer sold. They should also cut deals with publishers to include their resumes bundled with mainstream consumer magazines. They should print their resumes on non-biodegradable media so that someone will start a website called "NoMoreAOLResumes".
Appropriate plug for above reference.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
The Post Office.
They may have to crank up the price of postage to 75 cents per stamp.
If you think
Hooray, proof that Open Sourcing the Netscape code was a great decision and helped AOL fight back the rising tide of Internet Explorer, which has been relegated to a small niche player in the brower arena.
Remember:
1. Develop code.
2. Open source it.
3. Profit!
4. Layoffs!
Sun is making a similar brilliant move in its gradual (plodding, shuffling, reluctant) attempts to open source its operating system, which will surely bring it financial success and allow it to dominate over its long hated "closed source" rival Micro$oft.
Ye reap what ye sow.
Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 1876 in Hartford, Connecticut. In Chapter 2, he tells the story of how Tom Sawyer managed to convince other boys to do work for him. Sound familiar? Are Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, Tim O'Reilly, and RMS the Tom Sawyers of the software world?
From Chapter 2 (edited for space, with bold emphasis mine):
What is odd about the "new economy" (if that is what it can be called) is that each progressive iteration serves to put more and more people out of work in favour of automation and more sophisticated software.
It looks to me like talented programmers and developers are gradually putting themselves out of work.
They still have millions of subscribers and they are probably earning about $40M a month in subscriber revenue.
They've got 22 million subscribers. To keep the math easy, say they're billing 20 mil @ $20. That's 400 million dollars a month in subscriber revenue. Cash.
You're an order of magnitude off. Where's that cash going? It's not staying in the AOL division, for sure. Time Warner's been using AOL as a cash cow, and they've been sucking it dry for years.
FuckedCompany had it 12/3.
I know Alex. What is: The real answer to the last slashdot poll
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
AOL losing money is always a good thing. I know it may sound mean, but they are a big, greedy corporation with horrible internet service. The AOL process alone takes around 30 megs of memory, and that must be running to be connected. It's just not right.
I'm pretty sure that in 20 years IT jobs will be as widespread as manufacturing jobs. I'd consider medicine, but that too can be sent to the lowest bidder given current/future technology (plus insurance and legal are giving doctors hell).
I figure I might have a chance as an auto mechanic, same thought processes only applied to engines.
I also think lawyers will still be around (unfortunately), which also uses the same basic thought processes.
Unfortunately, the profession that I enjoy most (programming, server administration, network/pc troubleshooting, security, etc.) will likely not be around as cheaper labor (overseas, automation, kids, aliens, etc.) floods the market.
I just hope I can hang in there win the shit really does hit the fan (2000 was nothing).
Considering that I wouldn't work at AOL (or any tech company) for longer than four months anyway, getting four months free is basically a free job.
Maybe this is corruption? I wonder if those un-reported contractors are getting free money too.
Burger King Grunt: We've got a bunch of new applications from some former AOL employees.
Burger King Manager: Which ones?
Burger King Grunt: [pointing out window] All of them!
Quote not from the "article," but from page linked to by parent post.
The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. -- ee cummings
Don't bother. They require extensive drug tests.
I don't respond to AC's.
An entire division of my former company was laid off today. Fortunately(?) there were only five people left to lay off, but since thats the entire floor of a building, I guess that qualifies as "massive". BTW the reason it's my "former" company is because I was laid off a year ago (along with the 20 or so others in my group)
I once got passed over for a job because I did not have a University degree, I have a 3 year community collage diploma. Now I thought this was odd, because the job was to modify and maintain source code that they had purchased from my ONE MAN company a few years before.
A thousand people is NOT a massive layoff. Sucks to be them regardless. A massive layoff would be in the tens of thousands.
I can imagine a new AOL commercial. Instead of thousands of clueless AOLusers standing outside their offices, I see thousands of former AOL employees wanting their jobs back.
Personally I'd like to see all call center jobs replaced by AI IVR's.
I for one would welcome our new AI Call Center Overlords!
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Remember after George Bush II won the election in 2000 that CNN laid off most of their employees. Now once again an election has hit Time Warner's interests hard and a lot of people are paying the price. You could have predicted mass layoffs in AOL/Time Warner/CNN after the election.
" No, you'll get a job because you're fresh ... thus easier to pay. A Famous Programmer will want twice what a college grad will get..."
Not when you're starving, you don't.
There was just a major announcement that there are tons of new tech jobs being added in Virginia, to the sum of 4000+. The thing about them is they are almost all gov't jobs.
What we have is private sector cutting their workers, and gov't contractors growing. I'd imagine a good portion is trickling down from all the war spending.
As long as you have a clearance and some keywords for HR to scan for, I'd imagine you would do okay. But many in the private sector probably don't have such a thing, and with the recent expansion of gov't there is a lag in security clearance processing from what I've heard (wait time is a year plus for TS?).
May the laid off take their smarts, get funding and form a new company to compete with the one that laid them off.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
Thanks, fifty years ago! OK, time to move into the 21st century now.
What is with all the posts blaming this a sour economy?
It is NOT an economic failing when an antiquated dealer of yesterdays technology downsizes...And then eventually goes away.
Think about it. A majority of people are hooking up with local broadband dealers (cable, dsl, wireless), I would not be surprised to see AOL go the way of the Cart and Buggy dealers of old....And it will not be the economy that does them in, it will be the fact that their main product is obsolete.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
As Bush has said repeatedly, there're jobs for those "willing to work". Translated, that means desperate enough to take the $7 an hour to be the lead programmer and entire technical support department for a company using a custom contact management system. Of course for that sort of job, there are no benefits and it's on an as-needed basis.
Also, this is completely(!) speculation, but wouldn't your job in developing this system, specifically for mine warfare, be on the chopping block since all the mine sweepers (MHCs) are due to be decommissioned somewhere around the first day of the next fiscal year, with the MCM boats to follow.
To add icing to the cake, the Mineman source rating ("job") in the Navy is being dismantled, and the Mine Warfare Training Facility in Ingleside, Texas is slated for closure. So what then? (Assuming this speculation is right on the money.)
i heard about it last month: a neighbor who works @ aoHell said they were cleaning out the mid-managers...
Business in the greater DC area is booming. Over a 5% growth rate last year. Government IT spending increased by 60% in the last year to something like 160 billion. So, I'd say your chances of getting a job would be great. Though having AOL on your resume might not be the best thing. I don't touch any of their stuff on sheer principle.
Lots of good points!
/., feel free to email me.
First, SAIC is an employee owned company, which has fostered a culture that offers nice benefits. Second, my salary is more than most of my college buddies doing the same thing in non-Gov't fields.
As for your points about the upcoming changes for the mine warfare community, most of the work I've been doing lately has been for the organic airborne systems for the MH-60S. The Navy is indeed moving away from dedicated mine sweepers, and helos, UAVs, and UUVs appear to be the platforms of the future. Our software currently supports all of these platforms.
You seem to know a lot about this field - mind if I ask what you do in the Navy? If you don't want to answer on
Mate of mine who works as a PM at their Dublin location is getting laid off this month too, along with a bunch of others... quite a decent severance package there too. He isn't worried, the IT market in Ireland has picked up a lot in the past year.
Their pink slips came in the mail attached to a "1550 hours free" CD.
All joking aside, any tech layoffs are scary. My employer (~40k employees) just laid off 1400 worldwide, about 1k of them in the US.
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
"There was just a major announcement that there are tons of new tech jobs being added in Virginia, to the sum of 4000+. The thing about them is they are almost all gov't jobs. "
Yay! Go big government. Good thing we didn't get a Libertarian president.
"What we have is private sector cutting their workers, and gov't contractors growing. I'd imagine a good portion is trickling down from all the war spending."
Yay! Go war on terrorism. Who knew insecurity was going to be good for the economy, and unoutsourcable too?
BTW With the weak dollar, America's becoming a shopping Mecca for Europe. Yay! Go service industry jobs.
It is about time that internet users start to wise up and see that AOL's proapritary (sp) system is for old people sending email to their grandkids.
I still am floored that people use AOL browsers.
This is good news for the internet sine most of my AOL user friends are the ones who send me the emails for the free Mrs Fields Cookie Recipe or that Bill Gates will give me $1.00 for every email I forward.
It's a pink slip!
Goodbye!
How ya like dat?
- Arbitrary, usually laying off good people on succesful projects that show lots of promise (e.g. WinAmp).
- Timely. This is two (or is it three?) years in a row they've done the "oops, we're not as profitable as we need to be for Q4 so let's shitcan some folks" thing right before X-mas. Happy Holidays!!!
- Generous. Last year they offered the rank-n-file folks 2 months notice + 2 months severence. Managers got 4 months severence plus the full "Manager Incentive Bonus" (~3 months salary, I believe). Plus any accrued vacation is paid off, of course. Sounds like they're doing the same again this year.
- Great for morale. I was in a group of ~15 people that lost half their team last year. 12 months later, all but 1 of the remaining team is somewhere else, or actively looking for a job.
And, yes, I was laid off last year, and couldn't have been happier about it. It's a hell of a lot harder to find a company willing to pay for a 5-7 month vacation than it is to find another job.And to top it all off, all the AOL options that have been issued for the last 5 years are worthless and likely to stay that way, so nobody's crying over the loss of those.
until toyota perfects their crazy-driving, swordfighting pizza delivery robot!
be brave....
Northern Virginia and the DC metro area are actually a great place to be in IT. Because of so many government jobs, we are largely recession proof. My advice is to get a job for Uncle Sam. There is not a lot of difference now between IT wages for the government and in the private sector at this point because the government still applies an IT bonus to your salary calculation and private sector salaries went down. New York City and DC are still the best places to be in IT.
In Capitalist America, crappy ISP drops YOU!
I'm an IT, attempting to cross-rate to CTN. I recently returned from a mine-sweeper ported in Manama, Bahrain as part of a crew-swap iniatiative. (The Navy is downsizing, and trying to re-evaluate just how much manpower and training is needed to operate as usual.) I'm now currently at Navsta Ingleside. Whoda thunk? ;-)
The systems you described sounds like a safer solution for sailors ("Any ship can be a mine-sweeper, Once!"). Let's just hope it doesn't rely on Windows ;-x
Look, I worked at AOL tech support for a year. In some towns, you can't throw a rock without hitting someone who hasn't (Ogden, Tucson, Reston, Jacksonville, etc).
This is how it goes: normally, it's your first "real" tech job. Before this, you were the guy your friends and relatives called for help. In my case, it was my first job, ever. No McDonalds, no BK or Gap, or Orange Julius in the mall. Straight to the tech world. Your parents will be so proud.
Then you actually start working there. The hell that is (nearly) 24/7 tech support with some of the dumbest people, both coworkers and customers, is nearly endless. You realise how large and illiterate most of America (nay, the world) really is. Not computer illiterate, the plain' old fashion kind.
You enjoy the banana splits every time the stock splits, but you're a part time employee 'cause you're workin' your way though school. So you don't get any stock. Your fellow coworkers try to plan a coup and go on strike, form a union or something (which is strictly forbidden in the contract agreement). But it falls flat and you watch some good men and women go down. You get a small promotion.
Then you get sucked into the workload, dumping your calls at 7 minutes, 'cause hey, you have an average call time to maintain. Fuck being helpfull, if granny's PC is taking too long to boot or you thought you'd try to blindly import her mail from Eudora or Caldera on an OS7 Mac, tough shit. She gets the dreaded call transfer.
By trying out some of our special offers, she can get a month of free service. No really, it is a good deal. The trust that we've maintained over the last 6 minutes is a great thing to shatter with that "please hold." Hopefully she'll hang on the line just long enough that she'll be the 10th tel-save today, lest your boss compare your marketing transfer scores to the woman with the honey-sweet voice a few cubes down.
Screw women, this is where you become a man. A hardened, overtly-bitter and disgruntled man. You also hone your skills in down pat. Everything can be done with your eyes closed "sleeping" at your desk, or shooting nerf balls at the hottie down the row. Don't worry, she'll never know it was you. The security guy at the front desk might, though.
It only takes a few months to hate all people and computers. But at 17-24 years of age it will look damn fine on your resume. Future employers will go "wow, AOL, huh?! How'd you like that?"
And like Michael Bolton, you'll tell them it was great. And you can't really pick out your favorite moment.
As for people over the age of 30 wearing birkenstocks or tie-dyed shirts, please don't. It's just sad. We know you like your Mac. It says so right on your shirt. And no, you're not really "the" mac daddy. But nice try.
Anyways, you needed a goot boot in the pants to get you into a "real" tech job. Because by now, you realise that AOL isn't. So mourn for a few days, then get your ass in gear. You've got Interviews.
Most folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...
If you stay an IT, you're probably going to get exposed to the GCCS-M 4.x world sooner than the rest of the sailors. It's slated to replace the GCCS-M 3.x systems (the HP-UX machines) over the next decade. The setup is Sun V240s running Solaris 8 as the servers and Windows 2000 boxes as the clients. Hate to have had to be the one to break it to you...
I just heard on NPR that there is a "shortage" of blue collar jobs. It seems right now there is a glut of education in this country, possibly due to offshoring. Maybe its time to stuff our degrees away for a while until the next boom hits.
Table-ized A.I.
Ahhh Christmas in George Bush's America. I can practically smell the trashcan fires burning.
Perhaps part of the problem is the growing following for the open source Firefox browser(which is owned by AOL). Maybe people finally decided to dump AOL when a good alternative to IE came around. :-)
Now we'll be receiving a dozen CDs a day in the mail ... each with the resume of a laid-off AOL employee!
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
but good riddance anyway
Yup - more than a year. A lot more than a year...
Having been through a "massive layoff" in the bubble-burst days, one nice thing was that there exists the WARN act which dictates that if a company of at least certain size (which I'm sure Time Warner is) is laying off more than 50 people in one metropolitan area, they are obligated to give 2 months notice. For us this turned out to be two additional months to the severance, since the management doesn't really want you to show up at the office once you've been given your notice.
Overall this is bad news, since this area (VA/DC/MD) has now pretty much two kinds of techies - those who have clearance, and those who are unemployed, and the AOL layoffs sure do not help.
Payday is Thursday
Shit flows downhill.
Since 950 wasn't enough for you, Colgate-Palmolive Co. announced today they would layoff 4,400 from their 78 plants around the world.
I didn't mean to joke at such a serious matter. I find its hard finding jobs. Its the sort of market that almost makes you want to start your own buisness.
God spoke to me
Is this the Shoutcast that I enjoy, at http://shoutcast.com/
I just connected to them, and I see the AOL ad at the top of the site.
Surely Shoutcast won't go down, will it? I love the
thing!
So 1990's! What's wrong with those idiots?
that she's not likely to make a fuss if the boss hits on her.
My SO was in that position when she first moved here and was terrified that she'd be fired and deported (that's what she was told anyway).... Luckily, she found better work elsewhere.
Have you tried here?
Hehe. Now this is funny. Hey everyone! Crowd around. I want to show you what happens when you use a knee jerk argument. In this case everyone's pet "Obsolete business model". Telemonster just put an iceberg directly in front of SomeOtherGuy's Titanic argument. Will there be any survivers? Will future Slashdotters look back, and say "By the grace of God, that could have been me.".
Here's the moral of the OP's post. Not every failure is directly attributable to an "obsolete business model". Sometime just plain stupidity will do nicely, and that's something humanity will have far into it's future. Up and happinin or obsolete models alike.
When any one of their customers has a suggestion for how to make the internet better, they listen. I said "Make massive cut-backs to your staff".
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I was writing software for other people using Apple ][ systems in highschool and have gone on to create large software projects that are still running today at some companies that most US ./ readers would recognize. After getting laid off about the middle of 2002, I couldn't even get a McJob from a friend that managed a McDonalds. They had already hired some desperate techies that wanted to get paid without working.
Now I am halfway through HVAC certifications and am making more than before being laid off. I'm also going back to school to eventually get an MBA because US companies aren't going to outsource the executive managment positions...
My message to the IT departments: Good Riddance. No more 70-80 hour weeks working toward near impossible deadlines to fatten your bonuses.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
I work there, I'm not laid off, yet bring the keyword. As USA jobs leave, India's enter. :(
Did you want AOL to provide "make work" employment for these people?
Better than throwing them into the street after mortgages were signed.
Hey, AOL didn't sign your mortgage papers. You did. Why is AOL on the hook for what you irresponsibly did?
Urr, I'm confused. Does this mean that only old Korean AOL techs are getting fired, or only old Korean AOL techs are keeping their jobs?
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Jobs such as construction, defense, service, and agriculture (for defense reasons) will stay in the US. I think that we as taxpayers have a huge burden to pull around from the crazy spending that Ronald Reagan accelerated, along with a high regulatory tax on everything we produce, so there is little chance of making our wages competitive with India and China. I think that those with the money will invest heavily in the emerging technologically elite countries: China, India, and Israel and Russia if they becomes stable in every new technology that comes about. Opportunity is lost in the United states. It eventually loses its military edge as commercial enterprises in India and China propell their technology and their own institutions of learning and research supercede the US's technology for key militarily applications. They build their own advanced military. Japan rebuilds its military as it can no longer rely on the United States. The United States, like Spain at it's height becomes weak as it actually produces nothing of value. The new techno elite countries nationalize their US businesses, or structure things in such a way that they eventually die. They use their strong governments to bring a new order to the world, based on weakened human rights and pre-eminant power of the state.
Meanwhile, internally the Democrats cheer they have an issue left. They take up the banner of protectionism in a contradiction of the humanism they espouse that is written in the history books. They embrace so called tech-libertarians, and get caught in a tempest of self contradiction that keeps them innefective against the massive market forces at play.
The US becomes an economic backwater, much the same as modern day Spain. The people that brought us to this place have collected significant portions of the value of the US, so they implement a social structure much the same as is in England, with elites and servants. The republican party pushes theocracy to keep the disgruntled workers in line.
Given the forces at work today, it's hard to see how the US maintains its leadership position.
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
I got a clearance straight out of graduate school. I've never been in the military. I've recently had that upgraded to a higher level when I switched to another defense contractor that hired me away from my old one.
they'll have plenty of free time to spend the holidays with their family.
And with full pay for a number of months they get all the perks of having a job without the job.
Work Safe Porn
Outsourcing is not the government's fault, it's ours. I mean, how many of you drive a Japanese or German car and thought, jeez, all those -millions- of American workers will adjust to the new economy. Now the new economy has hit us, and you fools are still blaming the government while still looking for more foreign made junk to buy. When will you get it that buying a foreign product is probably worse for the country than any so-called act of terrorism? Do you want to end outsourcing, then stop buying foreign products. We need to get it into our collective heads that foreign countries do not want equitable trade with the USA, they are all our economic enemies and want us to be destroyed so they can take our place. Buying a Chinese product, giving money to Bin Laden, there's no difference.
This is my sig.
...by email. You've Got...No Job!
The problem is, the employees kept getting cut off and had to keep redialing.
Irony.
illiterate most of America (nay, the world) really is. Not computer illiterate, the plain' old fashion kind.
Ok.... how long did it take you to "realise" that?
I hope 50% of us are still employed by Spring - assuming there hasn't been a Divine Apocalyptic war - in which case Winter will be extended a bit further.
I have always wondered how much would it have cost AOL to ship those millions of CDs? And what kind of Return on Investments did they get from spending all that money. Certainly if you're looking to produce those CDs in quantities, they would have cost close to $1 a piece (including expense of shipping and CD spaming). So that would bring the price in hundreds of millions of Dollars.
About a year ago, I was talking with a US Army recruiter about enlisting in the US Army. I got as far as MEPS. I passed the ASVAB and the physical, but they denied me enlistment after the security interview, which started out as a 10-page written questionnaire.
I answered "yes" to several questions that they wanted me to answer "no" to, but there were two that especially seemed to require a lot of "further clarification":
- On the last page, just before a long affirmation about "this knowledge is true to the best of my knowledge and belief...", etc., etc., there was a question about like "Have you ever [...] misused [...] an information-technology resource?" I said "yes", and mentioned something that hadn't made my teachers happy during high school, about nine years before; I later found out that the high-school's disciplinary records have been destroyed from that time. However, if you think about it, downloading an illegal copy of a popular song off KaZaa is a forbidden use of an information-technology resource; I suspect the majority of the kids who did that stuff in Abu Ghraib had been regular KaZaa users...
- The other thing was that I had visited a professional counsellor or therapist several times, all within a year or two, plus or minus, of the computer-related incident. They decided to totally misread the examining doctor's statement for something that was not in the record, and disqualify me as medically unfit by reason of depression (apparently). Of course, perhaps a college graduate who wants to join the Army is crazy. It may be that anyone who wants to join the Army has a little something wrong with them...
Just to answer certain questions in advance: Yes, I observe the Word of Wisdom (sorry about the JavaScript-wrapped text); drug use has always been a complete non-issue. No, I do not beat my wife. That's right, I did not go to BYU; I went to MSU instead, and they do not have an honor code that requires clean-shavenness. I know the Army has a dress code, and I told the recruiter that I would be perfectly willing to abide by it once enlisted; I had obeyed a similar dress code for two years as a missionary. Yes, I should probably be doing something else besides responding in detail to five-hour-old Slashdot postingsI thought it was time to trot this out. I reference it at snopes because the history is interesting, but I'm mentioning it for the content of the "bill" itself.
Right!
VA Gov. John Warner was the one making the
big announcement. The jobs are with DHS,
and will require TS or better security
clearances. If you are exiting the military
with a TS clearance, are in IT, and have an
MSCE (DHS is MS OS-centric), then NoVA is
the place for you.
I seriously doubt that the ex-AOL staffers that
just got RIFfed would be likely to have that
particular "skill set".
It is my understanding that a TS security
clearance might take 18 - 24 months these
days, particularly if it's Poly/LifeStyle.
Generally, it is the employer (read here
government contractor) that picks up the
cost for the background investigation --
often as much as $50K USD. That contractor
has got to want you pretty bad to put you
on the payroll for that period of time, and
incur that expense, without having you doing
the work their contracted for. I believe
that that is why I have seen the exact same
job postings on "WPost.com" for the past
1 to 1-1/2 years. If you have the security
clearance, then everyone is knocking on your
door. But if you don't have one, you are SOL.
What it really works out to is a Catch-22
Scenario. And when the employers advertise
for a "transferable" security clearance, I
think they are blowing smoke -- the clearance
is for a specific employer and specific function.
...but will they at least get to keep their @aol.com email addresses... most of the people who have the service only keep it for the address...
Get your torrents...
Well I'm sure the solution is easy for them then - join the Army!
...what's the big deal?
"Fox News or not, the economy is kicking ass. Knock it off with the tunnel vision. Just because you're unemployed doesn't mean that everyone else is."
George Bush? Is that you?
For some reason, whenever I read about massive layoffs, it reminds me of this article .
I just wanted to add, I worked on the AOL HelpDesk in Jacksonville, FL. Our entire dept. (ok, 22 people or so) was outsourced to a company in TN named SAIC.
We were given a 1-2 month notice window, and let go in August. We were offered absolutely nothing in terms of a severance package.
They did, however, offer to relocate us to the billing dept. -- A pay cut from $14.50/hr, to $8.00/hr., and to a dept. that expects you to upsell products to all of your callers. I doubt anyone took up that offer.
As far as finding a new job? Hah. I'm still looking, but I did move from Jacksonville to Columbus, OH; where the job market is far worse.
In other words, I'm NOT a one-trick pony. I style myself a "Network and Systems Admin", NOT a Unix admin or a Windoze admin. Flexibility is the key word here: pick up new skills as you go along, blend them in to the portfolio. And, unlike a lot of people, it wasn't "below me" to work for Club Fed during the go-go Dotcom days.
And they already do not know the meaning of cancel. (AOL is well know for continuing to bill for months and months after you 'cancell', though they'll actually get your actuall connection turned off most of the time)
Clark Howard (nationaly syndicated radio host who does the whole save money, don't get riped off, consumer rights, kinda thing) Has even put up a 'fire AOL page' on his website(www.clarkhoward.com iirc) to help people with cancelling AOL.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
The subject says it all... so laugh a little... chuckle internally at least... and get back to work.
You'd think for something as expensive and crucial as an UMA, they'd run something proprietary. I never understood the logic of how using everyone elses software/equipment was cost-effective for the Navy.
As of the time I am reading this thread all of the score 5 postings are jokes about the AOL layoffs.
Being a programmer my reactions was "there but for the grace of whatever go I". Especially since I live in the DC Metro area.
Clearances don't simply help, they're everything. I'm another one layed off in the post 2000 bust, and if I had a clearance there wouldn't have been a problem. I got lucky in that a friend knew someone who was looking (it's not what you know, it's who you know), because otherwise my pizza delivery skillz would have been tested.
You need a clearance, and you can't get one.
-Jeff
Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.
What is up with these dorks?
Send jobs to India. Ads all over your service. Odd billing. Creators of Gnutella. Destroyers of WinAmp. Creators of NSIS. Nightmare employees on the phone (they sound really scared).
And landfills full of coasters (CDs). Oh and the mother of all Crappy mergers for WB but the best for AOL.
They are all over the map. Do the people who run it know anything except how to sell dialup to new computer users? Everything else they touch turns to poo.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A556 55-2004Nov16.html
750 lost in one month, versus 10,000 gained over 5 years? I'll buy that for a dollar.
And this doesn't include the 1,250 jobs IBM just opened up in the FairLakes area of Fairfax.
I've got an idea. How about everyone at AOL just kill there boss. That should lower the overhead. As we all know bosses are just a bunch of jack A's that couldn't find their A's with both hands tied behind themselves.
And lets not forget the CxO. The do nothing, such profits, schmooze, slime balls that are doing the firing. Let's fire back....I think a 357Mag should do the trick...but line them up so you don't have to waste more than 1 bullet.
I love all the posts of how we live beyond our means....and what about the CxO...why should they get to live high on the hog, for sitting on the fat a's, getting drunk in their posh office, banging the securtary, and not doing a GD thing?!
REVOLT!! REVOLUTION!!! The only way to corporate Evolution.
Have to categorize the GenXSlacker crowd with that appellation. Having been someone with a functional brain calling the AOL support means that you may have to revert to chiseling the message on stone and mailing it to them, since it mostly the GenXSlacker crowd they hire.
Once upon a time in this country people had REAL tech jobs. Somehow millons of our youth lost the ability to functionally communicate and think.
Something about walking around with a Gameboy in your hands all day long and zoning out in classes.
I really wouldn't like to be working in HR these days.
Speaking of massive layoffs and the employment situation in NoVa, how long do you folks think that the government feeding frenzy is going to last? Not every techie can become an employee or contractor of the US Government, but that seems to be what we are trying to do here in this country.
All we're doing is forestalling a tragedy of biblical proportions. When the fed.gov employment bubble finally bursts, there will be an all new meaning to the words 'ye reap what ye sow.' Security clearnances be damned! The military/industrial complex cannot expand much furuther than it already has in our Sparta-esque militarized state known as the USA.
Enjoy it while it lasts though. I'm guessing we have fewer than ten years left until total meltdown. State governments will follow right along--all their expansion money is coming from the feds, too.
This whole thing brings to mind that AOL commercial with hordes of people outside the office... only this time, it's these folks asking for their jobs back.
With most of the layoffs coming from the Northern Virginia offices, what are their hopes for finding new jobs?
Not to be too cynical, but take it from this native of Northern Virginia:
It's "slim pickin's" around here for anyone without a security clearance of some kind. This goes especially for anyone who relocated to the West-end of the Dulles Corridor (all the job ops are East of you, so look forward to a hellish commute). I wish everyone affected by this disaster the best of luck.
Maybe with the reduced staff they could reduce thier support time and costs by simply opening up the service to more normal internet services. Having a simple opt-in rather than a shit service would be better.
Got a question about UNIX ask it here : Unix/xBSD Forum
The kicker? I wasn't even looking. I just wanted to take some time off and relax. But the job market here is so hot I got an offer I couldn't refuse within 3 weeks.
So, yeah, those AOLers are fine. The dirty little secret in the DC area is that the job market is smokin' hot if you're decent. Put another way, if you are looking for an IT job in DC for more than 3 months, you need to find a new career because if you aren't snatched up here, you won't find a job anywhere.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Why, they can find new jobs in Asia! Woohoo!
"In its third quarter, AOL lost 646,000 subscribers, most of whom were dial-up customers." huh?? what do you mean most of whom were dial-up? they only have dial-up. they dont offer broadband, as they would like all the newbies to think. they just have their fancy dancy crappy bloated interface to interact with your already broadband connection
Your statement is true of ALL call centers.
Substitute AOL with Digital River, and I did that from 1998-2000.
-- I speak only for myself
The newspapers have nothing, it is all online or word of mouth.
My group is looking for about 10 UNIX programmer types. Actually finding it hard to find good ones even though no security clearance required for some positions, just US Citizenship. Applications and OS programmers.
Part of that I attribute to the holidays, no one looks around this time.
After New Years then people start looking again.
I saw a bus yesterday with a AOL - "Write you're own paycheck" hiring ad on it, I guess the new guys are REALLY writing thier own paychecks, (it does make me wonder why they are paying for HR ads when they are laying other people off.
Thought of a career in writing? I like your style.
you obviously have no idea how small 400 million dollars is in hte scheme of things at Time Warner. Most people in that company feel AOL is a lag on business, not some cash cow to be milked. That 400 million dollars you are riving about doesn't even hit 1% of total revenue to Time Warner. They bring in over 41 billion dollars a year in revenue (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=TWX).
ANOTHER math error. You're comparing AOL's monthly subscriber revenue to TW's yearly revenue. Multiply 400 mil by 12, and you end up with 4.8 billion a year, or over 10% of the whole TWX pie. And that's not counting AOL's ad revenues.
Before you try to say anything about money or the financials of a major corporation, try to do a tiny bit of research so you don't sound quite so ignorant. It took me a total of 2 minute to look this stuff up.
Before you start with the ad hominem attacks, try making a little sense out of the data you googled. I've been following the company for years, and know more than a few people who work there. A really big problem is that a lot of the cash is going out of Dulles and up to NY -- a year ago, the TWX CFO said that one of their goals was to "reposition Time Life so that it's no longer a drag on this division's financial performance."
Compare that to what he said about AOL: "This revenue is very high margin and so $1 of revenue translates into an extraordinarily, unusually high level of impact on earnings." In other words, AOL is a cash cow.
The yahoo link you posted shows an EBITDA of $6.76B. AOL's revenue of over $5B had an admitted " extraordinarily...high level of impact on earnings." What do you make of that?
Does that include a cup of soup?
Just a curious European.
I also worked for AOL and this is by all accounts the most acurate description of AOL Tech support in so many words. I've also sent it to other ex AOL employees, the concur.
I was stressing out when I wrote it. My wife is pregnant and it's budget time. If I was 22 and single, I would be less apprehensive about it. For me, for us, I think the equation is, to be on the side producing software for sale rather than being on the corporate consuming side. Corporate contracts are going to go to the lowest bidder, but, given that corporations always prefer to buy rather than make, even a slightly pricier niche product that already exists will be competitive with a custom solution with outsourced labor simply because it doesn't have the risks involved in project startup. So the future is in vertical market, integrated solutions. End to end stuff or things that can readily bolt onto an endpoint.
This is my sig.
"My guy isn't actually a cannibal yet, I hate lib-r-als, mwah mwah mwah I'm a victim they're picking on me again, mommy!!".
Thanks for the laugh at your expense. I needed that today. Hopefully you get yourself a nice W-4 next month while the rest of us are getting our W-2s! Hahahahahahah.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Sure this is absolutely accurate.
;) Pretty good description of a Mac tech too ... though I was one, I don't fit the generic description.
:-\
My gut says this kid didn't work in Jacksonville though, since we called all of them (regardless of promotion) "smart-transfers" (and not just tel-save). That kinda dates you a little too, since they later moved to a 'smart-transfer' system that was integrated into Merlin. It sounds like you weren't around to see that.
Anyhow, glad we both got out. Sadly, as bad as that job was, I haven't found a job that's better yet
I did learn to juggle, though.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Well, dang. I had a parenthetical in there "(I always called it W-2 employment)", but removed it as I had thought it irrelevant and maybe I was wrong. so much for that.
AO-hell as we called at the call center in OKC .
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...." looking apprehensive , and I said
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The average call time requirement started out at like 9:12
Then it went to 8:30 , then to 8:00, then to 7:00
I did my stint starting in May of 1998 and because I was an old
sk00l PC technician, and electronics technician, and full time
I was asked to be a "Mentor". When I found out it would negatively
impact my statisitics I said " can I get execeptions enetered ? "
I was told no . So I answered no to the mentor status request
This made them angry, and I simply told them I will not sacrifice my
stats and work harder than anyone else on my team and help AO-hell
train them when it offers no difference in pay than the ppl I am
training, and I get penalized performance wise because I am off
the phone for 37 seconds of " IDLE " to help some tech illiterate
they have hired because she is "so and so's" girlie friend
Right before I quit and left AO-hell to go do networking and
telecommunications I was asked to help cover in RST
RST was representative support technicians, we helped the techs
when they could not figure it out themselves
I worked in this capacity for a few months, and then the test
came up for ppl to get promoted to RST which I had been working
at about 50% of my time on the phones
I was not allowed to even take the test because they knew I'd
nail the damn thing . They picked by popularity contest and
hired 2 cutzie ditz heads , and a Mr. popular man around campus type.
They asked me the next day to go work in RST after this affront and
help "UPTRAIN" the fucktards they just hired over me, and around me.
I told them I am not paid at that scale, and I no longer wish to work
in that capactiy , and will return to my normal duties
They started hammering me over not getting enough trasnfer for
free gasoline cards after helping ppl out on the phone and my stats
were otherwise immaculate
I walked over to my coach and asked "Hey, you know the way to the
door ??? " She said " yeah
" Walk me out, I am done with this place. "
And thus my coach Angela walked me out and I left AO-hell for good
Before I quit though, I sent out the obiligatory e-mail that
started with saying to forgot about me and my personal whining
Take a serious look at the nepotism, the illiterate techs, the
customer is SUPPOSE to come first, and how they were alienating
their technical staff by paying their "SAVES" ppl about double
at that time what the techs made . Further alientating the tech
staff by not rewarding good techs for good work
Techs that had a "HIGH" fix rate were specifically targetted
for "HOT TRANSFERS" by saves ppl to help save customers about to
drop the service, and I was one of these ppl . It did not matter
a hill of beans when it came to promotion or pay
This short novel is why I quit, and why I think AO-hell hopelessly
sucks so bad I can't stand them, and I go out of my way to tell my
friends, family, and clients of the business I run now
AO-hell, To boldly suck like nothing has ever sucked before
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
True True, when I got canned at Crisco ( cisco ) there was .
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8,500 full time, and no idea the temps and contractors that
got canned
It was a 60+ million dollar Voice over Ip lab where we designed
and built a universal protocol convertor for SS7
AKA international VOIP gateway SS7 protocol convertor
It was so bad at the office I worked at in Herndon Virginia
that state law required them either give us 6 months notice or
give us 6 months severance . Because they canned over 50%
of the staff at that location, mostly software coders, and
test engineers
I was a lab support engineer, its funny they kept the psycho
in drug rehab and canned their best lab supprt guy Tim Murphy
We called him McGuyver because he could wire power live to anything,
and do anything "except" work on computers
He was hard core telecom, and should have been kept
I knew SS7 moderately well, and supported the Inet Spectra
black boxes which did clear text decode of T1 and T3 trunks,
and I used to work at Inet in dallas
I could almost see why they canned me and my good friend who
is now Sr. Open GL coder at NSSL in Norman OK, but Tim Murphy
was prolly their best support engineer
It was all done to liquidate stock options and block vesting
in 401k plans, Crisco just reclaimed alot of their money
They optioned 6 months severance to avoid sabotage, infighting,
and other uglier possibilities that arise when ppl are kept because
they have Visa's and the ppl being canned have too many stock
options and canning them would reacquire them for the company
Almost all the marketing pukes kept their jobs, and another office
they had just bought a few months before in dallas took over
our project
Ppl lost houses, cars, and wives, and kids to divorce
It was really hideous, even misty who stayed working there
cried for days . Ppl had to go get counseling
I kinda saw the DOT BOMB coming way back and started
trying to save and live minimalistically back in 1999
I had alot saved, and because I had a 'clue' I got a job within
30 days but several states away as a contractor
Made more good money, and ratholed it away
I miss the awesome lab, the 60+ million in cisco and sun gear,
but working for Bob Milton on the few days he did show up
The stress on Bob at home was so bad, what went on at work was
enough to to finish him, he died not long after all the layoffs
Nah, don't miss that at all
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"