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Senior admin - fired

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by house

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I don't know what happened. I think that the company, with whom we have to deal in order to provide cable internet service to our chunk of the province... has fired their senior admin.

Now, when we receive the simplest of issues, one ticket is not sufficient. No.

[b]1)[/b] "Swap the modem registration... old mac -> new mac" - This used to take 15 to 20 minutes for response and action. Now we need to pursue it with follow up requests on our end. Today, it was 5 hours before we finally had to send in another request.

[b]2)[/b] "Connection is not stable"

Looks good.

"It looks good now... monitor it for an extended period... customer is losing packets."

Uhhh... good pings and stuff.

"They are booted from game servers due to inactivity, we need to configure a keep-alive setting for their VoIP services, THEY ARE LOSING PACKETS"

Oh, they have a VoIP box... not our problem.

"You son-of-a"

[b]3)[/b] "This customer is capped on your end. They are on unlimited. Please remove the cap."

Done.

next day "They are capped again on your end"

Done. Changes will take effect at 3 AM

next day "Please remove the friggin' cap"

Done.

[b]4)[/b] "Our customer is receiving one of your IP's"

Done.

next day "They still have your IP."

Done.

next day "Let them through. Don't give them your IP."

Done.

next day "Still have your IP"

* Now, I am under the impression that it was a very bad move for them to fire their senior admin. Not only is it affecting the QoS of our customers, I can only imagine what is happening with theirs.

Nobody over there has any freakin' clue what is going on. Perhaps we should move in and simply take over.

Has anyone here witnessed the collapse of a major organization, due solely to the fact that there was a poor decision made in firing a senior admin, CIO, or even removed an IT infrastructure employee who pretty much ran the place from the ground up?

4 replies

by bfilmfan

Yes, I have seen all manner of businesses fail (auto parts, retail stores, service providers of all types) because the key people were not in place to make the correct decision at the time it was needed.

Despite what most captains of industry wish to think, the CEO is often no more than a figure head. Only in a small/mid-sized business concerns do CEO's play key roles in daily decisions.

I would point to Entex as a classic example of a business in the computer industry which melted down within months of letting Rick Nathanson escape. As I recall, within 2 months Entex was reporting a 100 Million dollar loss, as well completely changing it's business model, and losing hundred of large customers in the process. I don't know where Rick is these days, but I am sure he is making a lot of money and servicing his clients where ever he is!

Considering that their sales figures in 2004 to the tune of 6.1 Billion USD (Worldwide) and in 2002 as Entex with sales of 5.4 Billion USD (North America), well illustrates a melted-down service provider.

http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18819548&flatPage=true

And the article which predicted it would happen:

http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18807672&flatPage=true

And for a look at another clueless CEO, check out Mr. Gerald Gagliardi of Inacom's remarks in October of 1999. I am sure a large number of people would like to run into him in a dark alley after he laid off thousands via recorded voice mail in June of 2000.

http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18832678&flatPage=true

by house

I think that the expression on Mr. Gagliardi's face in that photo speaks a thousand words. I don't fully understand the complete background and direction of the company, but I can see that in his quest to provide an allstar team in the world of consulting, the company may have spread it's wings too far, and might fall short in the future by stretching it's service so thin.

They seem to have received credit for their work, but perhaps they should also invest in a proper web development team. :)

Mr. Gagliardi's remarks in the interview are bordering on common sense - just another figure head I suppose.

by gralfus

As long as you keep paying them, they will be happy. They don't have to pay for someone who knows what to do, and they keep getting money from you. Looks good on the business report for whatever manager did the deed. Then he/she moves up and the next person deals with the fallout.

by house

We have no choice. There is a monopoly on cable and telephone lines everywhere. Any business that would exploit these ressources, has to go through certain channels to get there. The company in question, is one of those channels to us.

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