Sysadmin's revenge

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Ricold
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Sysadmin's revenge

#1 Post by Ricold »

I thought this was a story worth sharing: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/04 ... 9307368544
Here we are again on a bright British Friday morning, which means it's time for On-Call, in which readers recollect their ramblings into the real world to fix things up.

This week, reader "James" has shared a story “from my days as a Sysadmin, at the dawn of the broadband area, when I worked for a very well known company supplying fantasy wargaming products.”

Said company decided it needed an office in Europe, supplied by a warehouse in Nottingham.

“To connect the sites, the ERP system needed a link between the sites,” James recalls. But the company's preferred telco was a few weeks away from launching its broadband product. The European office couldn't wait, however, so James “used an aggregated on-demand international ISDN connection so the databases could sync as required.”

“This was massively expensive, but was only needed for two weeks before we could place the order for broadband. The system worked fine unattended, and everyone was happy as the ERP system worked flawlessly.”

Despite the outbreak of happiness, “a week later the IT Manager called me into a meeting with HR to inform me I had been made redundant, effectively immediately.”

James was escorted from the premises by security and prevented from speaking to his colleagues.

Before he placed an order for broadband.

“Two months later,” James wrote, “I received a call from the horrified IT Director (the IT Manager himself had been made redundant straight after me), to ask if I knew why they faced an ISDN bill for over £100,000.”

Remember that bit at the start of the story about this happening at the “dawn of the broadband age”? Back then, data connections weren't cheap. So by marching James without a handover, his former employer had missed the chance to learn about the expensive ISDN connection.

“I had great delight in telling them I knew exactly why the bill was so large and had they not made me redundant they would have not blown the whole year's IT investment budget in a single month,” James recalls. “Even better, they had gone over the cancellation period, locking them into a year's contract.”

Failing to properly debrief James therefore became a very, very expensive mistake.
The powers of the administrators should never be underestimated, nor the value of talking to your employees
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RE.Lee
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Re: Sysadmin's revenge

#2 Post by RE.Lee »

Oh, never understimate the power of an employee simply doing his job ;) Great story!
cheers, Lee

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SpellArcher
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Re: Sysadmin's revenge

#3 Post by SpellArcher »

So that's why they kept putting the figure prices up!

:)
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Prince of Spires
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Re: Sysadmin's revenge

#4 Post by Prince of Spires »

Lol. Thanks for sharing the story. I can easily see that happening. It just shows that treating employees as real people and just being nice to them can deliver some tangible benefits. Employees being made redundant happens. It's simply part of the job. But just sitting someone down explaining the situation and saying 'today is your last day, please inform your colleagues of anything they need to know' would have made it a lot better compared to simply escorting someone off the premises.

At least it's given us a great laugh.

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Re: Sysadmin's revenge

#5 Post by SpellArcher »

Prince of Spires wrote:simply escorting someone off the premises.
This happened to a Store Manager I knew, in the days when they had staff.

It just supports the general impression I've held for years of how GW operate. Is it any wonder they've had to take drastic steps lately?
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Prince of Spires
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Re: Sysadmin's revenge

#6 Post by Prince of Spires »

SpellArcher wrote:
Prince of Spires wrote:simply escorting someone off the premises.
This happened to a Store Manager I knew, in the days when they had staff.
I just had a mental image of the one staff member of a single staff GW store getting a call from HQ telling him he was fired and that he had to escort himself off the premise immediately without talking to anyone... :mrgreen: :lol:

In my experience, the most valuable commodity a company usually owns are its employees. They are what makes a business and product and they are in a large part responsible for how you are perceived by your customer. For me, that would be a reason to treat them fairly...

Rod
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Re: Sysadmin's revenge

#7 Post by SpellArcher »

A GW staffer once told me about a lecture his Area Manager gave to all the guys under him:

It began "I am your god."

I'm not joking.
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John Rainbow
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Re: Sysadmin's revenge

#8 Post by John Rainbow »

SpellArcher wrote:A GW staffer once told me about a lecture his Area Manager gave to all the guys under him:

It began "I am your god."

I'm not joking.
My first reaction to this was 'oh god'...

then I noticed how funny that would have been :lol:
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Re: Sysadmin's revenge

#9 Post by SpellArcher »

To be fair, the staffer reckoned about half the Area Managers were good guys.

But that suggests the retail operation was held together by individual decency here and there, struggling in the face of corporate dysfunction.
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Re: Sysadmin's revenge

#10 Post by Tahl »

It's always been a struggle for GW to reconcile the gamer employees they want with the businessmen employees they need. They don't always manage to get it right. My local store is ok now but through the years they have had some characters.
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Re: Sysadmin's revenge

#11 Post by Andrew_uk »

I figure these guys sum it up better than I could...

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Oh and my favourite IT meme is definitely one which applies here...

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