Is this the end of ASO/EIG?

[latic]

The worst thing about all of this is the way the customers have been treated.


Within the escalation department (Which I created and ran) tickets went from around a 6 hour turn around and 20 tickets open at anyone time, to a 2 week turn around and over 1500 tickets open! 


Long and short is EIG couldn't continue to bleed money, the accusations were to boost revenue figures. When that didn't wash any further with the board (or just before if they caught wind of it) it started being more about maximizing efficiencies, this means getting rid of sources of expenses (Servers = migrations, Staff = sack them, Datacentre space = consolidate resources). I found the staff members they consulted with were the wrong ones, they were people who quickly brown nosed, said what they thought EIG wanted to hear and really needed to keep their jobs more than doing or saying the right thing. The head of support was marked as a troublemaker for sticking to his guns, personally as the head of escalations (a department that they are taking forward into EIG as a whole) I was talked to once and never again.


So you've got a company needing to start showing profits, taking advice from people who care only about themselves, being merged into a larger company that's always in flux and doesn't have a set strategy for the future (or if it does it is nothing to do with happy customers).

 

[latic]

A comment on Diya, half of the Arvixe indian staff were shell staff / multideskers. These are indian companies who setup "people" and then take the money paying the end staff members only $400 - $500 a month (They'd be getting paid around $1700). This type of thing is rampant in the industry as a whole, but with Arvixe it was to the point of where one company actually had 15+ "Staff members" who were being worked by around 6 real people (within server management).


I'm guessing Diya bought out a lot of these companies or their staff and have a few different bases in india now.

 

[zafouhar]

Glad to see you joining here @latic  When you say head of support do you mean the Arvixe head of support? or the ASO head of support?


To be honest the escalations department was really stable before the Arvixe-ASO merge but everything went downhill after that and its going to go even more downhill after June 1st.

 

[latic]

The head of Arvixe Support. He was one of the people EIG/ASO continued to speak to but stood his ground in regards to his opinions and I really wouldn't like to know how much worse and how much sooner things went to shit.


When Arvixe merged into EIG it seemed to be merging into an ASO which was in transition already. The head of ASO support is not someone who I'd personally work under so all I really cared about was trying to get my Escalation guys into other jobs.

 

[drmike]

A comment on Diya, half of the Arvixe indian staff were shell staff / multideskers. These are indian companies who setup "people" and then take the money paying the end staff members only $400 - $500 a month (They'd be getting paid around $1700). This type of thing is rampant in the industry as a whole, but with Arvixe it was to the point of where one company actually had 15+ "Staff members" who were being worked by around 6 real people (within server management).


I'm guessing Diya bought out a lot of these companies or their staff and have a few different bases in india now.

I don't know why these fools are paying $1700 to a body shop for a worker.


I could provide literate native speaking Americans with relative experience and actual tech interest under those rates. Not that I am a fan of lousy pay, but it's the world we live in.


To me, it sounds like money laundering.  Hire companies you are related to / know owners for support, write this $1700 on the books, write down corporate profits, then back side take $1700-$500 = $1200 and split that with the company owner.  Meaning you pocketing $600~ in corruption racket.


These companies are all cooked books and tax rackets.

 

[latic]

Rather than laundering the senior management genuinely didn't know about it. Until I stepped into middle management no one knew it was going on (or of they did they kept quiet), was easy to see with people using the same ips and always "renting an office with friends".


At one point 10 or more of the staff were listed on the wiztelsys website and I got access to their rotas, this was showing some different names, people not always working etc. It was a huge minefield and would have taken years go sort.