Splinter Cell 3 demo score. Next step is to go through knocking out the least amount of people possible, no killing, etc. To be a ghost.
Friday, March 25, 2005
Earthlink revolves around poo.
http://www.youdecideonline.com/youdecide_home.htm
Anyone whos seen the new Earthlink ads on TV knows what I am talking about. "Who deserves a new office?" or "Who gets a company car?". I for one, am furious.
For those of you who don't know, I worked at Earthlink from August of 2001 until February of 2004. I loved it there. We were like a family, we had a lot of fun, it was just an overall great place to work. That started to change in the beginning of 2003, when Earthlink announced that they would be outsourcing all of their dialup tech support. Earthlink has always outsourced, just not on this scale. The Natomas office where I started closed and we moved to Roseville, no big deal. The feeling of family was starting to leave, however, things seemed to be getting darker. Our higher-ups assured us that they had no intention of outsourcing our high speed products like DSL/cable/satellite, that these postions were secure. What a crock. In January of 2004, right after the new year starts, we get the news: Earthlink would be outsourcing all of their phone based support, email and live chat as well. We had essentially six or seven weeks until everything went bye-bye.
Overseas outsourcing is getting very popular. Dell did it. Dell went from number one in customer support to number two, maybe even further down; Apple, whose call centers are stateside, rose to the top. Dell aknowledged their mistake and bought back tech support to the states. Basically, what a company gains by outsourcing is money. It is cheaper to send support overseas than keep it here. I guess there is a fine line to be aware of, that is, how much your customer base can stand talking to someone whose first language is not English. Not that I am racist, not that I am a xenophobe, but I believe that it is incredibly important that you and the person on the other end of the phone have an understanding with one another for it to work. We were told that if Earthlink kept their call centers in the US of A, within a year the company could fold. So it was in the company's best intrest to save money by sending support elsewhere. It was hard for us to accept, but we all moved on with our lives. I wouldn't trade anything for my time with the company, the people I worked with were awesome.
Which brings me up to date on the rant I had going. What. The. Fuck. "Who gets a company car?" "We did such a good job on scamblocker please reward our efforts!". What about the THOUSANDS of call center employees who were let go because of money problems? Is Earthlink saying now it has money, it is going to reward the few employees they kept? I find the whole thing insensitive and downright immoral. A scant year later Earthlink is in the clear, so select few get new offices and cars.
cl_rant 0
Anyone whos seen the new Earthlink ads on TV knows what I am talking about. "Who deserves a new office?" or "Who gets a company car?". I for one, am furious.
For those of you who don't know, I worked at Earthlink from August of 2001 until February of 2004. I loved it there. We were like a family, we had a lot of fun, it was just an overall great place to work. That started to change in the beginning of 2003, when Earthlink announced that they would be outsourcing all of their dialup tech support. Earthlink has always outsourced, just not on this scale. The Natomas office where I started closed and we moved to Roseville, no big deal. The feeling of family was starting to leave, however, things seemed to be getting darker. Our higher-ups assured us that they had no intention of outsourcing our high speed products like DSL/cable/satellite, that these postions were secure. What a crock. In January of 2004, right after the new year starts, we get the news: Earthlink would be outsourcing all of their phone based support, email and live chat as well. We had essentially six or seven weeks until everything went bye-bye.
Overseas outsourcing is getting very popular. Dell did it. Dell went from number one in customer support to number two, maybe even further down; Apple, whose call centers are stateside, rose to the top. Dell aknowledged their mistake and bought back tech support to the states. Basically, what a company gains by outsourcing is money. It is cheaper to send support overseas than keep it here. I guess there is a fine line to be aware of, that is, how much your customer base can stand talking to someone whose first language is not English. Not that I am racist, not that I am a xenophobe, but I believe that it is incredibly important that you and the person on the other end of the phone have an understanding with one another for it to work. We were told that if Earthlink kept their call centers in the US of A, within a year the company could fold. So it was in the company's best intrest to save money by sending support elsewhere. It was hard for us to accept, but we all moved on with our lives. I wouldn't trade anything for my time with the company, the people I worked with were awesome.
Which brings me up to date on the rant I had going. What. The. Fuck. "Who gets a company car?" "We did such a good job on scamblocker please reward our efforts!". What about the THOUSANDS of call center employees who were let go because of money problems? Is Earthlink saying now it has money, it is going to reward the few employees they kept? I find the whole thing insensitive and downright immoral. A scant year later Earthlink is in the clear, so select few get new offices and cars.
cl_rant 0
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Blog you, mother blogger.
Got back from meeting... ouch. Had to shell out $3k for food, and we have just about that much left to pay as well. Next week. Fortunately, after that, we won't have much left to pay for, just rentals of some decorative equipment, DJ and Officiant fees, cake... I think that's it.
Started playing Hitman: Contracts, and I must say I am happy with it. Didn't think Hitman2 was as good as the first, and Contracts started off kinda the same, but I was pleasantly surprised that some of the missions from the first game were in it. I can understand how a lot of people might feel gyped because of the rehash, but I enjoyed playing the same missions again. For one, they were slightly different, and the graphics were better. Plus, the hotel mission from the first game is, hands down, one of my favorite missions from any game, ever. The sheer bad-assness of starting the level with a metal detector and needing to ditch all your guns and walk around pretty much defenseless with TWO targets to nuetralize... awesome. You can snipe the cops at the beginning and take a uniform to pass the detectors, but if you want a Silent Assassin rating you can't exactly do that. I've been playing the game trying to be as stealthy as possible, getting a Silent Assassin rating on about half the missions. But when it came time for the assassination of Lee Hong (again)... I went a little gung-ho with the micro-uzi and wiped out nearly everyone in the restaurant. Which is pretty much how I finished that mission the first time in the first game. Oh well, maybe one of these days I'll go back and play it, super-stealthy style.
Started playing Hitman: Contracts, and I must say I am happy with it. Didn't think Hitman2 was as good as the first, and Contracts started off kinda the same, but I was pleasantly surprised that some of the missions from the first game were in it. I can understand how a lot of people might feel gyped because of the rehash, but I enjoyed playing the same missions again. For one, they were slightly different, and the graphics were better. Plus, the hotel mission from the first game is, hands down, one of my favorite missions from any game, ever. The sheer bad-assness of starting the level with a metal detector and needing to ditch all your guns and walk around pretty much defenseless with TWO targets to nuetralize... awesome. You can snipe the cops at the beginning and take a uniform to pass the detectors, but if you want a Silent Assassin rating you can't exactly do that. I've been playing the game trying to be as stealthy as possible, getting a Silent Assassin rating on about half the missions. But when it came time for the assassination of Lee Hong (again)... I went a little gung-ho with the micro-uzi and wiped out nearly everyone in the restaurant. Which is pretty much how I finished that mission the first time in the first game. Oh well, maybe one of these days I'll go back and play it, super-stealthy style.
Commence with the bloggings
Well, it seems everyone and their mom has a blog, I figured it was about time I had one as well. And what better blog service to use than Google's? I don't know how often I'll update or the rhyme or reason as to why I'll update.
Short list of things happening in my life:
*Got hired by Teksystems yesterday for a contract job out at Sutter Health in Rancho Cordova. After 6 months of being unemployed, I finally have a source in income again.
*Getting married April 16th, 2005. 23 days to go...
*Have a new apartment, it's pretty sweet. Has water meandering through the complex, and a swarm of ducks live here.
Well, I am off to meet with our site coordinator to finalize the food for the wedding.
Short list of things happening in my life:
*Got hired by Teksystems yesterday for a contract job out at Sutter Health in Rancho Cordova. After 6 months of being unemployed, I finally have a source in income again.
*Getting married April 16th, 2005. 23 days to go...
*Have a new apartment, it's pretty sweet. Has water meandering through the complex, and a swarm of ducks live here.
Well, I am off to meet with our site coordinator to finalize the food for the wedding.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
