Friday, December 23rd, 2022, 2:56 pm
Too Late to Save Sirius Open Source
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Summary: The self-demolition of Sirius ‘Open Source’ is work in progress; but it’s important to understand how that came about and cautionary notes from within
THE morale inside the company was eroding rapidly and workers became dissatisfied with the transition away from “Open Source”. Some spoke out about it more loudly than others, in spite of the known dangers like incurring management’s wrath. At the moment, there are almost as many “managers” as there are non-managers! Heck, it seems 50% of what’s left in the company right now goes by the name “manager”. What sort of business is this???
The text below shows a culmination of these frustrations coming from yours truly early this year. I was already determined to just leave, but there was still a glimmer of hope things would change.
Well, things did change. But not for the better.
Sirius wasn’t always so toxic a workplace (bullying, abuse, management anger issues et cetera were specified in prior sections). It’s worth noting that what was attractive about this company approximately a decade ago was the colleagues and the company being a way to escape malicious software and instead use decent things. Sadly, that did not last. Well, of course over time (it did not happen overnight!), and especially in recent years, this was no longer the case. And it got worse this past October, as later parts of this series will explain.
The following part of the report was sent to the “company’s founder” before I realised that he probably wasn’t even the company’s founder (he fakes his credentials and [cref 167171 idolises Donald Trump]) but someone who joined it later on. The words from the internal report below hopefully shed light on the atmosphere in early 2022:
The longest-serving staff member sans the company’s founder is paid a salary of 26,500 a year for full time work and there’s a snag, which cannot be conveniently evaded. Roy believes that the company milks him; no pay rise in over a decade (Roy got paid more when he joined), even amid soaring inflation, no apologies, unwarranted bullying, with bullies not being held accountable. Roy did bring up the salary aspect, but this never gets rectified. After almost 12 years… same salary, but again this sort of misses the bigger picture. Roy feels like “low-cost tech labour”, treated poorly and unfairly at times in spite of a lot of factors previously fully conveyed in text (internally). Roy did raise concern — and only internally — more times than he can recall. Anything else is a last recourse in a two-person IRC conversation (no names mentioned). Here is Roy’s message sent to the CEO earlier this year:
Hi ????????,
Last night I tried testing softphone calls with 2 of your phone numbers that I have, I think about 5 times in total, taking timezone into account. I could not test with anyone here as they were asleep. One thing I noticed is that my browser still insists on enabling things manually each time I talk. That’s just how it works.
Yesterday before bedtime I checked my inbox and saw an E-mail with a threatening and combative tone. It was not well received because I hadn’t been approached at all before it was sent. It was sent without even asking me for my side (as if due process does not exist).
I warned in advance about relying on this product, but I received no reply at all. Those softphones typically work only or “best” with Chrome.
This is part of a broader problem and I wish to open a dialogue about a number of other issue. I want to keep this amicable and constructive. Bear with me while I explain.
I don’t think I’ve been demanding or unreasonable. I sacrificed a lot for this role. I’ve accepted a pay decrease for 11 years, even months after I had joined (it did not keep up with inflation and in 2011 when I was moved from weekend slots to weekday+weekend nighttimes — typically a time slot that means 200% the “normal” rate — my pro-rata amount was reduced, even after the increase from 25k to 26.5k). I did not complain. And this E-mail isn’t about money. That’s now what’s important to me.
As I noted in my reply last night, no training given to staff means that mistakes can be made (passing a document isn’t the same as training). Yet worse, from my managers I’m receiving no replies and it often feels like talking to the wall. I don’t know why a manager would think that this management style reinforces confidence from staff. At the start of the year he said we’d start receiving regular updates. This did not happen (no weekly updates as promised) and there has been no effort to stick to the company’s values. In fact, the message is being diluted and my E-mail messages about this remain unanswered. Remember that ???????? and I are your longest-serving (to present) employees. I’m always happy to receive even just a phonecall to touch base.
Then there’s the more ‘petty’ or less important stuff, which I will mention anyway (it’s not the reason for this mail, but I want to get it off my chest). The company was not even sending payslips for years, pension lapses added to a sense of something gone awry silently, recently there was a mistake made by ????????, leaving me working 12 hours in a row (no disciplinary action for her, I assume; that’s just for us, the “low-level” employees to face). I still haven’t forgotten what happened 3 years. There was a climate of threats, directed not only at me but also colleagues; as far as I can gather, there was no accountability for ???????? either, in effect bullying staff, as if some people are exempted from their own standards. And again no transparency; we weren’t even told when she left the company.
We need to look inward instead of resorting to selective finger-pointing at people who work at 1am for roughly minimum wage, even people with a doctoral degree.
If you want to talk about these things, I suggest phone as that would convey and add tone. With text it’s too easy to misunderstand and misinterpret well-meaning people.
The CEO never even responded to this. Did not pick up the phone, either. Roy tried many times. Same outcome.
As noted above, the salary is laughable.
Also, as noted previously, the behaviour of the company in recent years (sometimes lying, choosing unethical clients, rejecting Open Source) is already becoming public reputation damage to Roy and to his work, set aside the company’s concern for its own reputation. Roy believes he could sue particular people inside the company for bullying, but Roy doesn’t want to bother with litigation, seeing that the company is already becoming a liability to his online reputation by its choice of clients and proprietary technologies, which pose moral issues (clerical job, loan shark, military).
