With the workload I had, it was nearly impossible to stay afloat. The juggling of projects and service tickets that were escalated from the service desk made it difficult not to work under 10-11 hour days. Turnaround was very high for System Administrators. Very Top heavy enviorment for managers to technicians. At one point it was counted 6 managers/owners to 8 techs. A few managers could be seen playing games and other extra curricular non work related activities during work hours, however, I don't blame them for their lack of a workload and general lack of needing them. Jim would pull the trigger on spending enormous manpower and money on frivolous items during emergencies without a plan and general lack of research.
An example of the topheavy organization: Around 2009-2010 we acquired a very large accounting frim in Dallas that had a virus do damage on their network. The network was not very well maintained and was run by the director of IT and three technicians due to their workload. We knew of how heavy we needed technicians and how much money this contract was worth that I suggested we hire two staff to work there full time, however we only hired one and he only went there once a week... yet we hired another manager. This put a major stress on the service desk and this firm was marked a priority due to this reason and other clients were put off. Our technical suggestions to the managers fell on deaf ears and due to this, a year into the contract another virus hit and caused all hands on deck scenario. I was pulled from my team to help that team out from 9 AM on Wednesday to 5 PM thursday. I was shocked when I found out we apparently only delivered on the promise of a tiny fraction of security (Microsoft updates and a bottom tier antivirus solution), I knew the highly lucrative contract was not going to be renewed. When we first obtained the contract after working 3 days straight at this firm during the original virus, the techs made a list of everything that needed to be implemented in the origination to make it secure. I was sad to say that only a few items were executed and the lazy account manager(s) did not take time out to ensure this was handled correctly. Needless to say we lost the account and in turn we had 4 techs laid off, no managers. One was later let go for other reasons. This caused more strain on all technicians to make up for the loss of manpower.
Later that year the owners decided to hire yet another manager to replace the service desk manager that is for a lack of a better term, miss placed. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, however, when someone is a manager at a tech company, I expect some knowledge and skills in technology. 0 techs were hired to pick up the ever growing pile of work. (I was oncall every other week...dont get me started on that mess) The atmosphere was very negative and stressful to the point a tech threw a chair in the break room and was obviously let go. I caught myself in the negativity and knew it was time for my departure. I was able to get another job within a week making 40K more than sagiss was offering. That's how offset Sagiss is over industry standards.
To those who are considering working at this company, take these warnings to heart because you can go elsewhere for higher compensation in a less stressful enviorment.
