A very well known company supplying fantasy wargaming products

[Ithoriel]

If only we knew of a very well known company supplying fantasy wargaming products ... supplied by a warehouse in Nottingham. Oh how we might chortle. If only ...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/04/sysadmins_100000_revenge_after_sudden_sacking/

[Techno]

Oh dear, what a shame, never mind ! 
Cheers - Phil

[Leman]

Serves the money-grubbing bastards right. Look at the state of their business now.

[Steve J]

Serves them right!

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

 

[Leon]

Wow, shows had bad they are at managing people to a) fire him on the spot and b) not even realise they need to do some type of handover of his workload to a replacement.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

But : if he knew he was going he would be able to build in all sorts of logic bombs into the system, "by mistake".....

IanS

[Rob]

I really dont like GW at all but; this is an anecdote, not a current news story I think. Therefore it will be written with lots of stuff left out.

1.   An IT system administrator should maintain a system not decide company IT strategy. This course of action should have been agreed and signed off before committing to it. What 3rd party companies say they will do and then deliver can often be quite different. This is why you don't leave administrators to make this sort of decision based on other companies future plans they have no control over
2.   Nobody gets sacked without at least an official first warning. Its part of employment regs, so this chap had some sort of history.
3.   Why was his manager not gripping him and understanding what he is getting up to. No short term or medium term plans known, documented etc.
4.   The triumph in the manner of giving the director the "good" news shows this fellow was only interested in showing how clever he was and did not actually understand how to do his job.

I would say it shows a situation where GW was getting their business into some sort of order, getting rid of disloyal and incompetent employees and weak managers.

[Raider4]

I would say it shows a situation where GW was getting their business into some sort of order, getting rid of disloyal and incompetent employees and weak managers.

Oh, okay. I didn't read it that way at all.

Cheers, Martyn
--

[Ithoriel]

I really dont like GW at all but; this is an anecdote, not a current news story I think. Therefore it will be written with lots of stuff left out.

1.   An IT system administrator should maintain a system not decide company IT strategy. This course of action should have been agreed and signed off before committing to it. What 3rd party companies say they will do and then deliver can often be quite different. This is why you don't leave administrators to make this sort of decision based on other companies future plans they have no control over
2.   Nobody gets sacked without at least an official first warning. Its part of employment regs, so this chap had some sort of history.
3.   Why was his manager not gripping him and understanding what he is getting up to. No short term or medium term plans known, documented etc.
4.   The triumph in the manner of giving the director the "good" news shows this fellow was only interested in showing how clever he was and did not actually understand how to do his job.

I would say it shows a situation where GW was getting their business into some sort of order, getting rid of disloyal and incompetent employees and weak managers.

As Wikipedia would say [citation needed] on the whole story but in 40 years or so of working in and around IT I've known IT directors who left strategy to the admins because they had no technical expertise (including one who didn't realise the PC he wanted fixed was a microfiche reader!); people who's first inkling that their job as on the line was arriving one morning to be greeted by a couple of burly security guards and being told to list the things at their desk they thought were theirs so they could be returned to them; documentation ... I was considered a very odd fish indeed because I not only wanted documentation from others but wrote my own when they didn't provide it; if you've been dumped by the company with no notice then going,"Up yours!" is a natural response I think beside which I have tried to pass on info about ongoing problems in similar situations and been told that if the manager concerned needed my input I wouldn't be looking for another assignment!

Is it true? No idea. Is it amusing? I think so. Does it chime with my experience? Ooooh, yes!!      

[SV52]

Rant
I don't really understand this hatred of GW.  After all unless you are a dedicated buyer of their products why should you care?  It should be remembered that they are a successful British company with a global marketplace who employs or causes to be employed lots of bodies in and around Nottingham and elsewhere.  Bad mouthing companies leads eventually to them going out of business - the GW haters can then go to Nottingham and explain to the redundant workforce and their families why they thought it necessary to put them out of work. 

Save it for someone who deserves it like a payday loan outfit.
End of Rant

[Ithoriel]

I don't really understand this hatred of GW. 

Decades of them trashing games I liked and wanted to play, the endless ploys to fleece the unsuspecting of their money, the way they've treated people I like who worked for them ... bleh, too many reasons to enumerate.

[Leman]

GW definitely isn't a pay day loan outfit. They've reduced staff numbers so much they no longer need worry too much about paydays. I think the real reason a lot of wargamers, as opposed to fantasy hobbyists, dislike GW so much is because:

a) they keep changing rules and lists in a way that is evidently a money spinner;

b) they had a number of interesting games and figure ranges which have been massively reduced and are now unobtainable except through overpriced ebay auctions;

c) the hard sell approach in the shop is rather off-putting.

[Raider4]

The thing that really annoys me about GW, is their habit of stealing stuff from everywhere, and then promptly putting a © sign on it, or ^tm.

That's why the new paint range all have incredibly stupid names - apparently the chairman boasted about it in the annual results once - and why the latest Imperial Guard codex now also has a stupid name.

I miss the old paint range - I've not been in a GW since they changed it.

And is entirely the reason for throwing out the old Warhammer world and all of it's history and background, and replacing it so that ogres, elves, dwarfs, orcs and all the other generic races now have stupid^tm names.

Also, the new © background looks like it was written in about five minutes flat on the back of someone's fag packet, after they'd watched the Thor: Dark World movie. Why Marvel don't sue I don't know.

Cheers, Martyn

[Raider4]

2.   Nobody gets sacked without at least an official first warning. Its part of employment regs, so this chap had some sort of history.

He quite clearly says he was made redundant.

GW apparently deals with this by immediately removing ex-employees from the premises, although they are far from being alone in acting in this manner. It does chime with other accounts of how the company treats it's employees that I've heard.

Cheers, Martyn
--