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Wretched little sweatshop - Linux Systems Administrator WiredTree Employee Review

1.0

18 Jun 2014

Linux systems administrator

Recommend

CEO approval

Business outlook

Pros

WiredTree is an awful place to work, but it is a place to work. It's pretty easy to get hired there, if you seem to know your way around linux they'll give you a chance. And the people who survive more than a few months are quite remarkable, smart and hard-working and funny without exception, and somehow they deliver a high quality of service in spite of everything.

Cons

Severe, chronic, almost criminal understaffing. They're trying to compete against larger companies with a skeleton crew and the workload and stress level are off the charts. Every single day you feel like you're skirting the edge of disaster, and nothing ever gets better. Upper management is cheap, dishonest, erratic, unprofessional and almost comically disorganized. I think they're smart nerds who got picked on a lot and grew up to be frightened, angry and mean. They seem to be unaware of, or unconcerned with, the constant frustration faced by employees and refuse to take responsibility for anything. Their solution to every problem is to "push harder", "dig deeper", "go the extra mile". Training is minimal and largely irrelevant. Documentation consists of the google and a hit-or-miss wiki. Support policies are ill-defined, usually ex-post-facto and sometimes contradictory. There is no solutions database, no issue tracking, no trends analysis. Admins are constantly re-inventing the wheel. Back-end infrastructure is held together with chewing gum, velcro, and ebury worms. Like everything else about the place, it was thrown together in great haste and without a plan. Pay is very low and benefits almost non-existent. Bottom line, everybody, and I mean everybody, eventually gets fed up and quits.

WiredTree Response

11y

Thanks for your review of your time here at WiredTree. I can say that that we have been working hard on fixing any pain points that our staff may feel. I wish you would have provided this feedback in the 6 month staff reviews that we give all employees or gave us some of your frustrations in the monthly anonymous surveys we send out to staff. Beyond that, I would have had no problem sitting down to talk to you about your feelings about your career here and worked with you to make positive change. I am really sorry that you felt that management didn't care about your hard work. We truly care about everyone that works at WT and I feel that we have been trying really hard to get honest feedback such as this so we can make positive changes. I am not sure of the time frame of which you worked for us but we have been making changes based on employee feedback over the last couple years. To touch on some of them here are things we have done over the last year: * We have been working hard at hiring this year and we have bolstered staff levels on every shift to ensure stress levels remain low. * Better defining support policies and support best practices. * Moving our extensive support wiki to a best practices documentation database for exact answers to specific customer problems and remove all the dupe information. * Total training revamp started in January 2014 * Monthly issue tracking to pinpoint support trends Like all change, these have taken some time to get rolling, but they have already been making positive impacts on everyone's work here at WiredTree. I am sorry that you had such a negative experience with us. That is the last thing we want to have and I wish you would have brought up your feelings to us so we could have eased any of your frustrations. My door is always open to any of my coworkers to talk things out and I wished you would have taken the chance to do so. Regardless, thank you for your hard work and time here at WT. We wish you the best of luck wherever you work now and I hope that you find a job that makes you happy. Take care!

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5.0

31 Jul 2013

Linux systems administrator

Recommend

CEO approval

Business outlook

Pros

Great opportunities to gain experience where you may not have had any, or the credentials on your resume to get you the opportunity in the first place. Lots of room for growth within the company if you work at it. This isn't a place where you can come to work, do the minimum, and expect to get ahead. If you work hard you will. Pretty simple. Lots of support from senior admins and managers available.

Cons

It's not going to be an easy ride. The first year is going to be tough for some people. Be prepared for some bumps along the way, especially if you are inexperienced. There are plenty of people to ask for help, but it can still be very stressful until you get the hang of things. Keep at it and get through this period, and you'll be fine.

4.0

14 Sept 2014

Linux systems administrator

Recommend

CEO approval

Business outlook

Pros

You will be surrounded by skilled admins and shift coordinators who are willing to extend their knowledge when asked; The experience you gain will be extremely useful to better your career as a systems admin; The range of tasks you take on don't stop at console work (ie, hardware and data center work will be a part of your day-to-day); Communication skills, critical thinking, and focus will be sharpened in order to complete your tasks as an admin here; Management is very experienced and professional, and are excellent trainers in acclimating someone to the work life of a web hosting admin; compensation is fair and is open for growth if you keep with it multiple years.

Cons

The shifts are long (12 hours) and the customers aren't always in a great mood or great communicators. Be prepared to take on a night shift if you are getting worked into the schedule (this could be a plus for some); The size of shift teams seem a bit light on shifts that get very busy; The vacation hour policy is stingy if you haven't worked there for multiple years; Some issues may be above your skill level and there may not be an immediate superior available to help sort the issue out quickly.

WiredTree Response

11y

Thanks for your review of WiredTree and for your hard work while you were with us! We are glad that you found the on the job training and overall experience here to be a positive one. We are trying our best to give our coworkers a fun environment where they can hone their Linux skills and help our customers everyday. In response to your advice to management, one thing that we have recently changed this year was providing more frequent staff reviews. We have moved from a yearly review cycle to one every six months, so we can set goals, gather more relevant feedback, and review salary. We realized that a year is too long of a review cycle to be effective and we are sorry that you didn't get to experience the new one.. We have also revamped our entire review process so it can be better used to track goals and feedback over time. We feel that these changes are a step in the right direction to keep our coworkers engaged with the company during their time at WiredTree. I will pass your feedback about the 12hr shift and vacation time in our next operations meeting. Thanks for sharing it. We have been looking at other shift models to see if our support team wants to move away from the 12hr shift. Most are very happy with the bulk time off that the shift provides and most have been resistant to moving to a different shift model as they would lose their 3/4 days off a week. Regardless, we understand that the 12hr shift is not for everyone and we are taking steps to explore all other shift options. As for not having an immediate superior available, we have redone our management structure this year, so we have a direct supervisor on every shift throughout the week, along with a manager on every shift Monday through Friday. We also recently promoted one of our most senior Linux Administrators to General Manager of Support to help facilitate a better internal support structure for your past position. As you can see we have been making a lot of positive changes since your time here at WiredTree. We truly want to make WiredTree the best it can be and we are very grateful for your feedback. We wish you the best of luck!

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Wretched little sweatshop - Linux Systems Administrator WiredTree Employee Review

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