🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <01bddee8$750ce440$a83ff1cf@thoroughbred> JJ,
jjacobus@ponyx.com writes:
>One piece of fall out from this is that Verio has been moving all the
>routing through their national infrastructure. This accounts in large part
>for all the delays people have been reporting. Rumor has it they will be
>replacing the cluster or relocating it in their Dallas facility. Can anyone
>confirm this?

Fascinating.  But I wonder where the "central facility" is now.  Let me
guess... Reston, Virginia, right?  Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's
where AOL's "technical facility" is located that cut off all traffic on
their network when it crashed.  That's where the "Internet Society"
referred to in the Friday Sun-Times is based.  That's where two separate
outbreaks of a monkey-specific form of the Ebola virus were used to
select a form as transmissible as influenza which, when recombined with
the human form by USAMRIID, will be 95% lethal to the Earth's
unvaccinated population were done (see "The Hot Zone", Richard Preston). 
That's just within sight of the Washington Monument and on the same
Dulles Toll Road where a Pakistani hero went around shooting CIA agents
caught in gridlock.  If you get my drift.  So I have a feeling this is a
very good guess, though I might be wrong.

That's WWA and MCS sold - who's next?  How can the independent ISP be
allowed to exist?, when all traffic MUST be sent through centralized
ECHELON spying facilities to be traced and tracked, recorded and sorted
for useful financial or political information, and as need be decoded
with keys for the state-mandated encryption loopholes that Louis Freeh
and Gerald Solomon agree they need.

Please, tell me I'm wrong...

From what I I've been able to gather here is the casualty list:

	Jackson Brunsting
	Dan Cross
	Kevin Hill
	Rich Nuttle
	David Ressman
	William Rockwood
	Eric Seale
	Kim Scarborough

There are a couple more high-profile resignations to come.

JJ <jjacobus@ponyx.com> wrote in article
<01bddee8$750ce440$a83ff1cf@thoroughbred>...
> From a friend who is in the same building as Verio Chicago (formerly
WWA),
> I heard that there was a major layoff at our ISP on Friday.. Apparently
> Verio has cut the technical staff in half. I think Jackson Brunsting,
Rich
> Nuttle, Kim Scarborough and John Dennison (?) are gone or going (not sure
> of the casualties since I don't know everyone down there). There are
others
> though. Apparently things have been going so well that they didn't need
all
> the staff in Chicago (Note: This is called "sarcasm"). Unfortunately,
this
> is the pattern that Verio has with all their acquisitions. No one in
> Chicago saw this coming.
> 
> One piece of fall out from this is that Verio has been moving all the
> routing through their national infrastructure. This accounts in large
part
> for all the delays people have been reporting. Rumor has it they will be
> replacing the cluster or relocating it in their Dallas facility. Can
anyone
> confirm this?
> 
> 
> . 
> 

In article <6tgjcl$j1n@enews2.newsguy.com>, Tommy the Terrorist wrote:
>
>Please, tell me I'm wrong...

You're wrong. Pitifully.

On 13 Sep 1998 15:15:03 GMT, "JJ" <jjacobus@ponyx.com> wrote:

>From what I I've been able to gather here is the casualty list:
>
>	Jackson Brunsting
>	Dan Cross
>	Kevin Hill
>	Rich Nuttle
>	David Ressman
>	William Rockwood
>	Eric Seale
>	Kim Scarborough
>
>There are a couple more high-profile resignations to come.

it was really cute when one of people mentioned above asked for ten
dollars so he could take his belongings home in a cab and some
asshole replied, "well we really didn't budget for that."

i would have given him money myself but my wallet is empty.

rivet <root@verio.net> wrote in article <35fbecd5.3924372@news.wwa.com>...
> On 13 Sep 1998 15:15:03 GMT, "JJ" <jjacobus@ponyx.com> wrote:
> 
> >From what I I've been able to gather here is the casualty list:
> >
> >	Jackson Brunsting
> >	Dan Cross
> >	Kevin Hill
> >	Rich Nuttle
> >	David Ressman
> >	William Rockwood
> >	Eric Seale
> >	Kim Scarborough
> >
> >There are a couple more high-profile resignations to come.
> 
> it was really cute when one of people mentioned above asked for ten
> dollars so he could take his belongings home in a cab and some
> asshole replied, "well we really didn't budget for that."
> 
> i would have given him money myself but my wallet is empty.
> 

That's pretty funny. Well, with as much money as Verio is losing, you got
to watch every penny.

In chi.internet Tommy the Terrorist <mayday@newsguy.com> wrote:
> In article <01bddee8$750ce440$a83ff1cf@thoroughbred> JJ,
> jjacobus@ponyx.com writes:
> >One piece of fall out from this is that Verio has been moving all the
> >routing through their national infrastructure. This accounts in large part
> >for all the delays people have been reporting. Rumor has it they will be
> >replacing the cluster or relocating it in their Dallas facility. Can anyone
> >confirm this?

> Fascinating.  But I wonder where the "central facility" is now.  Let me
> guess... Reston, Virginia, right?  


Wrong.


> Correct me if I'm wrong, 

You're wrong.

> but that's
> where AOL's "technical facility" is located that cut off all traffic on
> their network when it crashed.  That's where the "Internet Society"
> referred to in the Friday Sun-Times is based.  


Because the Sun Times is such a beacon of journalistic integrity.


> That's where two separate
> outbreaks of a monkey-specific form of the Ebola virus were used to
> select a form as transmissible as influenza which, when recombined with
> the human form by USAMRIID, will be 95% lethal to the Earth's
> unvaccinated population were done (see "The Hot Zone", Richard Preston). 
> That's just within sight of the Washington Monument and on the same
> Dulles Toll Road where a Pakistani hero went around shooting CIA agents
> caught in gridlock.  If you get my drift.  So I have a feeling this is a
> very good guess, though I might be wrong.


You're wrong, though it would make an excellent x-files episode.


> That's WWA and MCS sold - who's next?  How can the independent ISP be
> allowed to exist?, when all traffic MUST be sent through centralized
> ECHELON spying facilities to be traced and tracked, recorded and sorted
> for useful financial or political information, and as need be decoded
> with keys for the state-mandated encryption loopholes that Louis Freeh
> and Gerald Solomon agree they need.

> Please, tell me I'm wrong...

You're wrong.  No one is forcing ISP's to sell by holding guns to their heads or
threatening anyone. They are selling because the people who own them want 
to be very very rich.  There is no conspiracy here beyond the love of
money.  So, if you want to know whos next, think about who owns them.  I 
think the ones that have gone so far are entirely believable.

A bit more info from a West Coast source.....Verio is doing an across the
board downsizing. All their operations are expected to meet some corporate
"revenue per employee" size. When you are bleeding, this is the quickest
way to stop the hemorrhage. Dave Vrona had no choice in the matter. This
must have been difficult for Dave because he really does care about his
people. 

To be accurate, some on the list (Dan Cross and Rich Nuttle) resigned just
before Friday, but they are not being replaced. So the bottom line is still
reduced headcount.
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
You will be assimilated. - Resistance is futile - Have a nice day.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

JJ <jjacobus@ponyx.com> wrote in article
<01bddf29$51501d60$953ef1cf@thoroughbred>...
> From what I I've been able to gather here is the casualty list:
> 
> 	Jackson Brunsting
> 	Dan Cross
> 	Kevin Hill
> 	Rich Nuttle
> 	David Ressman
> 	William Rockwood
> 	Eric Seale
> 	Kim Scarborough
> 
> There are a couple more high-profile resignations to come.
> 
> JJ <jjacobus@ponyx.com> wrote in article
> <01bddee8$750ce440$a83ff1cf@thoroughbred>...
> > From a friend who is in the same building as Verio Chicago (formerly
> WWA),
> > I heard that there was a major layoff at our ISP on Friday.. Apparently
> > Verio has cut the technical staff in half. I think Jackson Brunsting,
> Rich
> > Nuttle, Kim Scarborough and John Dennison (?) are gone or going (not
sure
> > of the casualties since I don't know everyone down there). There are
> others
> > though. Apparently things have been going so well that they didn't need
> all
> > the staff in Chicago (Note: This is called "sarcasm"). Unfortunately,
> this
> > is the pattern that Verio has with all their acquisitions. No one in
> > Chicago saw this coming.
> > 
> > One piece of fall out from this is that Verio has been moving all the
> > routing through their national infrastructure. This accounts in large
> part
> > for all the delays people have been reporting. Rumor has it they will
be
> > replacing the cluster or relocating it in their Dallas facility. Can
> anyone
> > confirm this?
> > 
> > 
> > . 
> > 
> 

Since I have been 'outed', I will take this opportunity to say my goodbyes.
:) Luckily, I am sober, so this will be short.

I tendered my resignation at the beginning of September and will be staying
on until the 17th of September.

To my friends who have left Verio, to my friends who remain with Verio, and
to the many customers I have had the pleasure of serving over the past 2 and
a half years....

fare thee well. good luck. take care.

daniel m. cross

JJ wrote in message <01bddf29$51501d60$953ef1cf@thoroughbred>...
>From what I I've been able to gather here is the casualty list:
>
> Jackson Brunsting
> Dan Cross
> Kevin Hill
> Rich Nuttle
> David Ressman
> William Rockwood
> Eric Seale
> Kim Scarborough
>
>There are a couple more high-profile resignations to come.
>

Downsize TECHNICAL staff?!  Is everything running so smoothly with the
system that we need LESS technical staff?  Seems like downsizing
MANAGEMENT is always the smartest move, as they don't do anything that
is vital to a company and you can save more money per person laid-off
than with any other position.  Any department can continue without it's
manager, but things get really screwed up when just one actual worker
isn't around.

In wwa.support JJ <jjacobus@ponyx.com> wrote:
> Verio has cut the technical staff in half. I think Jackson Brunsting, Rich
> Nuttle, Kim Scarborough and John Dennison (?) are gone or going (not sure

John's staying, but I got the axe. :)  I was going to wait a while to make
this post, but there's no time like the present, intoxicated or not. :P

Whether or not I had problems with any of you over the years I worked
here, I really, really enjoyed it.  It was by far the best year and 
eight months of my life (*way* better than megsinet :)  We've got
some of the coolest users there are out there on the internet and I'm
glad I got to help get a good deal of you online when I was tech support
and keep a good deal of you happy when I was a sysadmin.

So, I'll be around.  Right now I have a personal account at enteract.
Anyone who cares to can email me at phukit@enteract.com (yes, that was
me.. :).  Please remember that WorldWide Access/verio is still staffed
by people who truly care about all of you although it may not seem like
it.  Verio may not be the best company in the world, but as long as you
have some of the old WWA people, (sabrina, john, stan, amy, etc.) you'll
still be in great hands.  There's a reason I'm keeping an account here.
If verio will shell out the money for that new computer room, it'll be
incredible..

BTW, anyone who may be waiting on me for any type of resolution to 
any type of problem is SOL, (sorry, I've wanted to say that for years :).
But seriously, if you're waiting on a particular person to give you any
type of info, he/she may not be there anymore so go through normal support
channels.

BTW as well, I'd like to extend a personal note of thanks to a couple of 
people who don't get anywhere near the recognition they deserve.  John 
and Sabrina helped me more than I could ever explain.  Aside from being 
patient and answering all my stupid questions, they never ever forgot
why they were there.  Our customers always came first with them and that 
attitude rubbed off on me.  I had many discussions that got heated and out 
of hand with both of them, but everyone felt so strongly about the company
we helped build.  I have an incredible amount of respect for both of them
and will never ever forget them.  I could go on and on for pages, but I'll
just leave it at a very public, "thank you for everything".

The same goes for Dyane, the best boss on the whole planet.  I don't think
I'll ever find a more understanding, cooler supervisor as long as I live. :)

It's been a trip..

David Ressman 
phukit@enteract.com

I think that your forgetting that management is the ones making these
decisions and they are never going to lay themselves off

Kent Atwater <info@bizbox.com> wrote in article
<35FC7D09.5F94@bizbox.com>...
> Downsize TECHNICAL staff?!  Is everything running so smoothly with the
> system that we need LESS technical staff?  Seems like downsizing
> MANAGEMENT is always the smartest move, as they don't do anything that
> is vital to a company and you can save more money per person laid-off
> than with any other position.  Any department can continue without it's
> manager, but things get really screwed up when just one actual worker
> isn't around.
> 

In article <6tgso4$npt$1@eve.enteract.com> P0o0ookie, p0ok@enteract.com
writes:
>> Fascinating.  But I wonder where the "central facility" is now.  Let me
>> guess... Reston, Virginia, right?  

>Wrong.

Where is it then?

(Oh, I forget to mention NSA ^H I mean NSI and howland.RESTON.ans.net)

In chi.internet Tommy the Terrorist <mayday@newsguy.com> wrote:
> In article <6tgso4$npt$1@eve.enteract.com> P0o0ookie, p0ok@enteract.com
> writes:
> >> Fascinating.  But I wonder where the "central facility" is now.  Let me
> >> guess... Reston, Virginia, right?  

> >Wrong.

> Where is it then?


Its in Denver Colorado, the NOC is in Dallas.

In article <01bddee8$750ce440$a83ff1cf@thoroughbred>, jjacobus@ponyx.com 
says...
> From a friend who is in the same building as Verio Chicago (formerly WWA),
> I heard that there was a major layoff at our ISP on Friday.. Apparently
> Verio has cut the technical staff in half. I think Jackson Brunsting, Rich
> Nuttle, Kim Scarborough and John Dennison (?) are gone or going (not sure

This sucks.  It just sucks.  Dammit, I feel like my ISP is making the 
painful transition from a decent organization that I could depend on to 
"Just Another Big Company" (tm).  If I wanted a Big Company, I woulda 
gone with AOL or something equally as crappy.  I'm bummin'.

What am I gonna do?  I dunno yet...

I'm sure there will be some corporate spin attached to it, like 
"Consolidation" and "efficiency".  I HATE consolidation, and I LOATHE 
efficiency.  :-\
-- 
- Mike Schwager    schwager@wwa.com
  (Spam filters in place and operational, Captain.  Shields at 99% :-)

On 13 Sep 1998, JJ wrote:

> Date: 13 Sep 1998 16:38:06 GMT
> From: JJ <jjacobus@ponyx.com>
> Newsgroups: wwa.support, wwa.general, wwa.announce, wwa.www, chi.internet
> Subject: Re: Verio Chicago downsizes technical staff [feel the love]
> 
> 
> 
> rivet <root@verio.net> wrote in article <35fbecd5.3924372@news.wwa.com>...
> > On 13 Sep 1998 15:15:03 GMT, "JJ" <jjacobus@ponyx.com> wrote:
> > 
> > >From what I I've been able to gather here is the casualty list:
> > >
> > >	Jackson Brunsting
> > >	Dan Cross
> > >	Kevin Hill
> > >	Rich Nuttle
> > >	David Ressman
> > >	William Rockwood
> > >	Eric Seale
> > >	Kim Scarborough
> > >
> > >There are a couple more high-profile resignations to come.
> > 
> > it was really cute when one of people mentioned above asked for ten
> > dollars so he could take his belongings home in a cab and some
> > asshole replied, "well we really didn't budget for that."
> > 
> > i would have given him money myself but my wallet is empty.
> > 
> 
> That's pretty funny. Well, with as much money as Verio is losing, you got
> to watch every penny.
> 

Why would they buy out WWA if they were losing money? Why would a company
losing money make a purchase of that magnitude?  Doesn't make sense. 

     Max Kohn                            http://www.wwa.com/~mik/index.html
     mik@wwa.com          Memorial Page: http://www.wwa.com/~mik/mem.html

"It never occurs to me that there are things that I can't do."
--Whoopi Goldberg 

> I think that your forgetting that management is the ones making these
> decisions and they are never going to lay themselves off

How could I forget that after I SAID:

> Seems like downsizing
> MANAGEMENT is always the smartest move, as they don't do anything that
> is vital to a company.

Making a decision to lay-off WORKERS who actually keep the company
running, is not something smart or vital to a company.  Management is
the VIRUS of a company, and is always making things more difficult and
less efficient, and eventually destroys the company.

Of COURSE they are never going to lay themselves off.  No virus destroys
itself.

In wwa.support Max Kohn <mik@wwa.com> wrote:
> On 13 Sep 1998, JJ wrote:

>> Date: 13 Sep 1998 16:38:06 GMT
>> From: JJ <jjacobus@ponyx.com>
>> Newsgroups: wwa.support, wwa.general, wwa.announce, wwa.www, chi.internet
>> Subject: Re: Verio Chicago downsizes technical staff [feel the love]
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> rivet <root@verio.net> wrote in article <35fbecd5.3924372@news.wwa.com>...
>> > On 13 Sep 1998 15:15:03 GMT, "JJ" <jjacobus@ponyx.com> wrote:
>> > 
>> > >From what I I've been able to gather here is the casualty list:
>> > >
>> > >	Jackson Brunsting
>> > >	Dan Cross
>> > >	Kevin Hill
>> > >	Rich Nuttle
>> > >	David Ressman
>> > >	William Rockwood
>> > >	Eric Seale
>> > >	Kim Scarborough
>> > >
>> > >There are a couple more high-profile resignations to come.
>> > 
>> > it was really cute when one of people mentioned above asked for ten
>> > dollars so he could take his belongings home in a cab and some
>> > asshole replied, "well we really didn't budget for that."
>> > 
>> > i would have given him money myself but my wallet is empty.
>> > 
>> 
>> That's pretty funny. Well, with as much money as Verio is losing, you got
>> to watch every penny.
>> 

> Why would they buy out WWA if they were losing money? Why would a company
> losing money make a purchase of that magnitude?  Doesn't make sense. 

The downsizing was actually to be expected. To make mergers and
acquistions more successful, parent companies will remove redundant
operations. Verio obviously feels that its service staff is being
duplicated by WWA's. I expect that management downsizing will be coming.
If Dave Vrona felt that WWA would be able to keep its individual character
when he sold to Verio, he was quite mistaken.

In article <35FD5BFF.3BB9@bizbox.com>,
Kent Atwater  <above, address, belongs, to, spammer.> wrote:
>> I think that your forgetting that management is the ones making these
>> decisions and they are never going to lay themselves off
>
>How could I forget that after I SAID:
>
>> Seems like downsizing
>> MANAGEMENT is always the smartest move, as they don't do anything that
>> is vital to a company.
>
>Making a decision to lay-off WORKERS who actually keep the company
>running, is not something smart or vital to a company.  Management is
>the VIRUS of a company, and is always making things more difficult and
>less efficient, and eventually destroys the company.
>
>Of COURSE they are never going to lay themselves off.  No virus destroys
>itself.

	Actually, at least one management member is no longer associated
	with us.





						John R. Dennison
						Senior Systems Administrator &
						Security Administrator
						WorldWide Access/Verio Chicago

First off,

Sorry to see y'all go. Hopefully you will all find bigger and better
things...since the demand is there for your talents right now.

That said...I believe when someone was giving me shit a couple
weeks ago (when we had the great SNAFU), I mentioned that
I felt it was the natural result of an acquisition. Verio will
eventually become an AOL type provider, through acquistion.

Why buy WWA? They are buying a customer base and hope
that customer laziness will pervade (similar reason MCI/Sprint/ATT 
used to pay people big bucks to switch over). Once a customer
always a customer until something really brings them to the edge, 
in the long run it is a winner.

Verio is still quite a bit in startup phase and the only way to
generate enough cash for the acquisition is to cut wherever
possible and hope that the cuts don't push too many 
people away, just the demanding ones. 

Given AOLs size, I imagine they are on to something.

-bob

On Mon, 14 Sep 1998 12:44:23 -0500, Max Kohn <mik@wwa.com> wrote:
>Why would they buy out WWA if they were losing money? Why would a company
>losing money make a purchase of that magnitude?  Doesn't make sense. 
>
>     Max Kohn                            http://www.wwa.com/~mik/index.html
>     mik@wwa.com          Memorial Page: http://www.wwa.com/~mik/mem.html
>
>"It never occurs to me that there are things that I can't do."
>--Whoopi Goldberg 
>
>

In article <35fd8f80.1018798@news.wwa.com>, anaconda@STOPSPAM.com (Bob
Kwiatkowski) wrote:

>That said...I believe when someone was giving me shit a couple
>weeks ago (when we had the great SNAFU), I mentioned that
>I felt it was the natural result of an acquisition. Verio will
>eventually become an AOL type provider, through acquistion.
>
>Why buy WWA? They are buying a customer base and hope
>that customer laziness will pervade (similar reason MCI/Sprint/ATT 
>used to pay people big bucks to switch over). Once a customer
>always a customer until something really brings them to the edge, 
>in the long run it is a winner.

I have no idea if anyone in Verio management pays any attention to this
but if they do, let me just say I have no interest in using a service
designed for those that think the Web and the Internet are the same thing.
What I need is Internet access coupled with storage and computing
resoruces. That's access via PPP, storage for mail and other files that
need to be accessible continuously, and computing resources meaning a
shell account. I am frequently in places where my only available way to
WWA is telnet. With a shell account, I can read my mail on the server when
I can't or don't want to POP retrieve it. I am not interested in a content
provider - there's plenty of that out there (I view AOL as a content
provider first and an access provider second). I am not interested in
access only like Earthlink and Worldnet - without shell access, they do
not meet my needs.

The day Verio decides that being another AOL or Earthlink is the way to go
is the day I'm gone and any investment they made in buying me as a
customer will be lost.

-- 
-- Larry Stone --- lstone@wwa.com
   http://www.wwa.com/~lstone/
   Roselle, IL, USA
   I work for United Airlines but never, never speak for them
 

On Mon, 14 Sep 1998 12:44:23 -0500, Max Kohn <mik@wwa.com> wrote:

>On 13 Sep 1998, JJ wrote:
>
>Why would they buy out WWA if they were losing money? Why would a company
>losing money make a purchase of that magnitude?  Doesn't make sense. 
>
>     Max Kohn                            http://www.wwa.com/~mik/index.html
>     mik@wwa.com          Memorial Page: http://www.wwa.com/~mik/mem.html
>
Its the old entepreunerial spirit: loose money on every sale, and make
it up in volume. 

Hey, you don't have to have brains to manage a business, just
dominance. Look at whoever's managing the company you work for.

JR

Bob Kwiatkowski wrote in message <35fd8f80.1018798@news.wwa.com>...
>First off,
>
>Sorry to see y'all go. Hopefully you will all find bigger and better
>things...since the demand is there for your talents right now.
>
>That said...I believe when someone was giving me shit a couple
>weeks ago (when we had the great SNAFU), I mentioned that
>I felt it was the natural result of an acquisition. Verio will
>eventually become an AOL type provider, through acquistion.
>
#1 Sorry if you are referring to me as giving you shit,  I was only
responding to all of the "downer" posts. no one in particular.  The gist of
my follow up post was to quit bitching and/or quit giving them money if you
are un-happy.  I've been with WWA close to four years (maybe more) and I
find it difficult to give up hope.

#2 There is no hope, There is no more WWA, and now I'm going to have to find
a new provider and get everyone I know to start using a new address.  I'm
going to keep this account until the end of the year, and the only way that
I will stick around longer is if I hear an out-pouring of requests from the
remaining staff.  I cannot support a company that reduces its staff when
they are still having troubles supporting their users.  I _can_, and want to
support the remaining staff who have been with us all this time.  If they
ask us to keep from jumping ship then I will, as long as service doesn't go
further down the crapper.

-Ian-