Hello, this is Ex Guide ACS, from AOL, and let me tell you how aol
routinely treats it's remote staff.

Right around the Christmas / New Years holiday season, I went to sign
onto my AOL account, only to find out that it had been Nuked.  Actually
the acct wasn't totally history (yet), just that it seemed that
TosAdvisor reset all my passwords.  AOL can do that, if they think your
account is compromised, or if they want to play god with you, they will
change your passwords so you cannot get onto your acct.

Wanting to sign on to check my mail, I call the 'secret number' <koff>,
that remote staff have, actually it's the Tos Monitoring Desk usually.
I give them my personal info, bla bla, and ask why I can't sign onto my
account.  They clam RIGHT UP.  Umm I can't divulge that info over the
phone.  Ok, what CAN you divulge, .. nothing, you have to talk to your
inhouse supervisor.  (That is a joke in itself there, ya see, Inhouse
refers to those people who actually work 'At AOL', and being that they
work 'IN' - house, naturally .. they think they are gods gift to
chirping modems and humanity in general.  Given this pompus attitude of
great self import, "WE" the lowly remote staff, since we don't work
'IN-house' are referred to as 'OUT-house').  No im not getting stuffy
over it, in fact I kind of find it humorous, but state this just to give
you a sample of the attitudes many remote staff have to put up with at
AOL.

After a few days of calling them and trying to get this mess sorted out,
I have heard the following excuses.

You have a problem with your credit card, that's why the account was
cancelled..... excuse me??  I am on an overhead account, or 'community
leader' account as they now call it.  YOU foot the bill.

A hacker got into your account and caused trouble which is why we
changed all your passwords... Ok, what did they do, exactly WHAT did
this hacker do to get my account canned.  I want to know (I feel it is
my right to know, if they sent out child porn or threatened to kill the
president or something of that nature on MY access, I need to be
notified.  Not only for my personal reasons but possible legal reasons
as well.)  Reason I bring this up is this HAS happened before, not to me
but other remote staff who had their accts compromised.

Again, they refuse to tell me a thing,.... I can't divulge that info,
talk to your supervisor bla bla woof.

Well, after about 2 to 3 days, guess what,  my account now is totally
*poof*, not just passwords changed so they can read my mail at will
without me knowing it if they choose to do so.  (of course they'd never
do anything like that right???), but it's totally gone now.

I call once again, and hear, well, everyone is on vacation for the
holidays now who can handle your account.  We sent E mail to your
supervisor and the 'In-house' person who handles this stuff.  Give it
about a week, if you dont hear back or get a phone call, call us again
and we will send more E mail to them.  (How's this for efficiency).

During the 3 years that I have been a Guide for aol, I have made many
friends there, both In-house, and Out-house.  Ok, now I am shaking the
grape vine to see what rotten raisins fall out.  It seems that in the
sweep that hit me, at least 4 guides got canned, and nobody knows a
thing about why, they just disappeared.

This is very standard practice for AOL, to just 'make people disappear'
that they don't like.  You see, if you don't kiss ass, and put on the
rose colored glasses and bow down every day and tell AOL's management
they are so wonderful, and are doing such a great job, you are frowned
upon, and eventually canned.

The Guides have a message board they can post info to, whether it be
Official stuff, job related, or just funnies.  Well our illustrious
leadership have quite the Neo Nazi regime there of who can say what and
who can't on the boards.  They will pull messages in a heart beat if
said messages even hint at grumbling about another mismanagement
bumbling that AOL has done.

A certain guide got fired ohh about a year ago, the rest of the guides
wanted to know why / what happened. and we were directed from in-house.
that.  This is NOT a TOPIC, there will be NO more talk about this
incident period, any further postings on this topic will be removed and
the poster disciplined.

Another such incident, there was an alleged hacker who went by the name
of BoB DoLE or some such permutation of that naming, and would routinely
post info on the boards telling management how screwed up they were, and
that they are destroying the guide program.  Basically echoing many of
the guides sentiments.  This Bob Dole would also point out to them
bluntly where they messed up, and all the security leaks that AOL's
airtight security has.  But the thing that twisted AOL so bad was,
routinely Bob would post with replies, and answer's to questions that
were asked of management WEEKS ago, but they decided not to answer.
Again, shore nuff, BOB DOLE is NOT a topic, there will be NO more talk
of this person, disciplinary action, etc etc etc.   As they wipe the
flying spittle from their lips with a crumpled up copy of the first
ammendment.

Now it seems that anytime someone posts a writing that dares to question
anything, it gets pulled, and they are told, non compliance with the
rules is a no no.

Some people have very important questions they want to ask of their
management.  Some people have asked and waited for WEEKS, and get
absolutely NO reply from management, yet the moment they start to bitch
about it, they are in trouble.

The Guide program has went through numerous changes, re organizations,
what EVER they want to call it this week.  A few special individuals
were selected out of the good ole boys network and told they are 'in
charge' of whatever they happened to get put into.  Don't get me wrong,
there are a few guides who bust their asses for AOL and do an
outstanding job in their supervisory positions but for the most part,
it's the back scratching network who is in there.  (or is that back
stabbing network).  The Guide programs 'inhouse' manager has changed
more times than a politicians promises.  To me it seems that AOL really
doesn't care about the guide program, yeah they'll throw a 'manager' our
way here and there, but this person, generally is someone who has so
much other work and projects to do, that the guide program is something
they get around to looking at, if they have a chance in their off time,
and more than one has been 'removed' from that position for 'you have no
need to know' reasons.

Other things that have happened.

Guides and other Remote staff areas were promised this 'wonderful'
compensation program for all the work we do for AOL.  When they footed
the bill at $2.95/hr that was compensation enough, but when AOL went
unlimited, many people especially the guides said, Hey, we put up with a
ton of crap, and not only do we get it from the customers because they
are not happy with your newest interpretation of whatever rule you
changed now, but we get it from within as well.  This abuse is NOT worth
20 bucks a month.  Now before we go off on a tangent here, many of the
guides volunteered because they like to help people and want to make a
difference, but over the years AOL has quickly snuffed out those
idealisms, this "where is MY compensation attitude really didn't surface
until after AOL listening to their bean counters, decided to take away
the 800 number that it's remote staff can call in on.  So now we had
people who were making toll calls just to do their job.  Back to the
subject.... this compensation program never happened.  Hell, there are
still some who are waiting for their free T-shirts and coffee mugs they
were promised a few years ago <g>.

As it stands right now, IMHO, the Guide program is in sad shape.  For
the most part, the guides who were good at what they did, got disgusted
and left, or were summarily fired because they dared to speak out and
tell management they were making a mistake.  Right now, there are not
many guides left period.  Sure AOL is 'hiring' new guides, but the
training has been shifted dramatically, although I do understand the
'scope' of what a guide has to do has changed, there are some things
which do not, and AOL it seems, have gone into a mass production
scheme.  Dont worry about the quality, I want quantity,  guides! guides!
we need more guides.  Of course anyone involved with this will
caustically deny this accusation.

Funny though, how AOL, whether it wants to admit or not, is destroying
the guide program, and that program, is the one thing that brought so
many people to AOL. Because they knew that help was just a click away
and a live person would come to assist them, no matter if it was a
problem with another member, or just a question on, how do I get this to
do that?  Now.. they are pretty much on their own.

When I did Guide for them, I was a Shift Coordinator for a while, part
of my job as SC was to receive the pagers people sent in, look at them,
and if it was a question, send e mail back with a reply, if it was a
problem in a room, send in another guide when they were free from their
last room.  Many times the pager would go down / or mail would dump
(imagine that), and we'd have to revert to IM's to try to do our job.
There were times when we were, and still are told, ignore pagers unless
they are to a Kids room.  Tell the member to write to the TOS dept.
Many shifts when mail was working, I received well over 1500 pagers to
try to handle in a 3 hour period.  There have been some changes to ease
the workload but as you can see, it still can get very hectic.

So basically, what it all boils down to, management could care less
about us, they constantly lie to us, we can't get the tools working
properly for us to do our jobs, when we ask a question, it goes
unanswered, if we speak louder, we are told to shut up.

AOL only cares about one thing if you want my opinion.... MONEY... keep
it rolling in no matter what.  I predict that when the cash cow finally
starts drying out, because members finally realize that there is a big
internet world out there that's next to impossible to get into using
AOL, and decide to leave AOL and go with a REAL isp that's reliable...
that the folks up top, will take their millions and run, and leave the
rest to continue rotting from the infrastructure on out.

In closing, I have two questions I'd like answered.

#1  hey AOL.... why did Guide ACS's account get closed out, are you
going to give me a real reason or are you still too spineless to stand
behind your actions.

hackers.  yeah right....  Ok, lets talk bout hacks.

question

#2  hey AOL, how many people have you fired who worked 'inhouse' or in
your call centers, because they were hacking, giving out info that they
should not have, scamming etc.

we don't hear about that stuff do we???

AOL. you can fire me without a word, but you will NOT shut me up, or get
rid of me that easily.  Ya see, Im like herpes,  Ill be around till you
die.

Aaron Scholten
ex ARNOA
ex Guide ACS
ex Alterious
ex thenlsaid
ex termasnert

===========================================================

To whomever it may concern, you have my permission to post this letter
to newsgroups or on your page as you see fit.. If you decide to edit it,
the original intent must remain clear. (ie dont add shit I never said :)

If aol gives you any crap over it, I want to know.