Things reached a breaking point today with the whole "fire a mod" thing, and I'm done playing. I'm packing up my toys, and I'm going home. Literally. I'm packing my desk, and going home. Enough of this BS.
I had given my unlisted phone number to the moderators over Christmas for emergency contact purposes, and one of them thought it would be funny to start subscribing me to paid SMS services and other subscription phone call services like surveys or some crap. Of course, none of them had the spine to give me *their* phone numbers for contact purposes, so it's not like I can call each of them to find out who it was. I have a suspicion it was Cenere or Zophia in Europe because the calls are coming really late at night -- apparently AG needs better screening on the maturity level of its moderators. Like I don't get enough sleep at night already with a newborn...
This thing is obviously way out of hand. What started as a means to diplomacy and to give the other mods a much needed kick in the arse ended up causing all kinds of spam, enraged users, actual hate mail, and now late-night phone surveys waking up my entire family.
Another survey call just came in on my cell phone this afternoon, and I flew into a rage, telling Dan, Justin and John that we need to just wipe the entire moderator panel because they're obviously not mature enough to handle the job. We all argued, they told me I had power issues, and had the audacity to tell me that *I* was the one that started all of this, and that being a self-appointed community manager wasn't even in my job description, so why the hell was I so upset, blah blah blah.
So I'm done. I handed in my resignation at Armor Games effective immediately. I'd draw some fancy "middle finger" ascii art in retaliation, but I haven't even got the energy for that, and they're all expecting me to leave...
I expect they'll try to lock me out of the site by disabling my account, which frankly they have every right to do, but hopefully they'll at least have the decency to leave my resignation note up for a while so some of you can at least see that I'm quitting.
Thankfully I have a few alternate accounts kicking around that were used for testing stuff on the site, so I may drop in from time to time just to harass the moderators enough to piss them off and ban each account one by one. Maybe giving *them* a few sleepless nights will teach them a lesson.
cormyn@cormyn.com for those that want to keep in touch.
Sorry man, that's not good. Please don't leave the AG team, it seems like you've really done a lot for this site, and AG needs you. Now, I may not have had very much experience on this site, but I have done through all of the mods profiles, as well as the administrators, because I wanted to see who seemed capable and who didn't. So please, don't leave. I understand what you are going through, because, well, I'm 2014631. The immaturity of the moderators got my account banned after I had swept the ranks up to number 5 within a number of months! Now I know the moderators will delete this account and ban me, but I just wanted to get that out there. I will try to keep in touch with the entire Administration team. I even sent an email to Danielmcneely once explaining why I thought that he needed to re - make the entire moderating team. I think they are an immature bunch of adults that need to learn some things about common decency. Now I know that there's some exceptions to this, but it's downright ridiculous. Sincerely, Daniel.
We've prided ourselves over the years on hiring the best of the best and having a family environment in the office. We've been generous with team outings and events to foster a respectful relationship between each employee on our small team.
Over the past few months, Ian has on several occasions exhibited behavior outside of what we'd consider "family friendly" within the office, like shooting airsoft pellets at one of my monitors, damaging it, while I was working at my desk. Or hoarding Dr Pepper at his own desk. Not to mention his recent actions within the forums with our respected Moderator team or the violent outbursts at work this afternoon.
We've dismissed Ian from his employment with the company, effective immediately, despite his claim of resigning. He clearly has some deep-seated personal issues to work on, and while we wish him the best of luck, we will be locking down his accounts immediately.
Ian did his best to downplay the "fire a mod" thread to the rest of the employees of the company, and went on this path without an okay from myself or Dan. Our Moderators are of course unpaid volunteers, so "firing" them makes no sense whatsoever. Those users who 'voted' will not be punished in any way, and we've sent Emails to each of the moderators assuring them that their role with Armor Games is secure and that we're happy to have them on the team.