TalkTalk-Tiscali merger proves fraught Tiscali staff have turned to their lawyers after managers from TalkTalk arrived wielding the axe. Tiscali became part of the Carphone Warehouse group back in May, but the expected cuts only began this month. With very little warning, a human resources team put most if not all of Tiscali's technical managers at risk of …
Anyone not forsee this happening?
And, how the f+++ did the Tiscali staff get to talk to junior managment, if you try ringing the TalkTalk customer service department, firstly you're lucky if you can speak to someone who actually speaks English,and that's if they understand it to start with, and secondly, I would love to be able to talk with one of TalkTalk managers, even a junior one, if they even exist, which I'm not sure they do.
As for TalkTalk technical managers, we've seen a few of their replies in some of the comments in the reports they answer to. Personally, I believe manager would be the wrong word, possibly, coper would be better, and that's if they've got their carer with them.
... I for one welcome your new bean-counting sales-obsessed overlords.
Having worked for TalkTalk for more years than can possibly have left me sane, I can attest that this is indeed normal working company policy.
They take mushroom management to the extremes, and use divide and conquer tactics against most of their staff, but no company I have ever worked for seems to have less regard for its technical staff.
After all, if you're not directly selling to a customer, what use are you?
As a Tiscali TV customer (previously a HomeChoice customer until Tiscali bought them), I find it hard to believe that Tiscali had 26 technical managers, since it was always impossible to get to talk to a manager when dealing with their technical people, who were generally hopeless and usually resorted to lying rather than actually solving any problems.
Fail - just like Tiscali's technical staff.
Yes, well, if you get taken over by a company with a certain reputation for ruthlessness and which is intending a stockmarket float in six months, this shouldn't really come as a surprise. That doesn't make it any less unpleasant if it happens to you, of course.
As to whether it is a smart move from management, I am personally a Tiscali customer. I have found their service to be pretty much fine, and I like the fact that when they say "unlimited" they seem to mean it. (They claim to throttle the peak hours speed of heavy users, but that's okay. I restrict my heavy use to other times). I am well out of contract. If the quality of service drops or if Talktalk try to impose a download cap like they have for their own customers, I am gone in a flash. If this does happen, it will be a clear indication that this was not a smart move from management.
Having worked at Tiscali, although not for a while now ( the twitch in my left eye from just thinking about the place has finally faded ), a lot of the Milton Keynes & London tech staffers are good guys who work hard, care about what they do and the service customers get. Recruitment consultants and rivals with half a brain should be all over them.
The Tiscali board and upper management of the company deserve your anger however. Every day was like an episode of the Rise and Fall of Reggie Perrin, with some fresh hell to deal with.
Heres hoping the CEO and her little pals go to the chopping block as well, however unfortunately these are usually the people who disappear back under the floorboards with big cheques only to pop up twice as useless and bold as brass, to do the same to some other bunch of unfortunates.
...when they say 'manager' they actually mean a 3rd/4th line technical specialist (promoted to management grade because they have nowhere else to go) with years of specialised experience that goes back to the founding of Tiscali, not some generic paper-pushing clerical manager-type.
Tiscali's been top-heavy with those guys for years now, and they've kept their places due to their obscure knowledge of the in's and out's of the Tiscali network, but now since the merger we'll be migrating onto Talk-Talk's network, not keeping our own, and therefore all of a sudden their formerly cosy positions are 'at risk'.
No real surprise, and it won't affect any of the guys on the ground except perhaps our NOC teams since Talk-Talk already have a working NOC.
Anon because I work there. Obviously.
Been there... Suffered about 18 months of redundancy from Pipex/Tiscali fuster-cluck (do your own syllable-swap there).
There's a lot of people there who will have been doing their best for myriad of punters for years (after various acquisitions) and they'll be alright for a while but for the upper-levels of management, who 're-aligned' the workforce out to India/Manilla and who are now having the speak to HR drones like everyone else did, no sympathy...
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