Bonum Certa Men Certa

Sirius Open Source: Buy Your Own Desk, Bring/Buy Your Own Device (BYOD), Repair and Maintain Your Computer at Your Own Expense and Time

Desk for Sirius? Who owns what?

Sirius Open Source desk



Summary: The previous part in the Sirius ‘Open Source’ series showed the financial issues at Sirius; to make matters worse, the company does not provide any means for work to its NOC staff (except an ancient Cisco phone, about 20 years old and bought second hand through eBay)

THE articles that we published about the EPO showed that as horrible and autocratic António Campinos has been, at least the Office chipped in and covered expenses for home working, such as ergonomic chairs. At Sirius, however, the company pays for nothing of that sort. Not for desk, chair, computer, and so on. Workers are on their own; technical problems with a work device? That's your problem. That's your device. The company won't cover it. Then they impose bloatware on staff -- software that ordinary machines cannot run (yes, staff did complain; it was a common problem) or can barely run. Does the company help procure suitable hardware? No. Was it asked about it? Yes.



Here is an internal report circulated in the company earlier this month (a day prior to departure):


Remote Workers' Procurement and Other Costs



Equipping staff with suitable assets is a basic, very basic, requirement. Roy has covered the legal aspects of that for many years in his Web sites. In Sirius, the company failed to equip home workers ("work-from-home" staff) with any computers or chairs or anything required to do the work. The managers expect staff to pay for purchasing and maintenance of all work equipment at their own expense in their own time. There's no IT department to help with computer issues or even issue a replacement.

To make matters worse, bloated software which requires very powerful and expensive computers was introduced some years ago. Roy and colleagues also complained about this bloat, but that fell on deaf ears (Roy internally suggested the company can purchase suitable equipment or cover the costs of that). That's aside from the very low (by market standards) salary, adding further burden. More on financial aspects shall be discussed later.

In recent months workers began observing that Sirius had customers with no way to access their systems. So how are workers supposed to deal with tickets they receive? There was expectation of dealing with queries by using "Google" to throw some answer at a client (as if the client cannot access Google), otherwise find an associate or escalate. It was starting to get hard to even tell apart clients and non-clients, as documentation was scarce and outdated to the point where clients were vaguely described and their status was unclear. Sentences like "Google is your friend" were said inside the company (Google is surveillance, it's not a friend) and our skillset ought not rely on using search engines, following a textual script (like clerical staff in a call centre), or mere escalation to some other company. As noted before, many associates are at best loosely connected to the company and are in effect third parties.

About a year ago Roy faced disciplinary action over something unjust (to him). Instead of an independent, impartial tribunal acting as arbitrator it was likely the culprits judging the incident, then resorting to cover-up/distortion over the sequence of events to pass to the blame to 'low-level' staff. This started to become a typical modus operandi, which dated back several years, as a later section will explain in detail.

These issues turned out to be more widespread as staff managed to communicate with one another. For instance, lots of people were having phone issues. The company did not admit this; individual people reported it, then there was blaming of the people unable to use a defective "service" that keeps changing and breaking things that previously worked. Instead of admitting this migration was a mistake and acknowledging prior warning were given, there was only further entrenchment. More details will be given in the last section.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Why We Publish Information About the SLAPPs (But Not About the Legal Process), an Abuse of Process by Americans Trying to Silence Critics of Their Employer, Microsoft
It doesn't take thousands of pages to explain something simple
 
Links 02/09/2025: Attacks on Unions, Microsoft TCO, and DDoSing a Growing Problem
Links for the day
Internet Relay Chat Didn't Fall Off a Cliff
IRC will turn 40 in less than 3 years from now
The UEFI 9/11 - Part V - This is Not a Drill (Disable "SecureBoot" Now)
A "9/11" Coming
There's No Obligation to Speak to Anybody
The very fact that "bkuhn" is till spending time in social control media says a lot about his poor judgment
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 01, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 01, 2025
The Register MS Says "AI Web Crawlers Are Destroying Websites", So Why Does The Register MS Help 'AI' Companies? (Spoiler: Money)
People need to call out The Register MS on its hypocrisy
Microsoft Trying to Force People to Resign (Amid Mass Layoffs) a Strategy That Takes Its Toll
Microsoft seems to be circling down the drain and the "final flush" will be the moment the "hey hi" (AI) bubble implodes completely
Google Simply Cannot Be Trusted
Only fools would trust GAFAM
Admission That a Third Party (or Parties) Funds the SLAPPs Against Techrights
This can end up costing them over a million dollars
Modifying and Writing One's Own Computer Programs is Not a Crime (or: Google Proves That Stallman Was Right)
We're generally gratified to see so many positive mentions of him
Why We Stopped Publishing Videos (for Now)
We'll probably get back to videos one day, but it's hard to say when or to what extent
What Animal Rights Activism Teaches Us About Sympathy and Focus
It's possible to believe that the planet is warming, that we must do something about it, and still eat eggs and butter
When You Turn Web Sites About Tech Into Political Sites
A lot of people fall into the trap of catering only for particular groups
Gemini Links 02/09/2025: ROOPHLOCH 2025 and Lagrange 1.19 Released
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: News Corp. WSJ and A Month With NixOS
Links for the day
Slopfarms Already Peaked, They Will Die When Slop Companies Run Out of Money to Borrow
slopfarms will lack an actual "engine"
“Sideloading” Never Killed Anybody
There are many online discussions this week about the misnomer "sideloading"
Slopwatch: Google News as FUD Vector Against Linux and Plagiarism Enhancer, Serial Slopper (SS) Uses LLMs to Googlebomb "Linux"
Slop destroys the Web not just by screwing with search engines and helping plagiarists. It's also responsible for de facto DDoS attacks...
Links 01/09/2025: "Attacks on Science" and China's "Soft Power" Grows
Links for the day
Links 01/09/2025: Fresh Backlash Against Slop and "Norway’s Electricity Crisis is About to Hit Britain"
Links for the day
Writing and Coding Isn't Always Enough
Last year we had to assume a role we didn't have before: litigants
Links 01/09/2025: Catching Up (Mostly via Deutsche Welle), "Windows TCO" Effect in UK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: Linguistic Barriers and "Web 1.0 Hosting"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 31, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 31, 2025
Autumn Has Come
Autumn should be exciting in all sorts of ways; it'll also mark our anniversary
The UEFI 9/11 - Part IV - External Interference
They all seem to be playing a role in crushing Software Freedom and self-determination for users
Links 31/08/2025: Baggage Claim Scams, an Insurrectionist’s War on Culture, and a Sudden Robotics Hype
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/08/2025: Reviewing Netsurf and Slightly Less Historic Ada Design
Links for the day
IBM Has Taken Control of GNOME
Don't expect a successor to be found any time soon
Links 31/08/2025: Google Gmail Data Breach and LF Puff Pieces for Pay
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 30, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 30, 2025
This is What Google News Has Become
Moments ago