Bonum Certa Men Certa

Sirius ‘Open Source’: Grievance Letters and Complaints About Bullying by Management (2019)

The koala computer: Stress free???



Summary: Over 3 years ago was 'peak bullying' at Sirius ‘Open Source’; technical staff (what's left of it!) was subjected to false accusations by abusive management -- a tradition that would sporadically continue for years to come, as we shall show in weeks to follow

THE messages below are part of a report deposited with the company before my wife and I left for good.



Found below are the complaints from my wife, from another colleague, and also from myself. Those have not been edited; they're the same as they were in early 2019, except redaction of stuff like people's names and clients' names.

This whole subject will be dealt with in much greater depth when we're done with this report (we'll explore this again next month).

This needs to be properly and fully documented because it involves people's lives, individuals' feelings, professional integrity, matters of law/compliance, and ethical breaches. Slack is mentioned in my own message (one of many on this matter), but Slack in general will be covered a lot much later in this series. A shift towards LastPass and Slack signalled the trend wherein Sirius abandons Open Source and adopts proprietary software instead -- a trend that is still ongoing (more and more Open Source is still being abandoned by Sirius).

Below, lacking the full context of the communications, is a response to the Chief Bullies ("accusers"):




To quote what Rianne wrote to the accuser (with redaction):

Hi ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆,

I have read the letter. I will send you the schedule for training dates with ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ as soon as possible.

I just want to make a separate point here. The ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ OpenVPN certificate issue wasn't solely my own fault. I have clearly asked (on the ticket and my handovers) for my colleagues to have a look at it as I don't have experience dealing with VPN certificates. It was being dragged shift after shift only for us all to eventually know that there are only two people who have actual access to do this authority (that is ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ and ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆, who was *holiday*). ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ couldn't take action on this because he was busy with ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆/projects and ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ was on holiday for almost the entire month of ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆. So this is just clearly a misunderstanding. I did what I was supposed to do and could not do anything beyond that.

Regarding the ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ issue:

1. Ticket related to ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ - this is the reason why ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ asked for a refund. It's because we got stuck in handling the issue and I know the reason why. It is because, with all honesty, nobody among us knows about ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ (no actual experience, it's not something we can just look up online, it needs experience) and to be fair we did well on all the rest of the tickets. This is why I'm nowadays trying to learn this thing, just so that next time we will be better equipped. So again, I'm not accepting this as if it's my fault. This is a collaborative job, not to be dealt with by a single person. And I lack ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ experience.

[...]

Therefore, if ever the company wants to sanction me or send me to disciplinary action, the latter incident was the appropriate one, not ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆/⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ and ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆/⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ issues. For me this doesn't make sense.

Hope I explained myself according to facts as I don't want to offend people, more so in the company, Sirius. I have been working in Sirius for six years and I made an error affecting one of the biggest clients... only recently. My first ever mistake as far as I can remember.


Roy and Rianne were not alone. There was an orchestrated witch-hunt which impacted the remaining colleagues, one of whom issued a grievance letter:

Grievance concerning ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆

On ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆, my birthday, I was doing a ticket review and emailed ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ again to ask her if she’d heard back from ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ and ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ about the firewall and cache (Ticket#⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆) Later that day I had a very aggressive, bullying reply from ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ who accused me of not reading her email and implying that I make lots of excuses for not doing so. I have since asked her again to respond but so far she hasn’t done so. As far as I can tell her aggressive response is just deflecting the fact that she hasn’t responded to my repeated request.

Then on the ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ she emailed to ask if I was completing tasks and I emailed back to say I was, but she emailed again and accused me of not responding to a few of her emails and said that it was becoming a problem. I have replied and asked her for a list of her emails that I haven’t replied to but so far she hasn’t provided it. This is why I believe she is picking on me – she has just made this up and uses it to attack me.

She also accused me of not watching the monitoring – I tried to explain how it works but to no avail and said I need to learn how to do it from others. I have asked what I need to learn, but so far there is no response.

She’s sent me several emails concerning my handovers and each time I have modified them according to what she wants, however nothing is good enough and I think she is just using this as a stick to beat me with. One of the changes she wanted was to include everything from the previous handover – initially I objected as I said things would get lost but she was adamant and ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ said to me just copy and paste, which I did. Then a few weeks later she asked me why I was copying the previous handover? This is not allowed now!

She is always putting me down: I did the majority of the work with ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ but she sent us an email saying “If I am honest I cannot blame her decision. Our customer service with ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ has been awful. We have taken too long to respond to tickets and even longer to solve them. This will be investigated and actions will be taken.” I sent her a report about ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ putting the blame mostly onto ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆’s shoulders but this has never been mentioned.

This is the second time ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ has started to pick on me. Last time she told me her and ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ were going on a course to learn how to treat employees with depression. I have asked what she learnt and is putting into practice but to no avail. I find this very upsetting and stressful and this adds to my depression affecting my personal life as well as my work and it is entirely unnecessary. I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect to be able work in a positive encouraging environment free from bullying. I have said several times now that the way to get the best from me is to encourage me and this helps my skills to develop.

What I would like:

1) I would like her to withdraw the written warning she gave me as I think it was very unfair as I was only doing my best for the client and it was only ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ who knew that they had refused caching and the firewall before – how was I to know if it wasn’t on the wiki?

2) I would like her to stop changing the format of the handover all the time as I believe she is just using this to beat me with and put me down

3) I would like a guarantee that she will no longer make things up about me and accuse me of things without basis

4) I would like her to start to encourage us as a team instead of picking us off one by one

5) I would like to work in a positive environment – ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ encourages me a lot and this spurs me on in my work


Roy also expressed concerns, about both moral and technical/legal issues. For instance:

I am deeply concerned, as the employee who has worked the longest in this company (along with ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆), that what we do by outsourcing data is strictly illegal and may be in violation of clients' terms (we can get sued by them if they find out and we probably have a legal obligation to inform them of the breach and reset all the passwords for security reasons).

My key colleagues, one of whom worked in the company even longer than I have, may have left due to this. It's putting great strain on the company, which apparently refuses to listen to people who raise legitimate concerns, based on technical if not legal ground as well.

there's no real intention to move to Open Source like Matrix/Riot, only assurances;


Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Pissing Contests and Pissing Off Everyone
people who came from Microsoft are trying to vex and divide the community
Microsoft Repeats the Mistakes Made by the EPO After We Exposed a Major Microsoft/EPO Scandal 10 Years Ago
That scandal was all over the media, not just in English
 
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day
The Demise of LLMs
We've just checked BetaNews again. They've dropped all the slop and went back to human authors.
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Sonpo Museum of Art and FCEUX
Links for the day
Links 13/07/2025: UnitedHealth's Censorship Campaign, Australia Wary of China
Links for the day
Firing Away With Nonsense
Or fighting fire with fire
Links 13/07/2025: Climate Crisis, GAFAM Poisoning the Water
Links for the day
Turns Out LLMs for Code Don't Save Time and Don't Improve Quality
Neither legal nor useful
The Microsofters Will Have an Obligation to Compensate Us
This story isn't just about Microsoft. It's also about corruption, there are many women victims, there is abject "abuse of process", and many more scandals to be illuminated in years to come.
Reproducing at the EPO Instead of Producing Monopolies for Foreign Monopolies With Their Price-Fixing Cartels
Does the EPO recognise the need of well-educated Europeans to bear kids?
Valnet Inc. Dominates Real (Not LLM Slop) GNU/Linux Coverage in 2025
And likely in prior years, too
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Fund Raiser Goes on
Later this month we'll expose another OSI scandal
EPO Staff Representatives Issue a Warning About Staff's Health and Inadequate Care
Even the EPO's own stakeholders (money sources) are openly protesting against what the EPO became
Links 13/07/2025: Partly Assorted News From Deutsche Welle and CBC
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Board Games and Battle Styles
Gemini Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 12, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 12, 2025
Plunder at the Second-Largest Institution in Europe
cuts, neglect, health problems, even early deaths
Links 12/07/2025: Political Developments, Attack on Opposition, Climate Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: Melodic Musings and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 12/07/2025: Jail in China for Homoerotica, South Korea Discriminates Against Old Workers
Links for the day
If Only Everything Was Rewritten in Rust, We'd Have No More Security Issues?
Nope.
Links 12/07/2025: Birdwatching and Fake/Misleading Wall Street 'Valuation' Figures
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: How to Avoid Writing, Apps for Android
Links for the day
Using SLAPPs to Cover Up Sexual Abuse and Strangulation
The exact same legal team of the Serial Strangler from Microsoft and Garrett already has a history fighting against "metoo"
EPO Staff Committee on Harassment in the Workplace
slides
Adding the Voice of Writers to UK SLAPP Reform
The journey to repair antiquated (monarchy era) laws will likely be long
EPO Takes More Money From Staff for Speculation (Pensions), Actuarial Study Explains the Impact
"The key change in this year’s Actuarial Study, due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the financial study, is a significant increase of the total pension contribution rate of 5.7 percentage points, up to a total of 37.8%. This is driven by an unprecedented decrease in the discount rate of 105 bps down to 2.2%."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 11, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 11, 2025