Alright, so it was a personal one:
(other than mine, all last names of NSI personnel were removed)

First of all, I am an employee at WorldCom in Hilliard, OH.

Mr. Sidgmore, I (Daniel Spires) have always been one to put my 2 cents in, be it with local media groups, or even the president to the United States. Upon occasion. I have had to pay a steep price for sounding off, but today is really no different from yesterday -- except that I’ll probably never hear the end of this one.

The beginning of April, my department, Network Software Implementation (NSI), lost 2 persons, Ken and John. They had been under my training for the past 2 years, compiling software for legacy CompuServe nodes, and losing them meant that I would have to take up the slack, virtually tripling my workload.

Last week, we lost 3. Stacy and Rocky have taken up the slack for the loss of Jeff. Mike and Ed have taken up the slack for the loss of Carolyn. My immediate supervisor, Dana, and I have taken up the slack for the loss of Lori, another I had trained.

According to Mike, the head guy here at NSI, the only reason we lost anyone at all was because of where the department stands in the company hierarchy. What we actually do was never considered -- but what we do is paramount to WorldCom success. We, the names listed above, are the ones who keep the network path open and running. We build the software for the hub nodes, for the TR nodes, for the X.25 nodes, for the MNPADs. We build the Host Names that connect the world. We run the CHAP and AAA Radius databases. We are the ones who connect the customer and make his initial experience with WorldCom a happy one. We are the ones who stop the hackers. We are the ones who press for improved customer connectivity.

My question is not one of “why?”, but rather “can we?”. Hierarchy be damned, can we just get these people back? NSI is the heart and soul of the legacy network, and we are currently limping -- poorly. This week, I am on vacation (my first this year), so I’ll likely miss the live interview -- but my vacation means Dana takes in more work, and install orders have to be pushed out a week, possibly more, and explanations need to be passed on to the customer as to why there is a delay in the first place. And next week is Dana’s vacation, and I get to be buried under the mess.

We have never had to do this before, and we don’t like it one bit -- almost as much as the customers don’t like it.

I know you’ve a lot on your mind these days, but I’m not searching for some “feel good” political answer. What we need is our people back, and any assistance would be considered a true godsend. Maybe if there was just the slightest glimmer of light at the end of this tunnel...

I’ve been with the company, by way of the CompuServe merger, for some time now, and I know the company will right itself. Cleaning house is always a good thing, and I know that what this company has to offer, no other company can come close to emulating. We are the internet, we are corporate networks, and we are extremely customer-conscious -- which is what really prompts my writing today.

Cheers to you and yours,
Daniel Spires
WorldCom
NSI Software Translations

“History is an imperfect record, at best an approximation skewed by transient passions and by the eccentric spin of competing events. Some things small receive disproportionate attention. Some things great are lost forever.”
-- Howard Mansfield