Heading Down A Bad Path - Systems Administrator Rackspace Technology Employee Review

Management. Not sure where to even start. - Senior Management is addicted to reorganization. Any given organization in the company will be reorganized in 2 years or less, meaning that there are typically multiple simultaneous reorganizations happening at once. No real explanation of why its happening, and they never result in improved efficiency. Of course, during the constant reorganizations, confusion abounds for all other teams in the organization. - For years, Rackers have complained about products getting rolled out without prior training for the support floor. While espousing "Rackers" are the product, those very Rackers that are to be marketed as well-trained specialists are in fact poorly trained, and have to compete with their peers for access to training that is offered. While Rackspace has exploded in size, the quantity of useful training has stayed level, or has even been reduced. Product teams have little to no contact with the Support floor which is tasked with assisting customers with those very products. I've been told to "just figure it out". - Mid-level management is massive. As others have pointed out, for every 2-3 non-manager Rackers, there is 1 manager. This level of management does not seem to be empowered to cause change or improvements. They do, however act as a buffer so that upper-management does not have to deal with the outcomes of their poor decisions that support-rackers deal with on a daily basis. - As if out of a scene from Office Space, manager changes for some teams occur almost monthly with no expectation that any will stick around, making it confusing who to even report to. Each time, a new direction, a new style of management, new requirements, new demands passed through from upper management, and no one in upper management thinks that is a problem. Worse yet, it seems that some managers for front-line support are straight from business school and have little technical understanding of what their subordinates are tasked with doing. "I have faith you'll figure it out" is not a management technique. It's neglect. - Ironically, while management remains 100% staffed in the company, and is allowed to move around quite freely, the support rackers who *ARE* the "Managed" Support that customers interact with daily (the "product" that we're actually selling), are woefully understaffed and underpaid. Employee churn has rapidly increased. As the support ranks get depleted, upper-management has refused to hire replacements for fear of harming quarterly results. Experienced employees are heading to greener pastures with proper leadership and support. While managers move between teams fluidly, non-management rackers must wait 6+ months to move to a new team. So while there are opportunities to move, good luck making it happen.