Contracts are sold to support shifts that are not staffed (nights and weekends). Normally, only a priority 1 (network down) or priority 2 (network severely impacted) call would get attention after hours by the on-call engineers. However, contracts are being sold that stipulate that all tickets turned in by specific customers are no less than a priority 2.
On-call rotation is determined by technology (example, data center, networking, voice) and the rotation frequency is determined by the number of engineers on that team. This can mean that once every 3 weeks the engineer must work 60 hours or more, depending on the number of after hours tickets turned in by customers. Engineers on the Managed Services team are expected to work all hours with no financial compensation. Engineers are expected to work on-call along with their regular work week to the excess of 60 hours or more in order to support the after hours contracts sold. They are forbidden from being away from their laptop when on-call, even though they are not paid for it. Engineers may get comp time for the additional hours worked, but they are either burned out already or burning out.
Morale is low. Many engineers have abandoned the ship already. Most of the vacant engineering seats are not filled when the engineers leave, thus burdening the remaining engineers and adding more revenue back into the bonus structure for those above. All of those that remain have resumes out and are actively looking for other jobs. Managed Services is a revolving door, with layoffs and staff quitting or moving out of the Managed Services department.
Despite the changes in technology and despite the sales team selling Managed Services contracts for newer technology, Managed Services leadership refuses to provide training for any of the Managed Services engineers. Thus, the engineers must either pay for their own training or risk their skills becoming stale and obsolete. One would think that a top Cisco Partner would be on top of the technology game, as INX was. But Presidio sees training as a financial burden on revenue rather than a necessary reinvestment into the company and it's reputation.
