FYI: Regarding recent staff changes

[Whispering Embers]

Cedarbox

Pana's journal is laced with undertones of bitterness for Gaia's staff and hints that he's mad at particular people. I wonder just who those people are.

Pixitella

• I dont get it. I seem unable to connect laying these amazing individuals off to making Gaia continue to be a vibrant and vital community~ These people were one of those that made Gaia a vibrant and vital community- without them, I only see negative futures for Gaia. It's really so upsetting.

I can only assume that they've been edged aside bit by bit over the past few years. Gaia's been losing its soul and it was probably related to them.

I wouldn't be surprised if staff rolls out some insane cash grab soon.

Could you give me link to the journal?

[Debit Card]

Whispering Embers

Cedarbox

Pana's journal is laced with undertones of bitterness for Gaia's staff and hints that he's mad at particular people. I wonder just who those people are.

Pixitella

• I dont get it. I seem unable to connect laying these amazing individuals off to making Gaia continue to be a vibrant and vital community~ These people were one of those that made Gaia a vibrant and vital community- without them, I only see negative futures for Gaia. It's really so upsetting.

I can only assume that they've been edged aside bit by bit over the past few years. Gaia's been losing its soul and it was probably related to them.

I wouldn't be surprised if staff rolls out some insane cash grab soon.

Could you give me link to the journal?

Here. I'm warning you, though -- it'll make you cry. And some of those comments people have been leaving also. crying I had to stop reading; couldn't handle it.

[Whispering Embers]

Izzy Said Rawr

Good bye and good luck. Love gaian's and Staff. You will always be loved and remembered.
I wish you the best of luck with the next steps that happen in your life. And Hope you all make it to better places in your careers.


Edit -
I wonder will there be any attempts by gaia to actually say who has been let go. And let them have site recognition to all the effort and time they have put into this site? Because not everyone knows but everyone should. If there isn't then thats an insult to the users that love and to them in themselves. Their should really be a formal notice telling us this.

I agree
A dedication page must be made

[Sil is Silly]

Zamio

Sil is Silly

I just feel it would have been proper if our CEO would at least have bothered to leave a message about this, even if it's just a single, short one and the answers would still have to come from you. It was sudden, far too sudden, really. Not surprising that it's worrying to us Gaians as a whole.

I feel that his lack of communication can mean only two things, really. Either he does not care, or he does not understand how Gaia's community, the whole big Gaian family works.

I think it's because he doesn't think we're worth talking to -- at least not about anything meaningful. It would be a waste of time when his primary interest is in how he can squeeze money out of us. Do you honestly think a middle-aged businessman/CEO whose only association with Gaiaonline involves turning a profit from it is going to have any emotional investment in the users of this site whatsoever? I think people are dreaming if they think he cares. The way he conducted those layoffs speaks volumes as far as I'm concerned.

I suspect you're right there. However, business or not, personal emotional investment or not, if you don't understand your customers, or can be bothered to care to understand them, you're going to fail in turning a profit at one point or another.

At least, as far as I know, upsetting and even chasing away customers isn't, generally speaking, a good way to make a profit. Sure, it may only be a small fragment of the users, but how many truly new users does Gaia get that stick around and donate to replace the users he chases away?

If I'd have to venture a guess... very few. Most new accounts aren't new people, after all, as far as I know. Mules, people returning after quitting or taking a break and people having for one reason or another losing access to their account.

Gaia's been around for ten years now. Except for those people who only just turned old enough to register, I think almost anyone who's interested in avatar communities knows of Gaia and has been there at some point. Not like it's a brand new, unknown site or "product".

No, as far as I can tell, it's not a good idea to chase people away, when the majority of your actually new members are going to be thirteen year olds without the funds to donate.

But then again, if he's not willing to try to understand us, he wouldn't know that, would he? -sighs-

[Voat]

Zamio

Sil is Silly

I just feel it would have been proper if our CEO would at least have bothered to leave a message about this, even if it's just a single, short one and the answers would still have to come from you. It was sudden, far too sudden, really. Not surprising that it's worrying to us Gaians as a whole.

I feel that his lack of communication can mean only two things, really. Either he does not care, or he does not understand how Gaia's community, the whole big Gaian family works.

I think it's because he doesn't think we're worth talking to -- at least not about anything meaningful. It would be a waste of time when his primary interest is in how he can squeeze money out of us. Do you honestly think a middle-aged businessman/CEO whose only association with Gaiaonline involves turning a profit from it is going to have any emotional investment in the users of this site whatsoever? I think people are dreaming if they think he cares. The way he conducted those layoffs speaks volumes as far as I'm concerned.

I'm gonna play devils advocate and say that at this time it would be unwise for him to say anything to users or to make himself accessible to our verbal abuse. Why? You can't put yourself in a swarm of angry bees and expect the bees to listen to you. People are going to bite his head off the moment he pokes his head in the forums. Sure there are adults around who just want mature conversation, but most people on Gaia are still immature and juvenile and will pretty much shoot him up with words as a way to vent against the budgeting decisions that resulted in job cuts. Gaia staff have said enough about the situation. Any more words from CEO Gary will just shake the nest of bees who are simply angry that well-known staff like JK and Pan were let go instead of other lesser known staff.

Personally I would not want Gary's initial experiences with Gaia users to be one of disdain and villainy. If mister CEO Gary wasn't the one to cut jobs, it would've been another CEO who would've done the same thing to keep Gaiaonline's budget troubles in line.

Lanzer

The downsizing which happened last week was an unfortunate necessity of needing to balance our budget. Our new CEO Gary had a tough decision to make - he had to decide how many staff members we can afford to retain given the amount of revenue Gaia makes.

Regardless of who they hired as CEO, the board of directors at Gaia (which include people like Lanzer) expected the CEO to give them recommendations for how many jobs could be retained, aka because of the $ituation they expected jobs to get cut. Unfortunately they cut off the dead limb that encompassed the HoC team (probably due to HoC not doing as well as expected), which included jobs given to awesome people like Pan.

If Gaia (and the board) really wanted to keep Pan/JK, they could've done so by sacrificing other jobs at Gaia to keep these two on the team. But they didn't. And frankly devs cost more than artists or customer service, so if they hadn't cut Pan and JK, they probably would've had to cut 3-4 other employees we like instead. So don't put the entire blame on 1 guy. He can't just layoff whoever he wants - he has to report to the board with his decisions first. And keep in mind that layoffs were expected. He doesn't have to answer to us, and he shouldn't have to either, because we're not his problem, Gaia's dismal shape is his problem.

If there is anyone to blame for the layoffs and this whole situation it would be the snowball of bad decisions that resulted in the support to create a game like HoC on facebook - which was 0% CEO Gary's fault because he wasn't even at Gaia when those decisions were made. Frankly though looking for someone to blame for the layoffs is childish because no one expected the FB social gaming market to get that much competition from mobile gaming. Gaia made a bad investment, and they had to pay for it with lost jobs. It is GaiaInteractive the company's fault why these layoffs had to happen, not Gary's. And we've already gotten our answers from Gaia and their staff.

[Nyadriel]

Just to note to all you people who think the new guy, B-Skie, has not posted yet

He did indeed posted twice. He did so in the sticky thread, "Just wanted you all to know about some changes in management" here in the GCD.
Fourth post on page 4 and second post page 5

[leaf]

I'm very sad to see these staff members let go and it's sad to see another round of layoffs in general. Wishing them all good luck in their future endeavours. heart

Existential Existence

^ I agree with everything you've said here though.

[Whispering Embers]

Debit Card

Whispering Embers

Cedarbox

Pana's journal is laced with undertones of bitterness for Gaia's staff and hints that he's mad at particular people. I wonder just who those people are.

Pixitella

• I dont get it. I seem unable to connect laying these amazing individuals off to making Gaia continue to be a vibrant and vital community~ These people were one of those that made Gaia a vibrant and vital community- without them, I only see negative futures for Gaia. It's really so upsetting.

I can only assume that they've been edged aside bit by bit over the past few years. Gaia's been losing its soul and it was probably related to them.

I wouldn't be surprised if staff rolls out some insane cash grab soon.

Could you give me link to the journal?

Here. I'm warning you, though -- it'll make you cry. And some of those comments people have been leaving also. crying I had to stop reading; couldn't handle it.

Thanks
That last sentence.....I felt so bad

[Whispering Embers]

Nyadriel

Just to note to all you people who think the new guy, B-Skie, has not posted yet

He did indeed posted twice. He did so in the sticky thread, "Just wanted you all to know about some changes in management" here in the GCD.
Fourth post on page 4 and second post page 5

Thank you for posting this ^ ^
I got to say hello

[Whispering Embers]

Existential Existence

Zamio

Sil is Silly

I just feel it would have been proper if our CEO would at least have bothered to leave a message about this, even if it's just a single, short one and the answers would still have to come from you. It was sudden, far too sudden, really. Not surprising that it's worrying to us Gaians as a whole.

I feel that his lack of communication can mean only two things, really. Either he does not care, or he does not understand how Gaia's community, the whole big Gaian family works.

I think it's because he doesn't think we're worth talking to -- at least not about anything meaningful. It would be a waste of time when his primary interest is in how he can squeeze money out of us. Do you honestly think a middle-aged businessman/CEO whose only association with Gaiaonline involves turning a profit from it is going to have any emotional investment in the users of this site whatsoever? I think people are dreaming if they think he cares. The way he conducted those layoffs speaks volumes as far as I'm concerned.

I'm gonna play devils advocate and say that at this time it would be unwise for him to say anything to users or to make himself accessible to our verbal abuse. Why? You can't put yourself in a swarm of angry bees and expect the bees to listen to you. People are going to bite his head off the moment he pokes his head in the forums. Sure there are adults around who just want mature conversation, but most people on Gaia are still immature and juvenile and will pretty much shoot him up with words as a way to vent against the budgeting decisions that resulted in job cuts. Gaia staff have said enough about the situation. Any more words from CEO Gary will just shake the nest of bees who are simply angry that well-known staff like JK and Pan were let go instead of other lesser known staff.

Personally I would not want Gary's initial experiences with Gaia users to be one of disdain and villainy. If mister CEO Gary wasn't the one to cut jobs, it would've been another CEO who would've done the same thing to keep Gaiaonline's budget troubles in line.

Lanzer

The downsizing which happened last week was an unfortunate necessity of needing to balance our budget. Our new CEO Gary had a tough decision to make - he had to decide how many staff members we can afford to retain given the amount of revenue Gaia makes.

Regardless of who they hired as CEO, the board of directors at Gaia (which include people like Lanzer) expected the CEO to give them recommendations for how many jobs could be retained, aka because of the $ituation they expected jobs to get cut. Unfortunately they cut off the dead limb that encompassed the HoC team (probably due to HoC not doing as well as expected), which included jobs given to awesome people like Pan.

If Gaia (and the board) really wanted to keep Pan/JK, they could've done so by sacrificing other jobs at Gaia to keep these two on the team. But they didn't. And frankly devs cost more than artists or customer service, so if they hadn't cut Pan and JK, they probably would've had to cut 3-4 other employees we like instead. So don't put the entire blame on 1 guy. He can't just layoff whoever he wants - he has to report to the board with his decisions first. And keep in mind that layoffs were expected. He doesn't have to answer to us, and he shouldn't have to either, because we're not his problem, Gaia's dismal shape is his problem.

If there is anyone to blame for the layoffs and this whole situation it would be the snowball of bad decisions that resulted in the support to create a game like HoC on facebook - which was 0% CEO Gary's fault because he wasn't even at Gaia when those decisions were made. Frankly though looking for someone to blame for the layoffs is childish because no one expected the FB social gaming market to get that much competition from mobile gaming. Gaia made a bad investment, and they had to pay for it with lost jobs. It is GaiaInteractive the company's fault why these layoffs had to happen, not Gary's. And we've already gotten our answers from Gaia and their staff.

I wish I could tip you more

[Gamine]

It's really easy to pin the blame on just one person, and it's even easier to paint them as an evil fatcat when that person's job title is CEO, but all this effigy burning is a little bit silly. We seem to go through this song and dance every time Gaia gets a new head honcho. Remember fin? I see people speaking rather fondly of him in here but as I recall he was pretty universally reviled in this forum when he was in charge.

[Princess-Orphelia]

Nyadriel

*giggles hard*
No
America, across the pond from Mother England. Dow Jones is American (where Wall Street is... in New York City). Nekkei is Japanese and I don't remember which is European.
My brain is a little slow this morning as I did not sleep too well last night worrying about the kittens in my back yard. Two litters. One five weeks, other two days.
(it is another reason why I am bitchy of late)

So anyway
Back on topic:
Would be nice to hear something soon as to where we are going now. I mean, where does this guy wanna take it? And does this mean we will be seeing more CS items besides REIs and CIs like we did a couple years ago?
(God, I hope this does not mean more ads on this site. I hate to see this site go the way the other I frequent went)

Yay, I made you laugh. Seriously I have no idea what the heck I'm talking about. It just went, Shroom out the window. gonk *laughs at self* .. lol.

Back on topic, I just thought it would have been nice if he actually introduced himself via an Announcement and just explained a few things. If anything after all this happening, I thought he'd turn up at the AtA.. 3nodding

[Princess-Orphelia]

emoschicklet

blaugh It's okay. I get used to saying here as well and then realize that maybe the person I'm talking to isn't from "here". blaugh

Yes, I still work in the tv industry. I have a much better job and that was several years ago. Sadly, I had no legal right to stand on since I had signed an agreement as did everyone else who worked there that during the first year the management had the right to dismiss you for no reason. I was only unemployed for two weeks so everything turned out great anyway. biggrin

I just presume that when I say here, everyone automatically knows where that 'here' is.. I'm the same as you. lol.

Yay, that's good that you're still working there. Maybe you can organize a Gaia advertisement and then people will come here - more people = more money = more money = more jobs = previous staff come back? sweatdrop Did I just get that right, it made sense, right?

Nothing is worse than working in retail. Over here we gotta buy our own toilet paper. Why? Because they order by bulk per 3 months, and if we run out sooner, they won't by any. So most of us bring it from home. See a company like Target can't ever afford toilet paper.. rofl This is only half the stuff that goes on in there. One day I'll tell you the rest..