I was quite excited once I was connected back to the rest of the world, and quickly logged in to Second Life to find, to my amusement, that nothing has changed.
Apparently the change of guard at Linden Lab hasn't had the desired effect we were hoping for. As I browsed the "Official" Blog of Second Life, I noticed the same old things, "trouble logging in", "Asset serve not working quite right", "Don't spend $L right now", "Rolling restarts", etc., et al.
I thought to myself, there's no way that Second Life could be the same after two long months, so I decided to go in-world myself and see. Thankfully my IM's weren't capped, thanks to some very nice gremlins who logged every day's IM's into a notecard. The first thing I saw was that Havok 4 was apparently going in! This is exciting, I must admit, even I am a bit awed that Linden Lab employee's actually got this to work! I was about to write Uncle Philip and Aunt Robin to congratulate them on this achievement, until I read a couple of the next days of IM's. Seems that the new Havok 4 has broken the BOAT SCRIPT that runs my speed boats. I guess I know how Linden Lab got Havok 4 going so quickly, they chose NOT to test it thorougly. Just like before, here we go again!
After discovering this dismal thing, I started to send IM's to my long lost friends, to tell them how much I have missed them. In our conversations I learned that in the past 2 months, sales have been sliding down due to the mis-management of Second Life and the usual seemingly daily disruptions of the grid, not to mention the constant lag and packet loss. This made me shockingly at ease, I guess it's the idea that I haven't missed much, and things continued as they once were. You know, that's not a bad thing, if your product is sparkling and a great working piece of software, but in this case, we once again find that Linden Lab is either asleep at the wheel or just downright incompetent to keep Second Life going; one wonders just what M Linden is doing there.
To top it all off, a friend of mine passed along two stories, that really shows Linden Lab at their best; unfortunately at their worst. First, a friend of mine, and probably yours, was ASKED by our Linden friends to create something marvelous for the 5th Birthday celebration. When asked to do this, no restrictions were placed on the creation, no "don't do this" type of things, just "Create us something marvelous!"
Well, our friend, as usual, did just that. I won't get into why this friend is such a good builder, but quite honestly, I'm jealous :) Anyway, after his creation was finished, the Lindens that asked him to create this apparently started to pick it apart IN PUBLIC chat. They first didn't like the size of the creation. They also didn't like the use of the MEGA-PRIMS, and some other things. Then, the rumor mill took what they said, and it found its way to our friend. Our friend was quite upset, not at the criticism, but that these Lindens didn't have the respect to take these issues up with him, but instead, let the "rumor mill" make their feelings known. You know, my mother used to say, "don't look a gift horse in the mouth", and I now understand what she meant. I've been saying this from day one, but MOST Linden Employee's do not have the knowledge or skill of Customer Service. This is another shocking, but usual, effort of our Linden friends. Well, in case our Linden friends are reading this, let me tell YOU what the "rumor mill" is saying. You will NEVER see another creation from this person, or will he spend time working on something for Linden Lab; go figure!Another story passed to me, happed during our friend Socrates Linden Office Hour yesterday. Seems that a new person in the group didn't know the "rules" of how things ran, and asked a question out of order. The person who apparently had the floor, told this new person to "shut-up you fucking 'tard". Socrates Linden was quick to act though, and told this rude person to "watch your language". Of course, that's exactly what you expect from Linden Lab employee's, since the TOS makes no mention of interaction between residents or harassment or even hate speech. Perhaps Socrates Linden should take another look at the TOS. If someone had done that at one of my Q&A events, the offending party would have been tossed faster then you can spell relief.
Truly, this is one of the biggest problems at Linden Lab today. Well, either this or their general incompetence, but seriously, it seems that MOST of the Lindens that are in-world, have NO IDEA about how to treat the customer or even what to do when something happens that requires immediate action. I would like to suggest to Mr. M Linden, that you send your children to Customer Service school. Honestly, if Linden Lab Employee's would deal with the Residents with more respect, they might find that things would get a bit easier. But then again, how can I expect Linden Lab to do anything considered forward thinking.
Mr. M Linden, when I was a coder, a very long time ago, my boss use to say, proactive rather then reactive is how we should be. This has always stuck with me in everything I do. Perhaps Linden Lab employee's might try to be proactive instead of reactive, and perhaps, just perhaps, your employee's might learn how to respect their customers, before one day you wake up to find no one left to treat badly.
Glad to be back, and I know our Linden friends are just peachy to hear I'm back, turning up the heat once again. I just wonder when will start thawing out this mammoth.
