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A Second Look Into AOL

A short while ago, we (Knight and Dan B.) met on ICQ with another former AOL employee who was interested in discussing his experiences while working for AOL. We found out some interesting aspects, verified by two other ex-techs who have proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, their history with AOL.

Questions asked by Dan can be found in bold red, while KnightHeart's questions are in bold blue, and the source's answers are in regular black.

"What prompted you to contact us and request an interview? Why 'come forward' now?"

I used to read the newsgroup alt.aol-sucks newsgroups. But I stopped reading them, started again later, and saw your site. Anyway, with the job I have now, I see a lot of AOL gone bad on computers.

"What is that job, where you see AOL ruining systems? You don't have to be specific as to location."

The company I work for builds networks for businesses and individuals, and machines with AOL crash the networks.

"AOL 5.0 or an older version?"

Specifically 5.0, but AOL doesn't work well on many network machines.

"Is it even designed to?"

I don't know, I just know it doesn't run on Windows NT.

"So your network isn't NT based?"

No, we run Novell. But the problem is, AOL sets up it's own adapters and protocols, and on a 95 machine, it can only handle 4 adapters. So that's a concern with a Win95 machine and AOL 5.0.

"So what was your position at AOL when you worked there?"

I was a basic entry-level technician.

"Did you handle calls from members?"

Yes.

"What's your view of the rest of the tech 'help' staff?"

Morons, basically.

"What led you to that conclusion?"

They would hire people right off the street, with no computer knowledge whatsoever. On our first day of training, we learned how to use a mouse. Of course, there were some folks there with degrees, but they quit two weeks after they got hired.

"YIKES!"

"HAHAHA!! Well, this may sound stupid now, but about how many techs were knowledgeable?"

AOL savvy? About 10 to 20%.

"How about just tech savvy? Lower percentage?"

Yes, much lower. I'd say about 5 to 10% there.

"Do you have any examples? Like *stupidest thing I saw* stories?"

Yes, one lady that went through training with me, didn't understand what a GPF was, so I showed her in the crappy support program "Swift" what Kernel32.dll GPF was. And after we reviewed the possible solutions, she got back on the phone and told the guy to restart his machine then hung up on him. You really didn't have to be smart working for AOL, cause half the members weren't very bright either; I could go on and on about member stupidity.

"Any others?"

Oh yes, one of my favorite ones was: one of my co-workers (who was fairly bright) told this lady to double-click on My Computer, and the lady replied.."How am I supposed to do that, I don't know where your computer is.

"What do you know about Sherlock?"

Sherlock sucks in my opinion...It's the most ridiculous thing in the world. What you do is type "exactly" the first five words out of the member's mouth, and Sherlock is supposed to troubleshoot for you, and they stressed "exactly" all the time. What you would do, is repeat each question that pops up until you get the problem solved. When Sherlock first come out, some lady called in about porn, and the reply was "So, your graphics are fuzzy?" She had called because she wanted to get the porn out of her mailbox, and that was the answer Sherlock gave her.

"So, are techs supposed to rely on Sherlock, or just use it as an aid?"

Sherlock all the way, but the catch is, they say that if you had a better solution, you could send it in for review. Well, the first week I used it, 20% of my calls were sent in with better solutions. What I started doing before I quit, was fix the problem, then enter into Sherlock after the call was over. Half of my calls dealt with that damn AOL adapter screwing up, and the fix was to delete it, but it was like Sherlock's fourth or fifth resolution, not the first as it should have been.

"Ah, so you entered whatever you wanted as if the member asked a question, and just let Sherlock go through the paces?"

I would enter in something along the lines of what was done, in case the member had to call back. What was so funny about Sherlock is, when someone would call in for a cancellation, I'd be happy to cancel them, but Sherlock would ask if it was because of a technical problem, and if it was, I was required to troubleshoot the problem. That's BS, I'd be happy to cancel an account, :) so, I'd always answer that question 'No.'"

"On that, have you personally seen SAVES violations? Like people keeping an account open if the person wanted to cancel?"

No, I never personally saw anything like that.

"How often were you around SAVES reps (The staff responsible for trying to convince a member to remain with AOL when they call to cancel.)?"

I never did anything like that, I just sent them over to the cancellation que, and if that person tried to keep them on AOL, it was them, not me. At the site where I worked, we were just tech support.

AOL did have a program at my site called Tel-Saves, and that's where we would try to convince the member to buy that 5 cents a minute long-distance plan. After the tech section of the call, we were required to offer that, and transfer them over to Tel-Saves. We would get a dollar for each transfer, but I hated that as I'm not a salesman. AOL even wanted us to transfer members if we didn't fix the problem they called in about.

"Oh...so you saw techs abuse the program?"

Oh yeah, people would flat out lie to a member trying to get that buck. The plan was, don't tell 'em what the transfer was for, and lure them with a promise that they "may" get a free month of AOL if they just listened to the pitch. However, the techs would tell members that they *would* get the free month just for listening, or get a free month just for calling in to tech support. Then, when those people called back because they had to talk to a salesman, they were pissed.

"lol... Kind of reminds me of how they were sending out the checks for something like $200, and by cashing that check you agreed to sign up for the tel service."

"So basically, they willingly screwed a member out of $21.95 just to get one dollar for themselves?"

Well, the dollar went to the tech just for transferring to the tel-save queue; even if the member didn't sign up, the tech still got the dollar. The member was lied to, though, since they never got a free month just for listening, the way the techs promised. Members wouldn't be told that they could only get the free month if they signed up for the phone service. Techs could get like $300 extra a week for those tel-saves, and one lady that worked with me got an average of 40 to 50 dollars a day.

"Lying to members is quite profitable at AOL, I guess."

"You mean shitting on them."

Of course, 95% of the members that called for help and got her will just have to turn right around and call back, since they didn't have their problem solved, and were tricked into having a sales pitch thrown at them. That's what upset me the most, as I'd get those calls, immediately being *bitched out* because of what she did.

"*sigh* when is AOL going to learn...?"

As long as AOL makes money, they don't care. One of my bosses told me that AOL had 18 million customers, it doesn't hurt them if they lose one.

"True... but unethical business practices are going to be the end of them eventually."

"So it comes down to actual employees screwing over members for profit....truly, AOL is the parent and they are its children..."

I'll agree with that, but the employees only screwed customers for their own benefit. If AOL didn't offer that dollar to employees, that wouldn't happen. The techs could care less if the members were screwed.

But, here's a big catch: if you didn't offer the tel-save in at least one of every five calls, you could be fired.

"Really???"

That's what my boss told me, and that's one of the main reasons I quit. I hated tel-saves.

"So AOL basically ordered its techs to lie to members?"

They ordered them to sell, lying was voluntary for the dollar.

"Either way, AOL actively forced employees to do what they had to to get calls."

50% of my calls ended with a mad member, (even if I fixed the problem) because they were tired of hearing that line. Anyway, two of my buddies just got fed up with the BS that came with the job and decided to quit.

"What were any 'oppressive' policies at AOL that you had to work under?"

Other than using Sherlock, none really. I was required to have an average call time of 7:30 minutes each week, and I could be fired if it was over a certain number, and had to have 25% of calls sent over to the tel-save folks. Well, it takes the average AOL user 5 to 10 minutes to describe what's happening, and they told me, "Sherlock will solve it in 5 minutes." What a crock.

"Man...not much for a real problem call."

"No kidding... I can't remember a time that I have been able to adequately fix a real problem over the phone in under 15 minutes."

"Especially with a newbie...."

Or a moron that doesn't understand 'right-click.' There were a few that would look for a start button on the keyboard when you said click on start.

"Or thinks it's 'write click' on the screen, so they'd take a marker and write 'click.' HA!"

Yep.

"heh...Even experienced users are sometimes difficult...often enough they are more difficult. How do you feel AOL treated its employees?"

Like sh*t. Turnover was so high....For me, that was the shortest job I ever had. I lasted 6 months there, and that's the only job I've had that didn't last at least a year.

"Hrmm... did you have any benefits along with it... insurance.. company picnics... stuff like that?"

The benefits were great, but the atmosphere with the upper management "Team Leads" sucked. If you didn't mind being bitched at from customers all day, then being bitched at cause you had a 9 minute call time, AOL was a great place to work. AOL gave me a discount on their service since I worked there, and I had it for about 2 months before getting something else because of all the busy signals. When I had to, it was hard as hell lying to a member about how they will be able to get back online in an hour knowing the service sucks, but I was never able to tell them over the phone that I used somebody else.

"Did the leads actually have any clue as to what they were doing or are they kinda like the typical upper management type... out of touch with reality?"

They would come to tell us how bad we sucked with our call times, not caring if the time was required to actually help the member.

"Now was it always like that when you worked there or were you there before the transition to Sherlock and stuff like that?"

Well, it was always bad, but with any new job, until the "Newness" wears out, it's fun. But after Sherlock got implemented, it really sucked. Call times went through the roof, everyone was having problems adapting to the new "I don't have to think anymore" program, and management said that everyone has two weeks to learn it, or they are gone. On my 8 man shift, only one person met the 7:30 quota. (When I say 8 man shift, they had about 40 different shifts there.)

"So...you were thought of more as someone who was thought of as a waste of space rather than an indispensable part of a team, regardless of who you were?"

Pretty much, yes, especially when I didn't kiss the boss's ass. There was this one kid, who was "teacher's pet" to the team lead, and as a reward for ass-kissing, he got to go home early.

"Did you have access to things like being able to tell if servers were up or down?"

Sort of.. in Sherlock, they had a node report that would tell you if the number was working.

"Any idea what the downtime rate was?"

In some areas, numbers would be down for weeks. Some in particular I remember were Miami, LA, and New Jersey. At least half the numbers were down all the time.

"hrmm...Weren't those the ones that were Sprintnet for a while...or shared pops at least?"

I can't recall. On that topic, I remember something that was funny as hell: I saw this video on AOL connectivity for employees, and the lady in the video said "If the member is having problems getting online, have them go to keyword: access for more numbers." Well, how the hell can they get to Keyword: Access if the cant get online? The woman on was known in the video as the "Modem Lady," and even her license plate in the video was something like MDMLDY. They said that they could tell a good modem from a bad modem just by listening to it.

"So how often would you say the mail servers and such went down on average?"

Nationwide, they were pretty good, yet once every other week, I'd get a message saying 2% of members can't get mail.

"Really? To me it seemed as if they were always down... or at the least REALLY slow.. one time it took 24 hours for a test message to get from my ISP to AOL... but from one ISP to the other was almost instant."

I've noticed that too, AOL's mail seems slow to outside ISP's, but I couldn't tell you why.

"Well I know that AOL uses its own proprietary mail servers... and they have another server pool that basically changes it from AOL format to another format... so I think that there are probably a few bugs in that."

I guess, they never told me that stuff. There are definitely bugs in 5.0...oops, I'm not supposed to say that, hee hee.

"Ever see anyone crack under the pressure the management put on them?"

No, but I've seen people fired, and it's kinda cool.

"Get the crap beat out of them or anything?"

LOL, no, the team lead will come up to ya and say "we need to talk" then walk and talk with you all the way to the door, and then get security to throw you out and then they would go back in and get your stuff. They wouldn't even let you get your own stuff, and you didn't know if they would go through it before they give it to you. When I left, I gave them two weeks, and my boss was cool about that. I changed bosses (team leads) like every two months.

"Really? They didn't last too long either?"

No, they just kept rearranging schedules, they always had "a better way of doing things."

"Figures...Ok....did you have any input into 5.0 beta tests?"

As a tech, no. We didn't see it until it was GM. (Gold Master)

"Any thoughts on the AOL/TW merger?"

I believe that if they do merge (pending government approval, and I don't know if its been approved yet) it will be a bigger monopoly on the general media than any other company.

"Any comments on AOL 6.0?"

Don't know anything about 6.0, other than it will suck. It's not going into member beta till march or may I think, and it doesn't matter which client you use, the service flat out sucks. Heck, half of the machines where I worked were NEVER upgraded to 5.0.

"No? What was the reason?"

Stability was the main issue. My computer would crash so often that I stopped using it altogether sometimes. It was so bad I wouldn't even log Sherlock. AOL 5 is a memory hog, too. I think 5 should have a minimum requirement of 32 MB ram, not 16 like they say. Just about everyone I talked to that had 5.0 crash on em had 16 megs. So, to fix it, I'd have them uninstall it and reinstall 4.0, but when the next caller would call in asking about 5.0 problems, my answer had to be "I had a few problems with older systems, but it's really ok." You see, we all had little memos telling us not to talk bad about the product; had them posted in every cube. My parents like AOL, but they've only been on the web for about 4 months now, and they are ready to graduate to a real ISP.

I loved it when people would call for help on AIM, since we were told we can't support it. I was also upset with how everyone referred to AOL techs as trained monkeys. Now, I laugh at the fact, because when Sherlock came out, that's how I felt. I was a trained monkey, follow Sherlock, it's the best solution...you guys realize how often techs tell people to reinstall?

"All the time? :)"

Well, that's because Sherlock told them so. They couldn't figure out why this did that, or why this crashed, so telling a member to reinstall was the easiest way out.

"I do know that every computer I have fixed that had AOL on it usually had anywhere from 3 to 15 copies of AOL on it.. separate copies mind you."

Yeah, I've seen that.

"AOL doesn't like to overwrite itself for some reason."

Of course not.

"Maybe it thinks it's too good for itself. :)"

There was this one lady that thought you had to put the disk in each time to use AOL. Needless to say, she had like 17 copies of AOL on her machine, and she wondered why she couldn't ever find her favorites. My longest call was 131 minutes one time because she had 5 copies of AOL and the 4 techs she talked to before me left notes on how bad her hard drive was screwed up. So instead of fixing the problem, they just added on to it. Well, I fixed her problem, found her favorites, and deleted all but one copy of AOL. Yes, I caught hell, but to me, that's satisfaction knowing that I fixed it. The first time you'd tell somebody to get something else, you'd be caught, since your call was monitored.

I'll end by stating that AOL doesn't work with many applications, even though AOL won't admit to it. For instance, neither Quicken nor Norton work with AOL at all. I had a member complain that they couldn't get connected to Quicken. The reason turned out to be because it needed a dial up, and AOL isn't recognized as such. No matter how you look at it, AOL really sucks.