My role and my responsibilities at Own Web Now, ExchangeDefender, Shockey Monkey, Looks Cloudy and virtually every single thing my little empire touches and does.. will be changing at the end of the year.
Going forward, as the CEO, I will be responsible for the service design and general business leadership/management.
If you have a question about technical implementation, support problem, billing problem, feature request, software bug, event sponsorship, technology/IP licensing, business partnership, partner program benefits, marketing collateral request, etc, etc, etc… there are tons of people at my company that would love to help you.
If you have a question about which hot dog is the best at Pinks or how to pop a wheelie on a Ducati, I’m your guy. If you have my direct cell phone and wanna chat, give me a call. Otherwise, if you email me with an issue you will get the following email:
Dear _____,
I (or one of my assistants) have received your email and determined that it’s related to ____________ and the best folks to help you with that are in _____. This message has been forwarded to their supervisor who will put some extra priority on it and try to take care of it.
What to expect:
This message will generate an internal request with a higher priority than regular issues. It will be seen by the current shift and will be reviewed immediately.
The person in charge will also follow up with you via email and/or phone call to make sure this is resolved to your satisfaction.
If a few days pass and this is still an issue and you’re not happy about what my team has done, please call me or schedule a time with Chelsea Richards (chelsea@ownwebnow.com) and I will do what I can to help.
P.S. Sorry about the canned message, I wanted to give you a full explanation of what is about to happen because your issue is important to us and we want to take great care of you.
Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek, CEO
So here is the thing..
Despite what you may think of my lifestyle on Facebook or this blog, I still work for a living. Yeah, I get to take a long weekend off far more often than anyone should, but I also work more 60 hour weeks than most of the people employed by me. No complaints about that either, I love this business.
Not so long ago I was the guy that could help with support, with a billing problem, I could add a feature to ExchangeDefender on the fly and I could figure out any Exchange issue you may be running into. Combine that with lack of appreciation for sleep and I used to be the go-to-guy at ExchangeDefender. I set this company up, I built it and even when other people were in charge of stuff, I could still dive in at any time and help.
Today, that’s no longer the case. I do not have access to most of the systems here. I am not in the loop on most of the support and engineering work and even if I made some kind of a quick change, the backend systems would just overwrite it. To put it even more bluntly, I don’t even know the names of everyone that works here.
So here is what happens when you email me:
1. I read the email.
2. I try to figure out who is available right now that can help.
3. I fail at #2.
4. I email the VP of the department, or if it involves more than one person (let’s say it’s a billing issue about a service problem) I will email the entire management.
5. a. Best case scenario: Everyone involved in #4 will stop what they are doing and explain to me what is going on (instead of helping you) so that I can respond to the email you sent me.
5. b. Worst case scenario: VP will reach out to the person that is actually working for an update. They will exchange some information. Then they will reach out to me, we’ll exchange some information. I’ll then send you a response.
There are just too many cooks in the kitchen.
Everything at ExchangeDefender works through the portal. If it’s not in the portal, someone has to type it in and start a tracking process for all the email going back and forth. It may be quicker, easier or more convenient for you to email me.. which I understand and I encourage you to do, just keep in mind that “let’s get Vlad on this” slows stuff down exponentially. Here is the OWN HQ security camera footage:
When you need something and start working with my team and aren’t happy – ask them to escalate it. If you involve me, I am going to take the least effective route possible – I’m gonna go talk to my guy. Who will talk to his guy. Who will talk to his guy. So even if it involves 3 people, it’s going to take 3x longer than if you just asked the phone drone to get a second opinion.
I really, really, really don’t want to be a dick about this even though there is no other way of saying this. I still care about every single dollar that comes into this company and every single person affected by our services and solutions. I care. I want to hear when stuff is going well and when stuff is going poorly. Just don’t involve me in the actual escalation process of things because it’s gonna slow stuff down. It’s because I care that I pushed this inefficiency for a few years now but folks – I have a great team here, they are the ones that make me look good. I love to help – it’s just that when I do I create more problems and more inefficiencies and I just have to make it stop.
So instead of being an ass and ignoring your emails, I (or one of my assistants) will be sorting through the email and getting someone that can help. If not, you can always call me.
P.S. This would also be a great time to stop emailing me p0rn. I have no idea what kind of stuff the ladies that work for me are into but I’m pretty sure they are not into the stuff you are into Alex. Texting it to me is still welcome and quite appreciated.
For the less coherent, more grammatically correct realtime insight, follow me on Twitter at