Angry Lindens

There's been some shenanigins on the JIRA, which is the place that residents of SL are supposed to report bugs and problems.  It can be rather complicated to someone who isn't used to it... certainly I usually struggle to establish whether or not a bug I have discovered has already been reported or not.

One source of extreme irritation for SL merchants has been the migration of goods from XStreet to SL Marketplace (SLM).  Some of them have been vociferous in their criticisms, particularly Ab VanMoer, who ended up posting one of his emails to the commerce team on the SL Blog.  It's exasperated, but not rude or impolite.

Thus it was a bit of a surprise that Brodesky Linden reacted angrily to a comment in the JIRA about ratings not showing up right in SLM, and said: "Why don't you stop wasting time and put in comments in the correct tickets. I filter (Ab's) emails to trash. Gmails makes that very easy to do."

This was such poor customer relations, particularly since Ab VanMoer is credited by other merchants with having assisted the commerce team in finding many of the bugs and problems which have been afflicting SLM.

To his credit, Ab tried to smooth things down, and made excuses for Brodesky's ill-mannered retort, only to find it thrown back in his face by Brodesky a few comments later:  "I'm glad this has been entertaining, and Ab is enjoying all the publicity this is bringing him. You can thank him for all the emails he has sent the commerce team about changing the item that gets delivered. The first part of being able to change inventory will be out tomorrow, with the ability to edit unavailable items, followed by a release where you can change inventory items."

Given that the evidence is that Ab's emails were not abusive, but detailed and helpful, and that Ab had been very reasonable and hadn't over-reacted to Brodesky's original comment, this response seemed inexplicable.

Then, Darrius Gothly published a blog which revealed that Brodesky was being fired, not for poor customer service or any transgression, but because, allegedly, Linden Lab do not want to be forced to pay taxes in the state he lives in.  Now, I don't know the facts of that assertion, but it does make an angry and inappropriate response to a customer somewhat more understandable.

I am concerned that Linden Lab are losing staff they can't afford to lose - even with Brodesky the Commerce team seem to have been struggling.  Now Philip Rosedale has announced that he is leaving again, after only a few months back at Linden Lab, without having found a successor to run the show.