My Job History

This post is an updated version of one from several years ago.

I had a request to post on my job history in the Uni, and how I got to be CEO. I'll try to summarize as best as I can without loading up my chatlogs from 7 years ago (yes, I do save all my chatlogs. I'm weird). Dates will be somewhat approximate, as I'm trying to reconstruct this from memory as best as I can.

I first joined the Uni in Sept of 07. For the most part, I just hung around in forums, chatted with people, and wrote a few short guides, covering areas such as types of tanking, how a passive tank works, etc... As time passed, I tried my hand at a few other jobs, such as mentoring some people. That spring, I was approached by a director named Acacia Incana.

At that point, there wasn't the same type of organizational chart for the Uni that we have today. People didn't necessarily have defined job duties, but she was in charge of the hangars and most tackling 101 classes. She had been put in charge after series of industrial people had left the uni, such as kodell and finrear. I'm not sure who was exactly in charge of what previously (and I'm not sure all the directors even knew). She hired me as a hangar officer, which was an interesting job.

I was given a set of screenshots and told "make the hangars look like that." Apparently, hangar officers (meaning just Acacia and Dlar) had simply just compared what was in the hangar to a screenshot, then pulled modules from our sorting hangar to refill it. This was extremely time consuming, and not exactly user friendly, as the same hangar might be in 2 different screenshots from where she'd had to scroll down to get all the mods. Additionally, there was no monitoring of backstock except by eye. A lot of times, we'd be completely out of a module before we noticed we needed to restock our backstock, let alone our front hangar supplies. The hangars lacked any sort of overarching organizational scheme, and frankly scared me quite a bit at the thought of having to deal with it.

I did some work to make hangars a bit easier, and got some assistants. I had the idea of using API pulls to automatically generate stocking reports and production requests (Turhan would implement and surpass my idea later), but lacked the coding skills to really implement it. I did put into place some procedures to try and make things easier than just looking at screenshots, and to simplify how to order new items when our backstock was low.

That June (i think), Acacia moved on to Bob and I was promoted to full hangar manager (not director). Dee Carson (Director of Ops under MM, who had just replaced Kassie that winter) had begun organizing the Uni into something that looked like an organizational chart. During the summer, the Director of Logistics job was either unfilled, or filled by Sabre A for a few weeks (a pvp guy and director who had been in and out of the Uni several times). Sabre A left the Uni once again, the position was unfilled for a while, and I was promoted to Director of Logistics at the end of the summer. I had only been in the Uni for less than a year, and hadn't even been playing eve for 2 years. I now had a staff, and managers underneath of me (as a side note, one of my managers was Irdath, who's mining classes continually started wars). Turhan got my old job as hangar manager, and I started trying to figure out the other divisions and integrate them into a collective unit.

During my tenure as Director of Logistics, we completely revamped how every one of the divisions under logistics works, added new programs like copying services, refining services, byom, freighter production, and pyos. I added an entire new division (marketing - Pyos), and did basic planning for a future expansion into a transport division. We redid our entire hangar structure (got rid of some hangars, retasked others, changed what was stocked). I've seen Dee, Acacia, and Sabre (along with some other directors from my time as a student) move on in EVE, and Keld (then the Diplomacy Director) get promoted to Director of Operations, and eventually CEO when Morning Maniac stepped down.

After several years as Director of Logistics, Keld approached me about taking on a new role. In September of 2012 he was having some major changes in his life, and needed someone to take over as Director of Operations. Traditionally, a Director of Operations will run day to day stuff in the Uni when the CEO is unable to take an active daily leadership role, or is staying on as a figurehead. I performed in that role for almost 6 months, during which time Keld felt that his future in EVE was coming to an end, and felt it was time for him to step down as CEO. He chose me to become the next CEO, and we spent some time coordinating the transition before announcing my new position in March of 2013. At that point, Keld stepped down from being a leader in the Uni, following the footsteps of many other leaders from our past.

As Director of Operations and CEO I've implemented some significant changes. Our approach to wars and wartime operations have seen some fundamental shifts. Our rules of engagement in different areas of space have been updated to what I believe are a better fit with the current state of EVE. Additionally, we've expanded opportunities for our students to participate in activities with people outside of the Uni. Our campuses have heavily expanded, with large percentages of our students finding their niche in solitude, low-sec, npc null, w-space, or mining. I would like to think that I have implemented some positive changes to the Uni, and will continue to do so in the future.

Over the last 7 years, we have seen many changes. Its not always been a smooth transition, and sometimes change took longer than it should have, but I think the current Uni is much better than what we used to have, and think it will continue to improve.

 Its been a lot of changes during my time in the Uni, with each individual I've mentioned (and many more) all changing the Uni and leaving their mark. While some of the names are more remembered for the drama when they left, they did have positive effects during their tenure. If I ever leave the Uni (I really don't want to. I like my job), I plan on learning from what I've seen with them and leaving quietly, so only my accomplishments and not the drama are remembered.