Eric (Admin) Leaving Bricklink

Jeff Mack · 2014-05-16T11:24:37.000Z

Sad news from ERIC Admin Leaving BrickLink.com In case you don't know me, my name is Eric Smith. I was originally involved with BrickLink as the web host, starting back in 2001. I assisted Dan with 3 or 4 server upgrades as the site traffic grew and helped out occasionally with technical questions he had. It was exciting to see this site grow over those years, watching the number of users and parts climb each month. I continued hosting the site for Dan Jezek until he passed away in September 2010. I was asked to serve as BrickLink Administrator by Dan's family, in addition to hosting the site. The site saw an explosion of growth between 2010 and 2013, which was rewarding to see. After the site was sold in June 2013, both the family and the new owners asked me to continue in my role as site administrator to aid in the transition between owners. I wasn't sure how things would go, but I was invited to meet the new owners in Seoul in July 2013. At our meetings, they convinced me that they would be good stewards of the community that Dan built. Building a replacement site seemed like it was the immediate priority, and I was looking forward to providing guidance and serving as a user representative during this process. When the chief communications officer role was created in November 2013, the original charter was to serve as the liaison between BrickLink and AFOL groups, conventions, etc. While I continued to do my job as site administrator, this person managed to convince the site owners to put all customer service under the chief communications officer role, effectively demoting me from a role I'd been performing for more than three years. This change occurred in December 2013. I asked ownership several times for a reason for my demotion and was never given an explanation. This demotion and new organizational structure was announced back in December with a little blurb announcing the new customer service team. Since December, I have been relegated to supporting her team, which has grown to five people including her. These five people are now doing the same job I did, part-time by myself, for more than 3 years. My contract is up at the beginning of June and it has no automatic renewal clause. At the end of April, I contacted the leadership of the company to determine my status. My assumption was that the answer was that I was being let go in favor of her local team. Instead, the chief communication officer offered me only 10% of my current contract fee to help her team do my old job. It would have been far less insulting to simply not renew the contract. Sadly, as a result of this response, I will no longer be involved in BrickLink as of June 5th, 2014. If you have questions, please send them to me privately at eric ( at ) northcomp ( dot ) com. Thanks to those of you who have provided encouragement and support during my time in this position. I'd like to hope Dan would be happy with how I managed the community he created. - Eric Post can be found here: http://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=820935