At Rackspace, we reward the crazy ones. You’ve no doubt heard about our obsession with Fanatical Support, but did you know that we give out a literal straight jacket to the Rackers who go way above and beyond? Or that our own Chairman and Co-Founder was granted the honor by the company?
Check out the video below, revealing the history and mythology around the highest honor at Rackspace – the Straight Jacket!
It’s a pretty common thing for me to hear stories of Rackers taking care of each other. In my role as Employment Branding Specialist, I spend a lot of time with happy, successful employees learning what makes them tick: what they value, what upsets them and what they believe makes this place special. Even though I’m used to hearing about people going “above and beyond,” I got blown away by this one.
A couple of weeks ago I heard a story that was something extraordinary. Posted below, in its entirety, it’s a message from Derek Remund that he wrote and sent out to every Racker in the US:
Hello Rackers,
As many of you know, two weeks ago today my wife and I had to evacuate our apartment at 5:30AM due to a fire in the unit below. That fire eventually destroyed the entire building, leaving us and three other families without homes or possessions. Investigators have now determined that the cause of the fire was arson. Our place was on the top floor: http://c334921.r21.cf1.rackcdn.com/apt-rear.JPG
Since that day, it feels like we’ve been swept along by an overpowering current. It seems like it’s only been maybe five days tops, rather than fourteen. So much has changed since then, and we as a family have so much to be thankful for.
Ever since I started here two and half years ago, I’ve known that Rackspace is someplace special. Now I know that beyond that, it’s the Rackers that make it special. The caring, concern, and support Jessica and I have received from you all in these last two weeks is incredible. Honestly, trying to take stock of it brings tears to my eyes every time.
I originally began to list out many individuals and groups for “thank yous” in this email, but to be honest there are so many of you that I don’t think I could do it justice. To each of you, please know that you have our deepest thanks.
The donations of food, clothes, household goods, gift cards, etc. made all the difference for us while trying to recover from the fire. They’ve allowed us to focus on finding a new home, consolidating what little we had left, and solving the thousands of little problems that cropped up when we suddenly found ourselves without any of the things we took for granted. Without them, much of our energy would have been spent just figuring out the day-to-day.
Also, a big thank you to my leadership for all contacting me to tell me to take all the time I needed to sort things out. Having these two weeks meant that my wife didn’t have to go it alone when figuring out where and how to live.
Finally, a special thank you from our dog, Charlie. The food, treats, toys, and doggie beds have helped him settle into the succession of new homes we’ve had since April 4th (my in-laws’’, two hotels, a temporary furnished commercial apartment, and finally our new home). Charlie is very thankful:http://c334921.r21.cf1.rackcdn.com/charlie.JPG
I’m back in the office now, and I hope to be here around 80% of the time over the next month or so while we work on setting up our new home. Those of you who work with me, just let me know if you need anything.
Thank you all so much,
Derek and Jessica Remund
Rackspace did a different kind of hosting this week – putting on the Open Compute Summit. Guests from all over the industry from Samsung to Facebook came together to share stories of open development communities, revolutions in hardware technology and new strategies in advanced data center design. It was an amazing thing to see a convention in full swing – right in the middle of Castle!
I recently partnered with our network security teams to recruit candidates to add to their teams. It is a highly technical field, and our requirements are no simple find, as network security, also known as NetSec, is a combination of many types of knowledge including VPNs, firewalls and load balancers in addition to the Linux and/or Windows administration knowledge base.
The interview process at Rackspace is thorough (to say the least), and I’ve had many candidates share that it is “really, really tough, but fair and incredibly eye-opening”. Our candidates go through a technical screen with a recruiter, which is then followed by a technical phone interview with a high level NetSec administrator or engineer. If they pass through those steps and demonstrate that they’re top-notch, we conduct a live interview of up to four hours that includes a panel of up to eight Rackers and some pretty intense white-boarding.
With the new assignment, I’ll admit that I was a bit apprehensive at first; however, in order to get an in-depth understanding of our netsec teams, I leaned on my fellow Rackers and had the fortunate opportunity to shadow both a senior member and a new hire on every team on all three shifts. Network security at Rackspace is typically divided into smaller teams for second and third shift, though first shift isn’t usually more than 15 people. The teams are mostly guys who really know their stuff, though we have some fanatical netsec women in senior level roles as well. Employees range in age and background, as we have a strong mix of both US born and internationally born employees, and everyone has something to learn from another team member.
Being a newbie to the field, I wasn’t sure how I’d be received by the teams, but every team assured me that they were excited to help me learn. I quickly saw that not only is this group incredibly talented, but senior members want to help less experienced and newer team members become masters while continuing to learn and grow themselves. Not once in the three weeks that I was shadowing did I see a team sitting in silence with their heads down. Rather, teams were working on tickets, talking across cubes or sending IMs with questions and drawing out diagrams of issues and possible solutions. There certainly are some quieter workers, but their input is equally valued and frequently sought out. The team dynamics change from shift to shift and team to team, but within every team, there was a distinct energy of excitement to learn, conquer challenges and grow as a group.
After my shadowing sessions concluded, I took a few minutes to draw out a very basic network to see if I truly grasped what the teams had showed me. I wandered up the stairs to some of our senior engineers and asked them if it made any sense at all. After a few seconds, the guys on the team looked at me with smiles and confirmed that yes, though it was a pretty basic, it made perfect sense and I’d have my CCNA before I knew it. They also encouraged me to stop by any time with questions, no matter how simple they seemed. If this is the support I’m receiving from the teams when I’m not even a netsec team member, I can only imagine the levels of support and fanaticism that team members give and receive from one another on a daily basis. Fanatical support and our commitment to greatness isn’t just something we extend to our customers; these are core values that we extend to our teammates and co-workers as well.
Coming from small town, rural Ohio (think corn fields and Amish buggies; yes, they really exist), I had always dreamed of moving to a bigger city and discovering the kind of life I saw portrayed on various TV shows growing up. That being said, my husband, also from small town Ohio, had never lived outside of small town Ohio. Making the move to San Antonio was a tough decision, as our entire families were based in Ohio, and we were moving over 1,350 miles away, which was unheard of in both of our families. The appeal of Rackspace, though, solidified our decision that we needed a change, and it was only for Rackspace that we were willing to uproot our entire life as we knew it.
Rackspace promoted the value of “treating each other like friends and family” and really working as teams to accomplish tasks throughout the entire interview process. I immediately felt this vibe when I arrived for my face-to-face interview with the recruiting team. Random people said hello as I walked through the building, the panel was open to questions and feedback, and the overall interview experience, though challenging, was a great experience. This was the first time that I truly felt that maybe this core values thing was the real deal with Rackspace and not just a bunch of corporate marketing, and I truly think that it is something that can only be explained so much until candidates need to really just experience it. Being brought in for a face-to-face interview changes everything.
My first few weeks at Rackspace were quite the blur of getting lost, trying to memorize so many new faces and a lot of celebrations. I’ve been here about 6 months now, and I still feel like I find a new area, conference room or ping pong table every other day, and I am definitely still meeting multiple new people every day. I’m sure that will be the case for quite some time, as Rackspace continues to expand at incredible rates. Through all of this, I feel that I’ve been incredibly blessed with the giant group of people here who are my co-workers. Just about half of Rackspace’s current employees relocated from somewhere outside of San Antonio; we know what it is like to be new to the area, to be new to the company and to feel entirely scared out of your mind.
Friends and family at Rackspace isn’t just a core value or saying; it is a lifestyle. I’ve had dinner with co-workers, cook-outs after work, purchased concert tickets and found plenty of great places to eat due to co-workers suggestions, received a welcome basket from the company and have been given plenty of advice on how to deal with being home sick (video calls work wonders!). There are forums and groups in which new employees are encouraged to become involved, and they are genuinely an instant family.
In the six months I’ve been a Racker, I’ve yet to see a request for help go unnoticed. Someone in the company is always there, and usually, it’s quite a few people, not just one. As it turns out, when employees are fanatical about support, it doesn’t just apply to our customers.
