Airgun's worst decesion in a long time

[John Dresser]

I tried to respond to this later on the board but the thread about Jeff being let go from Airgun Designs was closed.

I just want everyone here, including Tom, to know what a valuable person Jeff was at Airgun Designs. He invented new products (superbolt), cut down Airgun's bulky guns (like those Jax guns), and troubleshot more guns on his weekends off than most gun techs do during the entire week. Jeff was the reason I played with an RT for years after it was out of style do use an airgun product in the NPPL. Jeff is the reason dozens of people play with them.

I honestly thought Airgun paid Jeff to take those weekends off to play tournaments. I'm amazed at how much time and effort Jeff put into Airgun during those weekends. He teched guns for free and Chicago players and teams have been famous for using mags because of it. Have you been to a tournament out of state? No one uses mags anymore. CPSA players to NPPL players from Chicago do because of Jeff. You should have encouraged him to travel instead of trying to tie him to a workbench to do repair guns.

If Airgun has listened to Jeff more during the week they would know what is important to players. Lighter guns! Double triggers years ago! No huge front battery packs! Then maybe you wouldn't have to lay anyone off because sales would have been up instead of down.

Tom - I really hope you have called around and gotten Jeff a job locally in paintball. He was the best employee you ever had. You just didn't bother to notice.

John

[AGD]

Just to let you know I did not close the thread and I don't know who did. The fact remains that a small company like ours can not afford to have people leave at their convinience. If I do it for Jeff I have to do it for everyone and hence the problem. Yes Jeff had a lot of good ideas and was a great ambasador for our company. Jeff was in today and we arranged for him to tech the Masters at Challange Park. He is not interested in any full time job until after World Cup.


AGD

[John Dresser]

closed thread

I'm glad you didn't close the last thread. Hopefully an overzealous moderator won't close this one.

Did you offer Jeff his job back? I would hope he wouldn't accept it. Jeff put 8 years into your company and I know if people there has listened to him more, you would have sold more guns.

Have you ever tried talking a 17 year old into buying an RT Pro? Every Piranha since 1999 has come with a double trigger but the RT Pro didn't. How silly is that? I know Jeff advocated double triggers but he was told not even modify his own personal gun. That is counter productive. If you guys had simply sold the RT like Jeff's personal gun right away, you would have sold more. Instead AGD waited years before making a cheap imitation (RT Pro) and left off the two most important parts - smaller lighter front grip and a simple double trigger.

Jeff made Airgun's guns better. However, AGD forced him to do it one gun at a time. He could have done it by the thousands. I've been an advocate of AGD for a long time because I've had the pleasure of playing with a gun Schreiber put together. I just wish AGD would have listened to him as much as I did.

John

[i-luv-my-rt]

I must say i can go either way on this one. Jeff was a great tech and always helped me out. But we do have to realize that Airgun is not a multi million dollar corporation with hundreds of employees. I think i remember Tom telling me at skyball that they had like 15 employees. I think Airgun does a fine job keeping up and we shouldnt complain. Dresser you do have a good point but we cant give one man all the credit for running Airgun's tech support and influence on players. I was the first one in my neighborhood with a mag now theres around 8 players in my town. Either way lets not get all hot about this. Thanks!!!

[Digital Me]

Originally posted by AGD
The fact remains that a small company like ours can not afford to have people leave at their convinience.
AGD

I realize there's all sorts of background I don't know here, but you can't call going to a tournament allowing people to leave "at their convinience [sic]." Those things are scheduled out at the begining of the year.

Jeff playing paintball with his tournament team is what inspired me to buy an E-Mag. I sold it later once I found out it didn't really work very well and it was really front heavy. I bought it because I wanted to get jeff (although I didn't even know his name at the time) to trick it out for me.

Have you ever seen Jeff at an event? I was under the impression at the Zap IAO that he was being paid to be there. From what you said it sounds like he wasn't. He works on guns and coaches mag teams that he doesn't even know. Jeff is the man.

DM

[Bub3814]

I have been away for a few weeks so... while I am upset that Jeff is gone for the time being, I understand where Tom is coming from. I was never aware that Tom had so few working for him. With the way Airguns handles the company, I figured Tom had atleast 60 or 70 people working for him.

While I do not know first hand how hard it is to run a company, I worked for my father over the summer and I see the stress he goes through...but he has over 200 working for him...

[Chef123161]

John,
I don't think you are getting the big picture here. The recent events in the U.S. have caused an economic slow down (its starting to pick up a bit now.) Airgun Designs is such a small company that it cannot afford to have employee's "floating" around (from what I can tell.) I am sure that if Tom could, he would have kept Jeff around. I am guessing this purely a business related decision. I am sorry if this comes off as a flame but it is/was not intended to be.

-Ben

[John Dresser]

Jeff was let go on September 11th. He wasn't let go because of the terrorist attack or the results of it. However, today's economic times will probably make it harder for him to get another job especially in a boomtime industry like paintball.

I'm not sure what you mean about Jeff "floating" though. He worked as a senior technician at AGD. I first talked to him when I bought my first RT (#505 I think). I had many many problems with it and after a few weeks I realized that Jeff was the most informed person there. Everyone else answering the phones was talking out of their a$$ and caused more problems with my RT than they fixed.

John

[Chef123161]

Jeff was not fired he was laid off along with three other people the same day. Unfortunately the economic slowdown has forced us to do this. Jeff is a very dedicated paintball player and a long time friend of ours. He has to leave 6 times a year to play tournaments. When he does, repair guns and final testing of Emags gets backed up for weeks and puts a major strain on the company. We would have had to tell him that he couldn't go to tournaments anymore and he wouldn't be able to do that so this was our only choice. We are talking with other paintball companies in the area to try and get him a job. He can now collect his profit sharing money without penalty to get him out of his financial bind.

AGD

By floating I meant it looked like he left many times in the year for tournaments and such, so he wasnt full time (Again, I do not know him personally so I do not know the extent of this but this is just from what I can tell.) You just got on AGD's case about having him laid off and I guess I didnt like it too much because Tom stated why he did what he did in the closed thread.

-Ben

[dansim]

i think that agd is in respects correct about leaving on convienince suppose i decide that i want to play in the tourney saturday and i tell my employer friday "oh i wont be here tommoro im busy" that wont cut it and about jeff working for free fixing guns wow all i can say is that the cocker and angel techs that work at my local shop go to all the events (there required to) and fix the teams guns for free its a service to the gun holders provided by the gun makers you dont want to see a team lose because your gun broke and you couldnt fix it do you thats bad advertising
my .02

[OldSchoolMag]

I know this is a little off color, but...

I bought my 'mag used about 2 years ago. I remember I called about a thousand times to check what I had, make sure it was what it was supposed to be, and occasionally just to make sure "Why's that there again?" Anyways... I don't really remember who kept answering my phone, but I remember asking him what his cerial number was on his 'mag, and he replied "#00001". I talked to him about 50 times total, and his tone never changed, he was always helpful, curteous, and kind. He gave me a lot of help, more than I've gotten from local airsmiths even. Many times I had asked what I'm sure are monotonous questions, but he always sounded as if he had only heard them once or twice, but answered as if he had been thinking about the problem before I said it. If it was Jeff, thanks Jeff, and I'll cya around hopefully - if it wasn't, thanks #00001 and keep up the good work:)

/\G|} |2()>< !!!!!!

[DarkPhoenix]

I believe that Tom (AGD) keeps all the products with the serial number "00001".

[BDEKLEJR]

noo

jeff's gone.......time to sell the rt and get a bushy........

[Tunaman]

To John Dresser...

You don't know me, and I don't know You or Jeff. But I find it appalling that you come on this public forum and criticize the business decisions of the owner of AGD! Your statements about AGD not doing as they should have are idiotic. Believe me, in case you haven't noticed, Tom knows exactly what he is doing, and apparently knows what is best for HIS company. If AGD is not the first to come out with something new so what. We are happy waiting for products to come out, knowing that when they do, the wait is always worth it. I know 500+ mag users on the East Coast, and I can tell you that not 1 of them knows Jeff, and not 1 of them purchased a Mag or AGD product just because Jeff was "keeping Mags alive". None of our mags are "Schreiberized" , but they rock just the same. The reason we purchase AGD products is because we don't like our stuff to break. These products are of the highest quality, and the customer service is second to none. I understand that Jeff was a great asset to AGD and I also know he is a top notch mechanic. But there are plenty of "Jeffs". And "Jeffs" will come and "Jeffs" will go over the years, but AGD will continue to thrive without them, knowing that there is a faithful clan of "MagMen" out there, all over the world, who will support AGD forever. You made it sound like AGD is going to go under because he they laid a couple guys off. How would you like it if Tom told you how to run your business? If you tried to tell me how to run mine, we would have a problem. Give the guy some credit! He is the leader in paintball technology and didn't earn that title by making "bad business decisions". Sorry for the rant, but it pissed me off.
LONG LIVE AGD!

[Grendel]

# 0001 Valves

Actually Jeff had Automag Valve # 0001. Some guy that plays in the NPPL has RT #001. He was still playing with it as of Atlantic City. I remember seeing the RT recently, but the Automag one isn't played with.

Infamous G