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This is a reponse to the thread found here: http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/23207-former-exec-sues-dish-network.html

I tried to reply to that thread, but it said that it's too old. So I'm posting this here. Not to vent, not to cause trouble, but just to state facts about what I've seen go on. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. I've never written out about this before, but feel like doing it, finally.


There is something to be said about the culture in Echostar, at least while I was there. I was fired in 2002.

It's been five and a half years now since I left the company, and have never told this story. But seeing this thread, I thought I'd stop by and write my mind finally.

I worked under Maria Iglesias who worked under Bruce Peckham, and Mary Davidson in Retail Services, helping to resolve issues with retailer commissions.

A really nice lady, Renee, had her station next to mine and she was the trainer there.

I actually started out in Customer Service, but there was at the time a class action lawsuite against Echostar by the retailers because of the commissions, and Charlie Ergen had asked VP Soyra-Cartwright to get the most talented CSRs over to retail services to help them. Well she choose your humble servant.

I will tell you Retail Services was a joke. When I got there, the few employees there sat around and chatted and joked, and called their moms and their moms friends, and emailed and chatted all day. All the while emails and faxes were pileing up from dealers that had questions on their commission payments, at that time we payed on Primary Activation, FPI, and Flex, something like that, it's been awhile.

Anyway, they trained us on their software they used and showed us how to research commissions, and the team from customer service cut through all that backwork like it was nothing in a matter of a couple of weeks. The retail services team still just sat around like lazy, well they were lazy, and I could see why the dealers were frustrated. Anyway they liked your humble servants work there so they asked me to stay, and I took the offer because I didn't like customer service.

Okay, to cut to the chase, Renee would go with the Execs sometimes on their outings and stuff. And this Exec from upstairs (close to Charlie Ergen, I forget his name, but I remember seeing a picture of him next to a really fancy racecar, kinda old, probably in his mid 50's, kinda Chubby) comes down one day and I'm sitting next to Renee chatting with her and this Exec comes down and interrupts us and I'm standing there and he says to Renee: "I had a really good time with you today at the fair." And she's like: "Thank you" and he's like: "I came down here to ask you out to dinner tonight" and she's like: "But you've got a wife" and he's like: "But she doesn't need to know" and she's like: "I dont' want to go out with you." And all this time I'm standing there watching, and he gets all red and looks me in the eyes, and I'm thinking, haha she told you you old perv. And he walks off.

I don't think anything of it. A couple days later Mary Davidson calls me into her office, Maria Iglesias pulls me off the floor and says I'm getting fired. I'm like, what? Getting fired? What for? Useing the internet during company time. But I'm like, everyone uses the internet. I've been useing it for 4 years and you've never said anything. And she knows I've never let it interfer with my job. I mean I had one of the best productivity reports in all the time I was at Customer Service, and I was sure serving the retailers good, and they knew it. I'm like, I use the internet all the time, you use it. You call your family all the time. I couldn't undertand it. And they fired me.

So I called up a friend from work, and he's like, wow I didn't see that one coming, and I'm like, yea me neither. So then he tells me, "Did you hear about Renee?" And I'm like, "no. What's up?" And he's like, "they let her go a few days after they fired you. They said they didn't need a trainer anymore, and just let her go."

So it didn't hit me right away, I think it popped in my head one day about a year after I had been fired, and I remembered that conversation that exec had with Renee, and then I remember getting fired right after that, and then she was let go.

And then there was another pretty woman, I don't remember her name anymore, that was in the same area I was, and she complained to me constantly that the execs upstairs were always sexually harrasing her when she came in, and I never thought anything about it.

But now it all makes sense.

Anyway, that's my two sense. I believe it, I knew Soyra-Cartright, very nice, very honest person. If she said that this was what was going on, then that's what was going on. And good for her for talking out about it.

Echostar will get what's coming to her, for the shady atmosphere, and evil dealings it has dealt it's employees. In the long run, any company that works that way will have hell to pay.

Well, if you read my story, thanks. Leave any comments if you want.