Well, this sucks. While I'm trying to not make swift, sweeping, knee jerk generalizations, with so much "f&*K you" already in the industry, in the form of loot boxes, season passes, microtransactions, limited editions, DRM, day one-DLC etc., it's hard not to get up in arms. What makes this news extra infuriating is that these "volunteers," known as Xbox Ambassadors, were trained and used to work under the newly let go staff members. Nothing like training your replacement and not knowing it....
In a recent report from Polygon, word is that Microsoft "let go" 12 members of their Xbox support team, replacing them with volunteers. These volunteers will now provide support to customers by answering their questions, only they don't get paid a wage, instead, they're whoring themselves out for reward points, and the chance to be entered into competitions with the chance of winning prizes. What? Who has this kind of time to devote to a job that pays no money? It's one thing to be a scab during a strike, but this is something different. They aren't even working for money!
What really sucks is that the support staff who got fired/laid off were responsible for handling the Xbox Support Twitter account, and these volunteers were brought in to assist them. Apparently, they assisted them so well that Microsoft decided they didn't need their real employees, instead opting to let them go and keep their "paid for trinkets" volunteers instead.
I guess a multi-million dollar company couldn't afford to keep on 12 members of their support team. Follow up inquiries have been sent, I'll let you know when we know more.
