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Cerner?!?

The company that issued this?

If you work in IT in the Kansas City area it's pretty much given you'll have at least one ex Cerner co-worker. I've heard the same stories over and over about backstabbing politics and death march development cycles. There are supposed to be a couple of good departments to work for but it's pretty much a sweat shop other then that.

Actually, I have avoided Java like the plague. When I decided to dump Windows and run Linux I had zero Linux or Mac experience. I was looking for a language that would be cross-platform. I was considering Java but then there was a story on Slashdot. The story said that developers at Sun didn't think Java was very good in their programming environment. They recommended a couple of languages and Python was one of them.

Here's a link:
http://www.internalmemos.com/memos/memodetails.php ?memo_id=1321

Why don't you ask Sun Microsystems? They seem to have a few good reasons.

Skype is not built on open standards like SIP and remains isolated to its own so-called "Peer to Peer" network. It is to the Gizmo Project as AIM is to Jabber.

Furthermore, eBay has a history of poor human rights concerns and owns PayPal, probably the worst on-line payment site ever created.

I predict more consumer-hostile behavior from eBay and will continue to boycott all of its products.

This doesn't look very bazaar-like.

lucasarts is an adventure game all by itself. http://www.internalmemos.com/memos/memodetails.php ?memo_id=2344/

Before the nanobots took over his brain, he knew that even internal Solaris developers were unable to use Java to build stand alone apps.

That would never happen at Microsoft, there they would add special secret hooks to the tool so that the internal developers got decent speed.

So, if Solaris developers aren't doing how are Linux developers doing it?

They aren't. - Sure, stuff that are wrapped in some kind of support blanket app (apache, Mozilla) written in a real language but not for gui based or fast, small, elegant, resource-efficient daemons. I'll take FLTK and the myriad of beautifully written tools in other languages.

Another way to look at it is What would we lose if all Linux Java apps suddenly disappeared?

For most people (except Chinese dissidents) nothing. Now ask the same for C, C++, even, heaven forbid Python. Totally.Different.Answer.

Arab news organizations have reported extensively on US troops destroying and stealing things in Iraqi homes during search missions. US news also hasn't covered the closings of anti-US publications in Iraq (which set off the current Najaf situation). These are the kinds of stories that the Arab world sees every day. Since most Americans don't see any of that stuff, we have no idea why they're so upset.

I don't think you've been listening to the right news. I knew about the closing of al-Said's paper the day it happened, thanks to National Public Radio's Anne Garrels. Her report helped me understand why closing the inflammatory paper was needed, and why the consequences were nearly inevitable. I found myself hoping that the US administration knew what they were getting themselves into -- and I'm not yet sure if my hopes were realized or dashed.

Of course, whenever I try to listen to NPR news with anyone else in the car, they say "isn't there any music?" Then we turn to the local Clear Channel station and listen to a 15-minute commercial set. Maybe when we complain about mainstream news being vapid, we're getting our cause and effect mixed up.

I never believed the official party line with regard to Sun. I saw great ideas devoured by Java -- as even most Java-lovers realize, it is absolutely unsuitable for desktop applications, yet it was marketed for them, and it was used for them. Remember JXTA? That was Sun's peer-to-peer initiative. I saw JXTA come and go and hundreds of peer-to-peer developers with it. Peer-to-peer and Java -- truly a winning combination.

Nor did I believe that this was merely a coincidence or gross incompetence. When the internal Sun memo the Java problem was released, where Sun engineers complained that Java was too slow even for internal use on Sun's operating system, it was clear to everyone what had always been clear to me: Java was never intended to be a fast, powerful programming language. It was intended to be a way to sell big hardware, and to tie people to a single company: Sun. They sucked up a lot of mindshare. Neither proprietary nor truly free, Java existed in that same state of justifiable coercion (by means of copyright) as, say, MacOS X. But both Apple and Sun have as their goal the same thing as Microsoft -- to become the only vendor that matters, to create a monopoly. Microsoft is just better at it.

If you want a powerful, truly free, cross-platform interpreted language, try Python or Perl. Just because your PHB hasn't heard about them because there are no glossy brochures doesn't mean they can't kick Java's ass any day, even (or especially) in "mission-critical" application. Both are modern, object-oriented languages, idiosyncratic to be sure, but scalable no less. This very website is probably a larger application than most of the stuff that runs in your company. When did you last lose a comment on Slashdot? And Slashdot's code is ugly and hackish.

Now it turns out that Steve Ballmer and Scott McNealy are on the same football team. Their common enemy: Linux. Well, you know what? Linux can kick Sun's ass, and Linux can kick Microsoft's ass as well. And that's not because "Micro$oft sux0rZ!" It's because Linux has behind it not just governments and corporations, but the power of thousands of unimaginably creative volunteers. It's because Linux is free and will always remain so. Technology is not just about gadgets. It's also about freedom, and in the long run, freedom will prevail. Say about RMS what you want, but sometimes being a little overzealous can be a good thing.

Are corporations like Sun and Microsoft evil? Of course not. They are amoral (that also goes for IBM, by the way). They will do anything if it's good for their bottom line. If corporate murder was legal, every corporation would immediately start murdering people, other than by exposing them to toxic chemicals and unsafe workplace conditions. That's because if the current CEO doesn't like murdering people, they will simply be replaced by someone who does - shareholder value.

Linux is a little bit of everything. It incorporates elements of socialism (sharing your work, writing software in your free time), capitalism (being paid to program), of dictatorships (Linus coordinating the development process), of democracies (various associations with elected representatives), of meritocracy (those who develop, lead), of plutocracy (those who have money can get stuff done). This is in many ways a model for society. There is no single way to run a complex world. You need to combine the elements in a smart fashion.

Who cares about Sun? Who cares about Microsof

I don't honestly know how difficult it would be to have the Swing team add the ability to ask the OS which theme is current, but it would probably be a hell of a lot easier than rewriting all the native peers to use AWT instead.

Why would I bother? As I said the GCJ and GNU Classpath developers are already doing this for me. Furthermore, I think having Java code that somehow emulates the current GTK+ theme would be much more effort and perform much worse than rewriting all the native peers. After all the native peers are *designed* to be rewritten for each new platform Java is ported to. All that is really involved is using JNI to bind constructors and methods to the appropriate underlying GTK+ functions. Simple.

Looking at the page you referenced, what it said was A lightweight component is a component that is not associated with a native opaque window. So, I guess the Component class itself is not associated with a Peer...

Exactly. I usually place my lightweight custom components inside an applet window and integrate them into a web application. Using Swing would be overkill in such cases. I suppose that technically I'm not using much of AWT other than the event model and graphics processing routines it shares with Swing.

I don't need to [invoke a new Java VM for every incomming web process].

Of course you don't. That would be insane. The point I was trying to make is that this is *not* insane for all but the most demanding Python applications. I think this says something troubling about Java performance in general, and in fact people at Sun think so too. That's not to say that a clever Java programmer can't make a reasonably fast application, just that he or she has an uphill battle.

Performance is not critical for every aspect of every application. And the good news is that the Python example suggests that much of the Java performance problem is due to poor virtual machine implementation rather than any fundamental flaw. That means things might get better over time. I don't think Java will ever be able to compete with C for speed in all cases, any more than C will ever be able to compete with assembly for speed in all cases. But surely Java could catch up to Python. Releasing a free software version of the Sun VM might bring that about since it would give more people a chance to make suggestions and test experimental virtual machine variants.

After working for companies that build everything on Windows, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, AS/400, etc.... I can't tell you how happy I am to only compile once. I no longer have to modify the makefile every time we try to build X or Y on platform Z... it really is a HUGE timesaver for the developer.

Actually I've worked for companies that build for each of those platforms except AS/400 (plus some others like s/390 Linux). I never found the compile isses terribly challenging, and we used scripts to automate nightly and release builds. Much more problematic were things like the lack of a good pseudo-random number generator on many proprietary platforms, and these issues often affect Java no less than C or any other language.

In addition, I have downloaded services for my BSD box (that were newer than the Port Collection), and been completely unable to figure out how to get them to compile properly, and fix the errors. Had they distributed it as a jar (especially over JNLP), I would not have had to go through all that hassles, and those services would be currently running.

I think you underestimate how much this kind of problem affects Java. Just try installing two or more major enterprise Java applications. Each will require a virtual machine from a specific and often mutually exclusive subset of vendors and version numbers. Perhaps someday the Java platform will be less of a moving target and this argument will be stronger. A free software virtual machine

Even Java at Sun appears to have problems.

Don't just swallow all the hype. Think twice before bying in to child of marketing that is Java.

Java: Language of Tommorow
Java: Failure or Crime
many anti-Java rants on The Bile Blog
Sun itself won't use Java internally

Why is it these days it seems like high UID = Microsoft Apologist?

If in fact it is the real memo, InternalMemos.com (from the same people who brought you FuckedCompany) has it. It just looks kind of suspicious because of how short it is, but that very well may be it.

It's ironic that this request comes from an executive officer of a security company. OTOH, their credibility had already bugun to slide since they changed their focus to litigation and Microsoft press releases.

http://www.internalmemos.com/memos/memodetails.php ?memo_id=2095

As previously communicated in the State of the Firm letter, the Company has chosen to reassess and restructure its internal IT development capabilities ... and has decided to outsource these service offerings.

Carlos was asked to provide the direction and a plan to make this happen. His strategy and action plan will save the Company significant dollars on an annual basis.

His plan included his departure as CIO, as the position would no longer be required to manage the reduced IT budget and staff. Recognizing this outcome, it took great courage, commitment and dedication on his part to support the Company in this, his last assignment.

Carlos' decision to leave the Company on January 31, 2004 was on very amicable terms and we are pleased he will remain available to us for consultation in the near term.
We appreciate and recognize Carlos' many valuable contributions over the years...especially his...visionary plans that regrettably include the elimination of his own job as CIO. We wish Carlos well in his new endeavors.

FuckedCompany.com has a nice little blurp on it, as well as the letter sent out to users. See the current mp3.com homepage for a cheezy rendition of mp3.com's future.

Ebay INTERNAL email

I would like to notify you regarding the new quality measures that will take place. As you are aware, eBay strives to be the best in our business, and to ensure that our members receive the best possible customer service when contacting us. Starting in October, monitoring software will be installed on all company computers. This is not an effort to "spy" on your activities, but rather to allow our quality department to take screen shots of your computer, to allow them to better coach you regarding policy and procedures. Please keep in mind, all AOL Instant messager messages will be recorded, and all incoming and outgoing emails will also be affected. With this said, here are some guidelines that I would like you to follow:

1. 1. No pornography sites should be accessed unless it is part of your job
2. 2. No personal emails should be sent or received using company equipment
3. 3. AOL Instant Messengers should be used for work related purposes only.
4. 4. While working during business hours, no access to unrelated Internet sites is allowed under any circumstances.

Please remember that every action performed on your company computer will be recorded. Please act accordingly.

If you are caught viewing Internet sites that are not work related, you may suffer disciplinary action up to and including termination.

If you have questions regarding this new policy, please contact your supervisor, or lead.

[name removed]
eBay Manager

Sun engineers thoughts

Meanwhile, Sun sends millions of dollars in "license money" to SCO, and keeps spreading FUD about Linux to promote its own OS offering, Solaris. Even Sun's own employees know that Java is a piece of crap, and everyone who has ever tried to run a Java client application (without drinking Sun's Kool-Aid first) knows that, too. Sun should be boycotted for their collaboration with SCO alone, but the fact that they have pushed a programming language into academia which cannot be used to develop competitive client applications has done more to harm the tech community than Microsoft.

Yes, Java can be used for server applications (a claim which Java proponents ridiculuously uphold to demonstrate that Java is good technology -- if it couldn't, it would be quite useless, wouldn't it?), but so can Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby, OCaml and many other powerful and completely open programming language that are not controlled by a megacorporation which is in bed with SCO. There is no need whatsoever to use Sun, and the sooner the IT community learns that, the better.

Actually, I do code in java. I like the language, but the runtime is still a bit sloppy, if you ask me.

but seriously, a good, fast OS could be written in java

I hope you meant IDE, because it would be as impossible to write an OS in Java as it would be in VB.... read Runtime.

I'll give Java more credit when things like this stop showing up.

dum de dum de dumm... Oh my, emusic.

InternalMemos.com

You can spout about how despicable DRM as long as you want but the fact is that PHBs would love to have software that made leaks such as those that end up on InternalMemos.com less likely.

Indoctrination in grades 5 thru 9. Eeeps.

You mean the java whose creator wrote this???

Also for the record, when I am deep in ketosis, I rarely fart at all unless I eat one of those soy-based low-carb bars (hat have no business being sold anyway.

In the internal memo from Microsoft, dated June 24, Bill Gates proposed this.... coincidence?

In his other proposal (reverse MX records), he doesn't address the possibility of a faked mail header...

And the idiot who rated my previous message as offtopic at leased should have followed the above URL (and now utterly apoligize to this Anonymous Coward :-)

... and this is not a joke...

Read the full article from da man here: Internal Memo from June 24, 2003
Maybe unaccidently leaked? Who knows...


But if it helps, I would vote for it...


Also intersting to see his reverse MX record proposal.
Although IMHO it would still be circonveniable by spoofing the mail header...




Posted anonymously because of non-obvious reasons...

I'd like to see some specific references to this. Clearly, sites like InternalMemos.com have no problem reproducing and disseminating internal correspondence within a private company. I wonder whether copyright law prohibits public postings of private emails. On one hand I'd say no, because we've all seen memos, cease and desist letters, and leaked emails posted tons of places. But what if an email should contain something like a poem? Wouldn't that be protected by copyright law? Wouldn't the letter in itself, as a unique form of expression, be protected? Is there a difference in copyright ownership between a letter sent by a lawyer vs. an internal memo at a privately owned company vs. a letter sent by me to grandma?

Just curious.

Warner Music prepares the pathway to sue their own employees with this memo

I seriously considered rolling out our new web apps on Solaris/x86 last year. Two things in particular made me choose Linux instead:

1. Sun was not vocal in its continued support of an x86 platform. Rumors abounded that no more Solaris releases would be made for the x86 architecture.
2. This memo. We do everything in Java.

-j

The reply to Kurtz was covered in an internal memo over at FC.

Wacky.

My favorite pieces to quote:

it appears that the JRE can actually be simpler than the Python RE since Java does at least some of this work at compile time. The example above of "Hello World" is a good method for getting an idea of the minimum support code required at runtime. This support code includes garbage collector, byte code interpreter, exception processor and the like. Hello World written in Java2 requires 9M for this most basic support infrastructure. By comparison, this is slightly larger than automountd on Solaris8. The Python runtime required to execute Hello World is roughly 1.6M.

While the Java VM (as demonstrated above) grows rapidly as more complex code is executed, the Python VM grows quite slowly. Indeed, an inventory control program written entirely in Python having a SQL database, a curses UI, and network connectivity requires only 1.7M of resident set. This seems to indicate that the resident set requirements of the JRE could be reduced by at least 80%.

Examples include modules that used to be called Swing, RTI, IDL, JSSE and JAAS. These are all good things that should be part of Java. Our concern is that these are not separable modules which can evolve as requirements change. The Java system for evolving the interface (deprecation) does not serve production software very well. Once the interface disappears, the product just breaks.

Production quality programs written in Java, like TogetherJ, indicate a specific Java version which must be installed before the program is run. If another program is installed, requiring a higher Java version, the user may be forced to decide which program stays and which goes away.

If you're tempted to do something like this at work, be aware that your cow-orkers may make fun of you over this. Be ready to defend your Trekliness if fighting breaks out. And by all means, if you do respond to any teasing for your devotion to all things Trek, please make sure that your cow-orkers know who to forward the mail to. The world will thank you :-)

If you're tempted to do something like this at work, be aware that your cow-orkers may make fun of you over this. Be ready to defend your Trekliness if fighting breaks out. And by all means, if you do respond to any teasing for your devotion to all things Trek, please make sure that your cow-orkers know who to forward the mail to. The world will thank you :-)

And what's so good of them?

Speak for yourself. Sun is no less bad as Microsoft. Otherwise, why Sun is so bad for JBoss? Why Sun is so bad for many other small (but very good!) open source projects who is trying to contribute the good code to Java? Remember what's happened between Sun and Apache's Log4j?

Now Sun almost officialy admits that Java is bad: it's too big, too slow and too inconvinient for OS system management. Now Sun reconsiders the use of Java on teir future server-side applications. Sun is even paying attention on Python for its future. So, why to bother with standartization of that *dead* Java?

I think that first thing Sun will do good with Java is to stop all histery of Java and to move to Python. All Sun was doing before was a business using very bad methods.

What ISN'T broken about Java 2?

Where would you like to begin? Sun's Java implementation? Sun even thinks it's shit. And, believe me, THEY'RE RIGHT!

Perhaps the language itself? It inherits all of the OLD problems of Java 1.x. If you want a good summary of problems with Java 1.x, I would check here and here.

The standard library? Borked! Check the above links for yet more fun and excitement. And they don't even BEGIN to cover JavaBeans, JINI, SWING, AWT, and the like!

How about Java 2's cross-platform compatibility? Bzzzt! Java has about as much cross-platform compatibility as assembly code. Each JRE platform has a host of bugs that must be addressed BY THE JAVA CODE. Not to mention, every JVM out there is totally incompatible with every other JVM (yet, amazingly, still compliant with Sun's "standards").

Please. Java is borked beyond all human recognition. Maybe Sun should spend a little more time making a JVM that works than forcing Microsoft to add MORE bloated shit to Windows.

It's just the war show, a show like any other. Read about how Clear Channel is gearing up for it. Sure, sex sells, but nothing like how war does.

Which brings up the other point. Now that Apple has made itself into a Unix desktop company, both Sun and SGI are in serious trouble in that market. Despite all the whiners about how expensive Apple gear is compare to a white-box PC, Sun and SGI gear, even their "budget" gear, makes Apple look cheap. Apple even has a low-end server now. Not only do they give away the development environment away for free, but they don't have client license fees for their server OS.

Apple (and x86 Linux too) is killing the high-margin Unix desktop market without even trying hard. I even know someone who used to use a Tadpole SPARC laptop and now loves his TiBook. SGI's days are numbered, and all Sun has going for it is the high-end server market.

I RTFA'd this yesterday, and I thought Cringely's choice of who should buy Sun was interesting. He's right that Sun no longer has anything Apple would need. But the idea that Sony should be the one to buy Sun was brilliant. I agree that Sony could fit Sun's high-end servers into their company.

And for those of you worrying about what will happen to Java, maybe Sun dying would keep Sun from screwing it up even more.

Here's the memo that Key3Media CEO Fred Rosen sent out yesterday--it's even on InternalMemos.comalready.

From: Fred Rosen - Key3Media
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 8:15 AM
Subject: Important News From Key3Media
February 3, 2003

To Our Colleagues in the Technology Community:

We wanted to let you know about some news that will have a very positive impact on our ability to serve you going forward. Key3Media today reached an agreement to recapitalize the Company. It includes a voluntarily filing for Chapter 11 protection, which will allow us to remove the majority of our debt, restore a healthy balance sheet and do business with you unencumbered by extraneous financial issues.

All of our scheduled tradeshows and conferences will take place as planned. And, we can now begin to implement an array of new programs that will help make our industry-leading events even better.

We are pleased that our plan is backed by accomplished investor Thomas Weisel Capital Partners. In addition to providing short term funding ? which will enable us to operate our business and meet our obligations during the proceedings ? they are providing long-term financing and strategic counsel to help the Company throughout this process and beyond. While Key3Media has been impacted by the combination of a recent global decline in the IT and networking industries, a significant amount of debt on its balance sheet, as well as a decrease in business travel and hospitality after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Key3Media is a fundamentally sound business with a strong portfolio of brands, a large high-caliber client base, and a leading market position.

We recognize that there continues to be significant demand for face-to-face marketing, and we remain committed to providing such forums. We sincerely hope this does not cause you any inconvenience and look forward to your continued support. We greatly value our relationship with you, and are committed to meeting your needs. We plan to exit the Chapter 11 process as soon as possible, with no disruption to our events. We fully intend to benefit from Chapter 11, by becoming a healthier, stronger company with a solid financial footing ? enabling us to continue to offer the world?s best information technology tradeshows and conferences.

To view a FAQ document and for additional information, visit www.key3media.com. We will continue to update you as we move through the process, but if you have questions please don?t hesitate to call your Key3Media contact directly, or reply to this email with your message and we will respond to you within 48 hours.

We look forward to continuing to work with you and are committed to giving you our best.

Sincerely,
Fredric D. Rosen
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Key3Media Group

The book's gotten mixed reviews and not just from people who were the targets. But I'd say the value in F'd Company is the website: if you can get beyond the "I'm the first post you {racial/sexist epithet}XXXX{/racial/sexist epithet} and here's my XXX website" posts, there are some posts that have (apparently) real gossip on these companies. He also links to Internal Memos quite often. Fun to read how other people are getting screwed: there's one there called, kinda recursively, Salacious gossip and internal confidential information posted on a tacky website .

Hey, the guy's gonna try to make cash however he can, and there's a finite amount in internet ad revenue and amateur pr0n.

The book's gotten mixed reviews and not just from people who were the targets. But I'd say the value in F'd Company is the website: if you can get beyond the "I'm the first post you {racial/sexist epithet}XXXX{/racial/sexist epithet} and here's my XXX website" posts, there are some posts that have (apparently) real gossip on these companies. He also links to Internal Memos quite often. Fun to read how other people are getting screwed: there's one there called, kinda recursively, Salacious gossip and internal confidential information posted on a tacky website .

Hey, the guy's gonna try to make cash however he can, and there's a finite amount in internet ad revenue and amateur pr0n.

Of course that the numbers do get a bit inflated, but living on 50K a year is harder in Seattle, Silicon Valley, Boston, or NYC than it is from where I live, in say Western Massachusetts. Companies that are in the gold rush areas have to pay people more so that they can live there.

For instance. Microsoft pays their employees more if they work in the Silicon Valley campus than they do on the Redmond campus. Why? Because in Silicon valley it's more expensive with less cheap suburbs to live in. This internal memo talks about the compensation differences being (at one point), as high as 25%. This is all because of the premium costs of programmer labor in that environment.

If you live in Western Mass, or the Dakotas or rural Pennsylvania where the cost of living is dirt low, then you're all set. Otherwise, making 50K stretch in Silicon Valley is just a bit tougher.

And yes, I understand XBoxes and the like aren't essential, and that there are many people with a lot less. No sense in not being grateful for when fortune smiles upon you.

--jaybonci

cynism at its best...

is this for real ?

I wonder what she would have to say about Internal Memos where all you do is post secrets about your company.

fucked company internal memo here was it so hard to provide a link to it?

Ok this is where I lose you. That link says that Mozilla is going to provide spam filters. How is that bloatware? Trolling? Got me.

Well, doesn't have the kitchen sink yet, but I hear they're working hard on that. What does it have? Let's see here, web browser, email fetching, filtering, and sorting; news client, chat client, HTML design frontend, contacts manager, banner ad blocking, the list goes on. This all culminates in 20MB or so of source that took six and a half hours to compile on my Duron 800.

Last time I checked, all of this comes very close to the textbook definition of feature creep and bloat. And now, coming to a Mozilla near you, spam filters! They're not fixing any of their nearly 12,000 bugs. In other words, yes, it's buggier than Win2K, but by God, it filters spam! I included the spam filters link to illustrate the Bill-worthy feature creep Mozilla suffers from.

Lest you think I'm the only one saying this, JWZ, one of the principal authors of Netscape, resigned from Netscape and Mozilla.org over these very issues.

I've spelled it out for you this far, might as well carry on until the bitter end. My ultimate point was that if Mozilla were a Microsoft product, the righteous wrath of /. would be brought to bear on it for all of these reasons. But since it's not, it can commit all of these Gatesian mortal sins and escape such scrutiny.

Agian ya lost me. I use Mozilla every day. I havent found anything major. Well besides the bug they just fixed.

Read my post - I use it all the time too. And quite often, I find that it doesn't work right. It tries to load forms as perl scripts to save on the HDD. It doesn't handle Java well at all. Plugins take forever to load. It randomly eats my SMTP server entry. My point is, there is much room for improvement. But no, they've taken the Gatesian approach of kludging feature upon feature atop a buggy, marginally-usable codebase.

Ranting??? School? Get a life. At least your school runs opensource. (maybe judging from the rest of your post)

Wrong as usual. My school does not run open source. They got taken in by the slick-talking outsourcing salesdroids and are now firmly wedded to His Billness. But what the hell, did you expect anything different just across the bridge from Redmond? Be that as it may, the only reason I brought it up was to say when I intended to nuke Windows from my computer, and that only to show I'm not a trolling Microdroid evangelist.

I really should stop feeding these trolls

Re-read my previous paragraph. Carefully. Again. And again. And think hard before you hit submit next time.

Hopefully this will help them retain important members of their sales and service teams.

Yea, they're going to need it. Especially after hiking their rates across the board as an emotional retaliation and blame shift of their troubles to customers "not paying their fair share" according to this Worldcom executive memo.

Hmm... shakey company (understatement), bankruptcy status with a high probability of failure, support people and engineers laid off, sales people too busy on monster.com to answer concerned customer calls, and they hike rates 10% across the board?

We gave Worldcom our response and cancelled the two remaining T1's with them, switching them to Sprint (who gave us, gasp, an even greater discount).

Still, there is fear that by discharging billions of debt in these creative bankruptcies, the real loser will be companies that don't cheat and play by the rules...

*scoove*

The events eluded to are funnier than an outright statement of what happened would be.

This memo is pretty amusing, too.

The memo is about "This afternoons events in the restroom." It's claimed to be from the Oxbridge Group which is "AN EXECUTIVE SEARCH FIRM SPECIALIZING IN THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY"

Perhaps this sort of thing can help explain Enron, Worldcom et al.

The last paragraph of the memo is kind of interesting "I understand from some of you that my recent indecency related arrest in Thailand seems to have clouded your judgement to illegal acts"