Don't talk to me about IBM software. Bah! I spent several WEEKS learning Net.Data in WCS 4.1 only to have you clowns obsolete and discontinue it in version 5.x.
Yea, I am the other guy on this planet that is fluent in net.data. Heck IBM ought to hire me just for that. You in Portsmouth, Boston, or where?
I dunno man, this seems a LOT like simply buying your way into the history books. I mean these guys just went out and BOUGHT a bunch of the fastest computers they could find, strung them together with the fastest network they could get, wrote some code to make them all talk together and BLAM! instant number three spot on the fastest computer list on the planet. What the hell kind of challenge is that? Sure, anybody can just cough up $7.2M in cash to buyyyy their way into the record books, but the other guys earnnned it the hard way.
Wassat?
Whoops, nevermind. Come to find out the rest of those supposed uberMachines are store bought also. My bad. Man, doesn't anybody do things the fun way anymore?
Re:It is Christmas, give them what they REALLY wan
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Christmas Bonuses?
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· Score: 1
-Not only will you learn about what workers really think they need, but you'll also get them feeling a lot more responsible for the company.
One more thing, they are probably going to be a little more careful about getting a good deal on whatever they buy. The funds in their slush fund are limited and if a guy uses a little discression (catches hardware on sale, for example) he can make it go a lot farther. I am guessing he would be more likely to spend it carefully because it is 'his money'.
I can see that one now... Varadarajan surfs to www.apple.com/purchase
Ok, max all the options. Cool. Now put 1100 in the quantity. Cool. Ok (chugga chugga chugga) $3.3 million dollars. Who has the credit card? (silence, *crickets*, the rude sound of nobody reaching for their wallet...)
Ok maybe it is just me. Of course I have play configured a few systems in the online order systems of IBM and Dell a few times (didn't actually hit 'Submit' however) and it is possible to configure a single $100k machine from Dell. I haven't found the limit at IBM yet as they seem to have more imagination than I do (although it is easy just to get the SOFTWARE on one of their systems to exceed $100k.)
Re:It is Christmas, give them what they REALLY wan
on
Christmas Bonuses?
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· Score: 1
-I can see how employees might be a little bitter about not getting any take-home, though. I think a $500 take-home and a $1000 "license to spend" might be a great compromise.
Nobody said the 'work related expenditures' excluded 'work related' hardware for your home office, and nobody said that the $1,500 couldn't be supplimented by your own finds. iPod, iPaq, 802.11b wireless, LCD monitor, maybe a new desktop or laptop, books, training materials, laser printer, computer speakers, office furniture, new cell phone, GPS, blank media, DVD burner... any one of those can easily be justified as work related yet necessary for the home office, and if you were looking at getting a new uberBox or uberLaptop for the house anyways you could use 100% of the $1,500 towards the cost of the machine, instead of the $875 after taxes you might get from a bonus check.
In California the top tax bracket (FIT/FICA/California income tax) is what, like 50%? Heck doing it this way means the tech can buy twice as much stuff, or a new computer for his work desk and a new computer for his home desk.
Another unspoken benefit here is that the computer guys HAVE to spend it on computer toys, stuff they want. For the single guys that isn't an issue, but married guys will catch a serious ration of shit for spending $1,500 on toys after telling the wife all year that they can't afford a new leather couch or to replace the carpet or remodel the kitchen or whatever. I have a friend that pretty much has resigned himself to using the same computer for the next 16 years because no matter what happens, the $500 a new box might cost will always go to doing something for his kids. Noble, but if that is the case how does the boss reward the employee?
The 'work related' clause (supported by it being an AMEX gift card, looks a LOT like a work crediit card) is the guy's get out of jail free clause : he can say that whatever he buys has to be work related because the boss says so. Guilt free toy spending spree! Everybody knows 'that guy' - the one that just buys whatever he wants, has all the cool toys, doesn't have to ask anybody or justify his tech purchases, has the John Holmes signature series monitor on his desk... this is a chance for your employees to be 'that guy'.
It is Christmas, give them what they REALLY want
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Christmas Bonuses?
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Invest the $7,500 back into the company but let them decide how to invest it.
Just a thought : every employee secretly wishes he had some power to do something a little bit different, has something that drives him at work. Give them power, and money is power.
Five $1,500 Amex gift cards to be used 'for business expenses' (that part means you get to write it off on your taxes if you get some supporting paperwork, and they don't have to pay $600 of it to the IRS) empower them mightily (money = power). A case of the good coffee, ten cases of soda that they like for the fridge, a nice twin 18" LCD monitor setup or Bose noise cancelling headset, a DVD burner for their individual workstation, more RAM for the server or their machine, one of those nifty HyperThreading new P4 machines, a session of training, 7 MCSE exams, a new 100 megabit switch to replace the hub, wifi gear, iPod, handheld iPaq, work related hardware for their home office, reference materials... in short they have the power to override any purchase veto they didn't particularly agree with. Better now they can go get that toy they have been wanting SOOO badly without convincing anybody that they need it - I really want a SMP box but there is no way I could convince my boss that I need one.
This borders on the 'new vacuum cleaner for the wife' but remember that if they are hardcore techies they LIKE new toys even if they are work related toys. After regular ol' cash is spent (once it hits the bank and mixes with all the other cash it isn't the same anymore) it is forgotten... but a twin 18" LCD display says 'I am special' for a very long time and serves as a daily reminder that what is good for the company is good for the employee.
Because it is something they are spending to improve their quality of life issues at work (and the IRS doesn't steal 40% of it, and their wife doesn't get to steal the rest) they are justified (guilt free!) to spend it on toys that they really, really want.
Finally because it doesn't actually affect their bottom line at home they can't become dependant on the bonus money in their annual budget and if this 'benefit' is only half the size next year (or zero if biz is bad) they are not going to be nearly bent out of shape.
Straight up. Biggest blow to my morale was also the largest bonus check I have ever received - over $8k. I ended up quitting less than a year later even though it was easily twice as large as any I had before or after.
Why? Everything is relative. I was the IT staffer charged with printing out the list of who was getting what and saw that there were no talent, no college degree, not working on the Y2K-keep-the-company alive, ass-clowns whose bonuses were twice the size of mine (three women in particular, I was too young to understand that bonuses can reward many, many things.)
Two things about bonuses : don't promise them and then use them as a punishing stick, and make sure they are fairly spread around. Word gets out that one guy on the dev staff only got half as much as his peers and he is gone.
Maybe that was their intent, but they were pretty surprised when I left so I am guessing not. I agree it was fairly petty but I live, I learn, I get wiser.
Actually it EXCEEDS the $1500 limit for a simple reason (well actually 1040 reasons.) $1000 in cash and a bottle of the Dom far exceeds the net on a $1500 check.
I was kidding. Of course I bet you could sell it back to Apple so they can put it in their showcase, or maybe use it as an end-table in Steve's office.
Foreign head of state in his office with a cup of tea, Jobs says 'hey don't put that cup on that box - dig it, one of the machines Microsoft purchased from us years ago... yea, don't ask.'
I think what we are seeing here is just a snippet, out of context. Sort of like the foot massage discussion in the early part of Pulp Fiction.
A foot massage is not, and at the same time is, a perfectly good reason to throw a Samoan off a 4th story balcony through a plate glass terrarium.
A picture of some computers ain't nothing but a thing. Have that picture interpreted in very subtle ways by the overlords at MS, given the context, as implying that they are using Mac's to do production artwork instead of whatever MS sells... he didn't say it, but if you are very twisted you can interpret it in a subtle manner.
Of course if I had to guess I would say it had nothing to do with the actual contents of the picture (coulda been Dell's for all I care) - it was more likely the feeling that he somehow broke the code of silence or something. I do some freaky shit when I go to Vegas or Miami and there is no way I am going to bring along someone who has been known to throw candid pix in his blog, or worse yet tell tales of what happens behind closed doors. Once someone lets a secret slip, however small, can you really trust him not to let something really important slip? Is it worth it to you as a company to make that gamble?
We all have personal lives, and we all have online persona. What we are seeing here is a blurring of the two in its infant stages and that maybe the two need to remain discrete.
Light IS EMW. And Light is Love. QED ElectroMagnetic Radiation is Love.
Think about that before you replace your CRT with an LCD.
As for the new chips, I bask here in the love emitting from my CRT envisioning this thing being applied to cranking up the performance of audio and video codecs to the point that DVD quality videos are compressed to the point that they fit several to a CD and they don't take all night to encode.
I think what spooked them is that this guy had the balls to take a picture inside their compound and go public with it - the subject material doesn't really matter, just that he actually did it. The other thing is - maybe they don't trust him to use his better judgement about what he should and shouldn't take pictures public of, because they trusted him to use his better judgement about taking and posting any pictures in the first place.
I snuck a camera into the Kremlin in September of 1993 and took a bunch of pictures - how the hell was I supposed to know that the infamous failed coup of 1993 was going down at that exact moment in time? I didn't, but that doesn't make it any less sensitive. True story, by the way.
See now here is the trick - the difference between fact and hypothesis:
Microsoft has G5's. You can say this as a fact because you have seen it with your own eyes.
You guess that Microsoft has Linux boxes, Sun boxes, etc... but you can't really say for sure and you have no clue what hardware they are running on... but you know for a fact that they run Apple G5's.
See the difference? It is hard to tell because I am still way low on caffeine and moving a little slow, but that is normal for a Monday.
Just maybe reword what you said a little to see Microsoft's perspective:
To me the idea of supporting an employee who's fondest wish is to air my company's dirty laundry on his blog, even if he was a valued worker, was simply too much to be starring me in the face all day.
Your actions and ideas support what the company did, even though you do not particularly support the company in general.
-Also, as others have pointed out, the negative publicity MS is getting as a result is probably more than enough to offset whatever benefit they might have derived from sacking the guy.
I for one will not be buying any more Microsoft software, that's for damn sure. Unless of course my source for hacked warez drys up in which case I will have to actually buy it again now that they have that damn XP activation thing working pretty nicely.
I was working evening temp work (networking their office, side job) for a small accounting firm and they looked me square in the eyes and explained that I don't see anything, I don't hear anything, and nothing I see or hear gets repeated.
I was much younger and dumber then and I tried to interpret that as 'make judgement calls and don't repeat anything sensitive.'
I mentioned to someone I worked with at my real job that her sister was getting hired by the accounting firm in a discussion about whatever and about two weeks later the guys with their names on the front door at the accounting firm had me in a closed door meeting to explain that the terms of my (verbal) contract stated that nothing, nothing, and nothing that I saw or heard was to ever be repeated or even acknowledged, even to either of them in a closed door meeting, ever. I had access to information that was entirely too sensitive to be making decisions myself as to which I could leak, and which I couldn't.
I was asked if I wanted to leave quietly and never return, or if I wanted the larger of the two to escort me to the door. I said that if I had the option I wanted to stay, finish building their network, keep my eyes and ears and mouth shut and come away from the experience a much wiser person. I was granted that option and have pretty much followed that rule since.
He was a temp. It isn't so much they 'fired' him as they decided they no longer needed his services (and as such, insured he longer has unfettered access to meander around the campus taking pictures to post on the web.)
But yea, sounds like the same sort of thing, except this takes it a little further, like dressing up in a Coke delivery guy outfit and getting caught buying a case of Pepsi at WalMart, filmed by channel 3 news video crew and having that film clip go public on the 10pm news.
As for the stern warning vs. firing discussion - seems it was a little of both. They could have taken him aside and given him a stern warning and one person would have walked away a little lighter on his toes and alert about making sure he proudly carries the company flag - but they fired him and in effect gave every one of their evil minions a very stern and personal warning : fly straight and shine bright because we are watching you and we will fire you if you don't.
As for the severity of the blog post - it is about as innocent as a foot massage. If you have no clue what I am talking about watch the first 15 minutes or so of Pulp Fiction; Travolta explains that one way better than I can.
Maybe many people here attach personal feelings to computers, platforms, and OSs.
At some companies it is perfectly ok and encouraged to post candid pictures of the employees (pr0n!) and the boss is fine with that. They are generally pr0n companies, but the boss says 'What's the big deal?' because he is cool with it.
I am guessing that you would not be as comfortable with your employees posting the same kinds of posts on the web, particularly if you were involved and felt somehow that they would cause a negative perception of you or your business.
One - It could be about respect. Sort of like wearing a Pepsi tshirt to work - that is pretty much ok on casual Friday unless you work at Coke, in which case it can be seen as disrespectful. You can drink your Pepsi for research or even because you like it, but don't rub everybody's nose in it or go post pictures about it on the web.
Two - what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Sort of like how you don't go public with what happens on vacation or trade shows, Microsoft is trying to enforce some unwritten rules about not going public with private events that happen on that side of the wall. When you go with your buddies to Vegas and everybody gets laid by strippers, you don't actually sign forms with non-disclosure agreements that state 'no posting pictures of these events on the web' - but it is understood.
Of course what do I know, I liked the movie Pulp Fiction. A lot of good lessons in that movie, some of which may apply here.
If it costs $845k and can spend three days completely isolated from the rest of the world, you can pretty much bet that there is enough room in it to have sex. I'm not entirely sure why there is room for three people, but if I had to guess I would say it probably involves two women and whoever owns the sub.
There are no toys on the planet that cost more than half a million dollars that do not in some way, shape, form or fashion involve getting the buyer laid - it may take imagination, but people with that much money also have that much imagination.
Actually electrics are the most quiet - particularly if they don't want to be heard (ie, are just sitting there not moving.) Granted they can't sneak up on you, but if they can sit there quietly for three days waiting for you to chugga chugga chugga on by (ie, carrier group) they could get lucky (maybe strap on a torpedo, wait for the fatty to go by and get a nice shot from behind.)
At 4 knots I don't envision this thing making much noise at ALL, with a decent set of props and some quiet electric motors. If electric motors are quiet enough on bass boats not to scare off the fish... that's pretty quiet.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't talk to me about IBM software. Bah! I spent several WEEKS learning Net.Data in WCS 4.1 only to have you clowns obsolete and discontinue it in version 5.x.
Yea, I am the other guy on this planet that is fluent in net.data. Heck IBM ought to hire me just for that. You in Portsmouth, Boston, or where?
PS - if nothing else I love MQseries. And VMware.
I dunno man, this seems a LOT like simply buying your way into the history books. I mean these guys just went out and BOUGHT a bunch of the fastest computers they could find, strung them together with the fastest network they could get, wrote some code to make them all talk together and BLAM! instant number three spot on the fastest computer list on the planet. What the hell kind of challenge is that? Sure, anybody can just cough up $7.2M in cash to buyyyy their way into the record books, but the other guys earnnned it the hard way.
Wassat?
Whoops, nevermind. Come to find out the rest of those supposed uberMachines are store bought also. My bad. Man, doesn't anybody do things the fun way anymore?
-Not only will you learn about what workers really think they need, but you'll also get them feeling a lot more responsible for the company.
One more thing, they are probably going to be a little more careful about getting a good deal on whatever they buy. The funds in their slush fund are limited and if a guy uses a little discression (catches hardware on sale, for example) he can make it go a lot farther. I am guessing he would be more likely to spend it carefully because it is 'his money'.
I can see that one now ... Varadarajan surfs to www.apple.com/purchase
Ok, max all the options. Cool.
Now put 1100 in the quantity. Cool.
Ok (chugga chugga chugga) $3.3 million dollars. Who has the credit card? (silence, *crickets*, the rude sound of nobody reaching for their wallet...)
Ok maybe it is just me. Of course I have play configured a few systems in the online order systems of IBM and Dell a few times (didn't actually hit 'Submit' however) and it is possible to configure a single $100k machine from Dell. I haven't found the limit at IBM yet as they seem to have more imagination than I do (although it is easy just to get the SOFTWARE on one of their systems to exceed $100k.)
-I can see how employees might be a little bitter about not getting any take-home, though. I think a $500 take-home and a $1000 "license to spend" might be a great compromise.
... any one of those can easily be justified as work related yet necessary for the home office, and if you were looking at getting a new uberBox or uberLaptop for the house anyways you could use 100% of the $1,500 towards the cost of the machine, instead of the $875 after taxes you might get from a bonus check.
... this is a chance for your employees to be 'that guy'.
Nobody said the 'work related expenditures' excluded 'work related' hardware for your home office, and nobody said that the $1,500 couldn't be supplimented by your own finds. iPod, iPaq, 802.11b wireless, LCD monitor, maybe a new desktop or laptop, books, training materials, laser printer, computer speakers, office furniture, new cell phone, GPS, blank media, DVD burner
In California the top tax bracket (FIT/FICA/California income tax) is what, like 50%? Heck doing it this way means the tech can buy twice as much stuff, or a new computer for his work desk and a new computer for his home desk.
Another unspoken benefit here is that the computer guys HAVE to spend it on computer toys, stuff they want. For the single guys that isn't an issue, but married guys will catch a serious ration of shit for spending $1,500 on toys after telling the wife all year that they can't afford a new leather couch or to replace the carpet or remodel the kitchen or whatever. I have a friend that pretty much has resigned himself to using the same computer for the next 16 years because no matter what happens, the $500 a new box might cost will always go to doing something for his kids. Noble, but if that is the case how does the boss reward the employee?
The 'work related' clause (supported by it being an AMEX gift card, looks a LOT like a work crediit card) is the guy's get out of jail free clause : he can say that whatever he buys has to be work related because the boss says so. Guilt free toy spending spree! Everybody knows 'that guy' - the one that just buys whatever he wants, has all the cool toys, doesn't have to ask anybody or justify his tech purchases, has the John Holmes signature series monitor on his desk
Invest the $7,500 back into the company but let them decide how to invest it.
... in short they have the power to override any purchase veto they didn't particularly agree with. Better now they can go get that toy they have been wanting SOOO badly without convincing anybody that they need it - I really want a SMP box but there is no way I could convince my boss that I need one.
... but a twin 18" LCD display says 'I am special' for a very long time and serves as a daily reminder that what is good for the company is good for the employee.
Just a thought : every employee secretly wishes he had some power to do something a little bit different, has something that drives him at work. Give them power, and money is power.
Five $1,500 Amex gift cards to be used 'for business expenses' (that part means you get to write it off on your taxes if you get some supporting paperwork, and they don't have to pay $600 of it to the IRS) empower them mightily (money = power). A case of the good coffee, ten cases of soda that they like for the fridge, a nice twin 18" LCD monitor setup or Bose noise cancelling headset, a DVD burner for their individual workstation, more RAM for the server or their machine, one of those nifty HyperThreading new P4 machines, a session of training, 7 MCSE exams, a new 100 megabit switch to replace the hub, wifi gear, iPod, handheld iPaq, work related hardware for their home office, reference materials
This borders on the 'new vacuum cleaner for the wife' but remember that if they are hardcore techies they LIKE new toys even if they are work related toys. After regular ol' cash is spent (once it hits the bank and mixes with all the other cash it isn't the same anymore) it is forgotten
Because it is something they are spending to improve their quality of life issues at work (and the IRS doesn't steal 40% of it, and their wife doesn't get to steal the rest) they are justified (guilt free!) to spend it on toys that they really, really want.
Finally because it doesn't actually affect their bottom line at home they can't become dependant on the bonus money in their annual budget and if this 'benefit' is only half the size next year (or zero if biz is bad) they are not going to be nearly bent out of shape.
Straight up. Biggest blow to my morale was also the largest bonus check I have ever received - over $8k. I ended up quitting less than a year later even though it was easily twice as large as any I had before or after.
Why? Everything is relative. I was the IT staffer charged with printing out the list of who was getting what and saw that there were no talent, no college degree, not working on the Y2K-keep-the-company alive, ass-clowns whose bonuses were twice the size of mine (three women in particular, I was too young to understand that bonuses can reward many, many things.)
Two things about bonuses : don't promise them and then use them as a punishing stick, and make sure they are fairly spread around. Word gets out that one guy on the dev staff only got half as much as his peers and he is gone.
Maybe that was their intent, but they were pretty surprised when I left so I am guessing not. I agree it was fairly petty but I live, I learn, I get wiser.
Actually it EXCEEDS the $1500 limit for a simple reason (well actually 1040 reasons.) $1000 in cash and a bottle of the Dom far exceeds the net on a $1500 check.
Pretty nifty.
I was kidding. Of course I bet you could sell it back to Apple so they can put it in their showcase, or maybe use it as an end-table in Steve's office.
... yea, don't ask.'
Foreign head of state in his office with a cup of tea, Jobs says 'hey don't put that cup on that box - dig it, one of the machines Microsoft purchased from us years ago
I think what we are seeing here is just a snippet, out of context. Sort of like the foot massage discussion in the early part of Pulp Fiction.
... he didn't say it, but if you are very twisted you can interpret it in a subtle manner.
A foot massage is not, and at the same time is, a perfectly good reason to throw a Samoan off a 4th story balcony through a plate glass terrarium.
A picture of some computers ain't nothing but a thing. Have that picture interpreted in very subtle ways by the overlords at MS, given the context, as implying that they are using Mac's to do production artwork instead of whatever MS sells
Of course if I had to guess I would say it had nothing to do with the actual contents of the picture (coulda been Dell's for all I care) - it was more likely the feeling that he somehow broke the code of silence or something. I do some freaky shit when I go to Vegas or Miami and there is no way I am going to bring along someone who has been known to throw candid pix in his blog, or worse yet tell tales of what happens behind closed doors. Once someone lets a secret slip, however small, can you really trust him not to let something really important slip? Is it worth it to you as a company to make that gamble?
We all have personal lives, and we all have online persona. What we are seeing here is a blurring of the two in its infant stages and that maybe the two need to remain discrete.
Light IS EMW.
And Light is Love.
QED
ElectroMagnetic Radiation is Love.
Think about that before you replace your CRT with an LCD.
As for the new chips, I bask here in the love emitting from my CRT envisioning this thing being applied to cranking up the performance of audio and video codecs to the point that DVD quality videos are compressed to the point that they fit several to a CD and they don't take all night to encode.
Well that or way better missle guidance systems.
I think what spooked them is that this guy had the balls to take a picture inside their compound and go public with it - the subject material doesn't really matter, just that he actually did it. The other thing is - maybe they don't trust him to use his better judgement about what he should and shouldn't take pictures public of, because they trusted him to use his better judgement about taking and posting any pictures in the first place.
I snuck a camera into the Kremlin in September of 1993 and took a bunch of pictures - how the hell was I supposed to know that the infamous failed coup of 1993 was going down at that exact moment in time? I didn't, but that doesn't make it any less sensitive. True story, by the way.
See now here is the trick - the difference between fact and hypothesis :
... but you can't really say for sure and you have no clue what hardware they are running on ... but you know for a fact that they run Apple G5's.
Microsoft has G5's. You can say this as a fact because you have seen it with your own eyes.
You guess that Microsoft has Linux boxes, Sun boxes, etc
See the difference? It is hard to tell because I am still way low on caffeine and moving a little slow, but that is normal for a Monday.
-I am a Microsoft employee
You are not afraid to be caught associating with us, given exactly the nature of this discussion? It is a genuine question, by the way.
Just maybe reword what you said a little to see Microsoft's perspective :
To me the idea of supporting an employee who's fondest wish is to air my company's dirty laundry on his blog, even if he was a valued worker, was simply too much to be starring me in the face all day.
Your actions and ideas support what the company did, even though you do not particularly support the company in general.
-Also, as others have pointed out, the negative publicity MS is getting as a result is probably more than enough to offset whatever benefit they might have derived from sacking the guy.
I for one will not be buying any more Microsoft software, that's for damn sure. Unless of course my source for hacked warez drys up in which case I will have to actually buy it again now that they have that damn XP activation thing working pretty nicely.
Yea, and if you hurry you can score the coup of the century - stealing G5 Apples from Microsoft!
... that would bring about a zillion dollars on eBay.
A brand new Apple computer in the box with Microsoft's address on the mailing label
I did the same thing once.
I was working evening temp work (networking their office, side job) for a small accounting firm and they looked me square in the eyes and explained that I don't see anything, I don't hear anything, and nothing I see or hear gets repeated.
I was much younger and dumber then and I tried to interpret that as 'make judgement calls and don't repeat anything sensitive.'
I mentioned to someone I worked with at my real job that her sister was getting hired by the accounting firm in a discussion about whatever and about two weeks later the guys with their names on the front door at the accounting firm had me in a closed door meeting to explain that the terms of my (verbal) contract stated that nothing, nothing, and nothing that I saw or heard was to ever be repeated or even acknowledged, even to either of them in a closed door meeting, ever. I had access to information that was entirely too sensitive to be making decisions myself as to which I could leak, and which I couldn't.
I was asked if I wanted to leave quietly and never return, or if I wanted the larger of the two to escort me to the door. I said that if I had the option I wanted to stay, finish building their network, keep my eyes and ears and mouth shut and come away from the experience a much wiser person. I was granted that option and have pretty much followed that rule since.
I'm surprised Apple doesn't take this photo (and blog entry) and make a Switch commercial out of it.
He was a temp. It isn't so much they 'fired' him as they decided they no longer needed his services (and as such, insured he longer has unfettered access to meander around the campus taking pictures to post on the web.)
But yea, sounds like the same sort of thing, except this takes it a little further, like dressing up in a Coke delivery guy outfit and getting caught buying a case of Pepsi at WalMart, filmed by channel 3 news video crew and having that film clip go public on the 10pm news.
This is about the most insightful post so far.
As for the stern warning vs. firing discussion - seems it was a little of both. They could have taken him aside and given him a stern warning and one person would have walked away a little lighter on his toes and alert about making sure he proudly carries the company flag - but they fired him and in effect gave every one of their evil minions a very stern and personal warning : fly straight and shine bright because we are watching you and we will fire you if you don't.
As for the severity of the blog post - it is about as innocent as a foot massage. If you have no clue what I am talking about watch the first 15 minutes or so of Pulp Fiction; Travolta explains that one way better than I can.
Maybe many people here attach personal feelings to computers, platforms, and OSs.
At some companies it is perfectly ok and encouraged to post candid pictures of the employees (pr0n!) and the boss is fine with that. They are generally pr0n companies, but the boss says 'What's the big deal?' because he is cool with it.
I am guessing that you would not be as comfortable with your employees posting the same kinds of posts on the web, particularly if you were involved and felt somehow that they would cause a negative perception of you or your business.
I have two ideas.
One - It could be about respect. Sort of like wearing a Pepsi tshirt to work - that is pretty much ok on casual Friday unless you work at Coke, in which case it can be seen as disrespectful. You can drink your Pepsi for research or even because you like it, but don't rub everybody's nose in it or go post pictures about it on the web.
Two - what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Sort of like how you don't go public with what happens on vacation or trade shows, Microsoft is trying to enforce some unwritten rules about not going public with private events that happen on that side of the wall. When you go with your buddies to Vegas and everybody gets laid by strippers, you don't actually sign forms with non-disclosure agreements that state 'no posting pictures of these events on the web' - but it is understood.
Of course what do I know, I liked the movie Pulp Fiction. A lot of good lessons in that movie, some of which may apply here.
If it costs $845k and can spend three days completely isolated from the rest of the world, you can pretty much bet that there is enough room in it to have sex. I'm not entirely sure why there is room for three people, but if I had to guess I would say it probably involves two women and whoever owns the sub.
There are no toys on the planet that cost more than half a million dollars that do not in some way, shape, form or fashion involve getting the buyer laid - it may take imagination, but people with that much money also have that much imagination.
Actually electrics are the most quiet - particularly if they don't want to be heard (ie, are just sitting there not moving.) Granted they can't sneak up on you, but if they can sit there quietly for three days waiting for you to chugga chugga chugga on by (ie, carrier group) they could get lucky (maybe strap on a torpedo, wait for the fatty to go by and get a nice shot from behind.)
... that's pretty quiet.
At 4 knots I don't envision this thing making much noise at ALL, with a decent set of props and some quiet electric motors. If electric motors are quiet enough on bass boats not to scare off the fish