He said he'd "make my life a living legal hell" and lots of other nasty things if I did not sign.
Sounds like you should have recorded the call. Amazing just how useful a bit of audio can be.
-jcr
You got that right. Heck, I had my wisdom teeth removed several years ago, all four at once. My dentist said I should see the oral surgeon, because they looked like they'd be difficult to remove. Well, whatever, I spoke to the surgical people and was quoted $600 for the procedure. Now, that seemed low to me, so I queried it three times during the couple weeks before I went in. Then I go in for the procedure, hand them my credit card when it was over, and went home. By the time I got there, a message from the dental office's secretary was on the machine: "Hi, this is the dentists office. There was a slight error on the charges for your surgery... that $600 was for only one tooth, so you owe $1,800 more, ha ha." "Ha ha" indeed. I recorded that on tape, and gave a copy to the office manager. She agreed that it wasn't my fault or responsibility, although the surgeon thought I should pay it anyway. I mean, since it was just an "honest mistake."
Maybe so, and I might have accepted that if I hadn't repeatedly questioned the charges and spoken to two different people about it. That was almost a two thousand dollar "error" on their part.
At will helped because they couldn't really do much about trying to force me to finish the active projects I was working on. They actually made noises about that, but their own lawyer told them to drop it.
I'd been there a couple years, survived massive layoffs, but then found that they expected the same level of output from the remaining three programmers that a dozen had been producing before. Twenty-hour days, repeated broken promises, no time off, overbearing boss... after about six months I just couldn't take it anymore, so I split. At that point, I honestly didn't care about a reference from those people. So I went in to the VP's office one afternoon, told her that I'd had it, I was sick of being called incompetent (and worse) by my manager, and that I was sorry to leave them in the lurch, but I wasn't coming back.
Ironically, they hired me to do some contract work for them after I quit: naturally, I had a hard time getting paid. After another conversation with their company attorney (who was a pretty decent sort, as it turned out) I explained that I'd delivered every project milestone on time. Oddly, they'd told him that I'd been consistently uncooperative and was behind schedule. I don't think he appreciated being lied to: upshot of it was, I got paid.
And speaking of references, several people who had either been laid off or quit this place had gone to a competitor some time before. I got hired there based upon their recommendation, so in the end everything worked out. Made me glad I never signed their stupid non-compete.
I say "tend", because I wouldn't necessarily deliver that line verbatim.
-jcr
True... something along the lines of "fuck off" is often more appropriate. Feel free to interpret the general sentiment to suit your particular situation.
What reason do you have to hate the rest of the world so much? If theres someone that can do your job better or cheaper, shouldn't he get it, regardless of what shithole country he is forced to live in?
Let's see... we create laws that force employers to do certain things, such as pay a certain wage if someone works a certain number of hours per week... and in some places mandate expensive "benefits"... and at the same time "hide" half the taxes taken from the employee's work... and when the company can't afford to keep said employees... but will offer them a job working at-will... which allows the company to continue to survive, and the employee to continue to eat... we say the company screwed the employee... and yet the government is the good guy with its short-sighted laws.
Well, I'd have more sympathy for your perspective if said companies hadn't generally mismanaged themselves into the ground. Motorola is a classic example.
If they're such "talents", why are they being fired in the first place?
You generally don't see large-scale layoffs for incompetence (although, sometimes that wouldn't be a bad idea.) In most cases, it's because management screwed up, didn't make use of those talents profitably, and had to lay them off. That, or they're just planning on rehiring most of those workers at a substantial salary reduction or loss of benefits.
The long-term cost of smoking to society is estimated to be around $7 per pack of cigarettes smoked in medical care and lost productivity. Taxation is one way of internalizing these costs while at the same time increasing the incentive to not smoke. There's a Time article that covers a few other points for and against the taxes.
Oh, there are always good justifications for major social-engineering projects. And this is one that a lot of people (mostly non-smokers) have no problem with because they don't feel it affects them... let those nasty smokers pay for their own bad habits. The problem, as I said before, comes in when the Feds decide (for whatever reason) that they're going to come after you for some other heavy-duty tax to save you from yourself. I mean, what are the consequences, say, of a diet heavy in fast-foods? Should be taxing the hell out of Big Macs? The social costs of diabetes (and other dietary-related conditions) are comparable to tobacco. What about driving? People die from that all the time, both from traffic accidents and pollutants. Electric power? Thousands of people die every year because of power-plant emissions... some number from cancer caused by thorium emissions from coal burning. There are many, many products and activities that cause long-term harm to human beings. Do we tax them all?
Motorola is no paragon of capitalism. They've been part of the military-industrial complex for a very long time.
Yes, and China suckered them out of a lot of money and technology too. Motorola is only reaping what they've sown, so far as I'm concerned.
I tend to say something along the lines of "your approval is neither sought nor required" in such a situation.
Back in the mid-eighties I worked for an outfit that really tried to nail their developers to the wall, contract-wise. When I was hired, I was given a bunch of papers to sign... one of them was this completely outrageous non-complete/non-disclosure agreement. It said (among other bits of obnoxiousness) that any software I wrote, any products I developed, whether relevant to my work or the industry, or not, even if done on my own time, for a period of five years after I left employment with the company was the property of the company. In addition, I was not allowed to work as a software developer during the same period. I mean, what the Hell? Was I supposed to just switch careers after leaving the place? Anyway, that incredible document went on for some time in the same vein... I'm not even a lawyer but I could see the ridiculousness of it. Probably it wouldn't have been enforceable, but I had an attorney look it over. He didn't even finish reading it before he said, "You'd be nuts to sign this." So I didn't.
Well, I got hired anyway, and apparently nobody noticed that I hadn't signed the thing because a few months later the HR guy's secretary comes by with a bunch of papers on a clipboard, and asked me to sign it at the bottom. "Just routine", she said, or words to that effect. I immediately noticed that there were several rather innocuous sheets on top, and underneath... was that stupid NC/NDA. Sneaky. But I told her I had no intention of signing it.
She went away, and back comes the HR guy himself. He was nice enough, but he tried to convince me that I had to sign it, "Why is it a problem? Everyone else here signed it." I told him that if my continued employment was dependent upon that "agreement", that I would happily clean out my desk right then and there. He went away, and that was the last I heard of it. I was serious, however, and if they'd pushed the matter I'd have walked out right then and there. As it happens, I work in an "at-will" State: sometimes that sucks, but sometimes it works in your favor.
but after the first of the year they'll hire a signicant percentage of those laid off back when new budgets kick in.
That, and they'll hire some back as part-time or contract workers, and completely avoid the need to provide health care or benefits of any kind. I've seen that happen too: fire a regular full-time worker and then hire him or her back for just under the state's minimum requirement for "full time" status. They only work 39.5 hours/week, say, and the company saves the cost of the benefits. No effective difference in work load, but the employee gets screwed out of benefits. Yeah, it's kinda dirty, and totally violates the spirit of the law.
However, Motorola wants to keep these people unemployed.
I see a massive and expensive class-action suit in the offing. Motorola shareholders should contact the company's general counsel and tell him in no uncertain terms to cut that shit out.
-jcr
I doubt the shareholders give a damn, in fact, it's the shareholder's general lack-of-interest in ethical behavior that has bought corporate America to its current state. All Motorola's management would have to say is, "by doing this we're going to raise the share price." That would be the end of the matter so far as the shareholders are concerned.
You're right though: it would certainly be in the employees best interests to get organized, talk to a good law firm, and apply for class-action status.
Does anyone know exactly how many people we're talking about here? The articles linked were rather skimpy on details (in fact the first two were links to the same text.)
You'd think Motorola would want their competitors taking on those responsible for their vast array of shitheap products.
Depends. If they're firing lots of middle and senior management I'd tend to agree. Engineers design the kinds of products that management wants them to design: if those are shitheap then management is ultimately responsible.
yet my Canadian fingers, who've never sworn any kind of allegiance to the US, or fought in the desert, get in no sweat.
Yeah, well, if twenty million Canadians ever migrate illegally to the U.S., that might change. Funny though, when I last went to Canada on business (couple years ago) getting in to Canada took about 45 seconds ("Good evening, sir. Business or pleasure? Very good. Enjoy your stay.") Coming back was a bit more complicated even then, and a lot more time-consuming. Heck, I was flying back home from LAX a while ago, basic domestic flight, and I was in a looong line waiting for the security checkpoint (the line actually ran up the stairs a couple of floors) when this dude in a TSA jacket comes along asking everyone to "have their papers ready." He got a number of double-takes (mostly from older people.)
Then again, the history of mankind on this planet is puncuated with massive loss of information throughout the ages. Libraries are allowed to fall into decay or are destroyed by conquering nations, languages are lost to time, and the like.
Yes, like the Library at Alexandria, and others along the way, probably many we don't even know about today. At least that's one good thing about the global network, in general (and through large-scale copyright infringement in particular) information is being replicated around the planet on a scale never seen before. If our current civilization falls, hopefull there will be enough information in different places to shorten the next Dark Ages by a few centuries.
Okay, let me rephrase that: so long as consumers are only responsible for the first $50 of any fraudulent transaction, nothing is likely to change. We don't care so long as we don't get stuck with the bill, and merchants simply roll their losses into their pricing structure. We all pay in the end, in higher prices.
What's REALLY needed is a law which prohibits the storing of people's credit card numbers. The only people who need access to your credit card info are you and your bank.
That would moot this stupid patent, but who cares.
Well, that won't happen as long as credit card issuers are responsible for any fraud. The thing is, sometimes they screw you over anyway.
Who ever said that practicing "law" or anything to do with it is a gentleman's game?
On contrary... You got a way to put that extra pound of pressure on your opponent, you use it.
As long as it is legal and/or you don't get caught.
Heck... If duels were legal you can bet your ass that lawyers would start hiring people as proxies to challenge the members of opposing legal team prior to trial.
I'm surprised they haven't challenged Calveley to a duel.
Loosely translated means they filed the paperwork online and the whole thing was accepted automatically. So if anything, it was Amazon being Ebenezer making its lawyers work Xmas eve, the USPTO didn't have to do anything.
Yeah, no kidding. I mean, we're talking government employees here.
After that experience, I back up all my truly critical data (if we really think about what's critical most of us don't have that much... no, your House, M.D..AVIs don't count)
Yeah, Travan, I remember them. Nice drives, long gone.
I used to run a multinode BBS, and we backed up the file server every night onto an HP Sure-Stor DAT drive. I still have all the tapes, but the drive died years ago. I think I could still find one (EBay, whatever) but eventually that won't be possible. And like you said, it's not all that important anyway. Twenty year old Fidonet messages and thousands upon thousands of old DOS shareware apps. Not exactly stuff anyone really needs or wants. I just couldn't make myself throw them away. Packrat instinct, I suppose. Still... maybe now's the time.
After that experience, I back up all my truly critical data (if we really think about what's critical most of us don't have that much... no, your House, M.D..AVIs don't count) to non-volatile media, with offsite storage, etc. Everything else gets copied over to the next generation of hard drive every so often. Heck, I've gone from a 5 Mb. Corvus to terabyte drives in the past 30 years. I just keep buying bigger drives and moving the stuff over.
Like you said, though, you have to stay on top of it. It's all too easy to find yourself suddenly unable to read your old media. I understand that NASA is losing enormous quantities of 9-track tape data from the sixties because they can't find equipment to read them, and the tapes are reaching the end of their lifespan. Not good.
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He said he'd "make my life a living legal hell" and lots of other nasty things if I did not sign.
Sounds like you should have recorded the call. Amazing just how useful a bit of audio can be.
-jcr
You got that right. Heck, I had my wisdom teeth removed several years ago, all four at once. My dentist said I should see the oral surgeon, because they looked like they'd be difficult to remove. Well, whatever, I spoke to the surgical people and was quoted $600 for the procedure. Now, that seemed low to me, so I queried it three times during the couple weeks before I went in. Then I go in for the procedure, hand them my credit card when it was over, and went home. By the time I got there, a message from the dental office's secretary was on the machine: "Hi, this is the dentists office. There was a slight error on the charges for your surgery ... that $600 was for only one tooth, so you owe $1,800 more, ha ha." "Ha ha" indeed. I recorded that on tape, and gave a copy to the office manager. She agreed that it wasn't my fault or responsibility, although the surgeon thought I should pay it anyway. I mean, since it was just an "honest mistake."
Maybe so, and I might have accepted that if I hadn't repeatedly questioned the charges and spoken to two different people about it. That was almost a two thousand dollar "error" on their part.
At will helped because they couldn't really do much about trying to force me to finish the active projects I was working on. They actually made noises about that, but their own lawyer told them to drop it.
... after about six months I just couldn't take it anymore, so I split. At that point, I honestly didn't care about a reference from those people. So I went in to the VP's office one afternoon, told her that I'd had it, I was sick of being called incompetent (and worse) by my manager, and that I was sorry to leave them in the lurch, but I wasn't coming back.
I'd been there a couple years, survived massive layoffs, but then found that they expected the same level of output from the remaining three programmers that a dozen had been producing before. Twenty-hour days, repeated broken promises, no time off, overbearing boss
Ironically, they hired me to do some contract work for them after I quit: naturally, I had a hard time getting paid. After another conversation with their company attorney (who was a pretty decent sort, as it turned out) I explained that I'd delivered every project milestone on time. Oddly, they'd told him that I'd been consistently uncooperative and was behind schedule. I don't think he appreciated being lied to: upshot of it was, I got paid.
And speaking of references, several people who had either been laid off or quit this place had gone to a competitor some time before. I got hired there based upon their recommendation, so in the end everything worked out. Made me glad I never signed their stupid non-compete.
Can you condense that for me a bit? I don't have a lot of time for reading...
Sure. No.
I say "tend", because I wouldn't necessarily deliver that line verbatim.
-jcr
True ... something along the lines of "fuck off" is often more appropriate. Feel free to interpret the general sentiment to suit your particular situation.
and sell our jobs overseas.
What reason do you have to hate the rest of the world so much? If theres someone that can do your job better or cheaper, shouldn't he get it, regardless of what shithole country he is forced to live in?
Short answer: no.
Let's see ... we create laws that force employers to do certain things, such as pay a certain wage if someone works a certain number of hours per week ... and in some places mandate expensive "benefits" ... and at the same time "hide" half the taxes taken from the employee's work ... and when the company can't afford to keep said employees ... but will offer them a job working at-will ... which allows the company to continue to survive, and the employee to continue to eat ... we say the company screwed the employee ... and yet the government is the good guy with its short-sighted laws.
Well, I'd have more sympathy for your perspective if said companies hadn't generally mismanaged themselves into the ground. Motorola is a classic example.
If they're such "talents", why are they being fired in the first place?
You generally don't see large-scale layoffs for incompetence (although, sometimes that wouldn't be a bad idea.) In most cases, it's because management screwed up, didn't make use of those talents profitably, and had to lay them off. That, or they're just planning on rehiring most of those workers at a substantial salary reduction or loss of benefits.
The long-term cost of smoking to society is estimated to be around $7 per pack of cigarettes smoked in medical care and lost productivity. Taxation is one way of internalizing these costs while at the same time increasing the incentive to not smoke. There's a Time article that covers a few other points for and against the taxes.
Oh, there are always good justifications for major social-engineering projects. And this is one that a lot of people (mostly non-smokers) have no problem with because they don't feel it affects them ... let those nasty smokers pay for their own bad habits. The problem, as I said before, comes in when the Feds decide (for whatever reason) that they're going to come after you for some other heavy-duty tax to save you from yourself. I mean, what are the consequences, say, of a diet heavy in fast-foods? Should be taxing the hell out of Big Macs? The social costs of diabetes (and other dietary-related conditions) are comparable to tobacco. What about driving? People die from that all the time, both from traffic accidents and pollutants. Electric power? Thousands of people die every year because of power-plant emissions ... some number from cancer caused by thorium emissions from coal burning. There are many, many products and activities that cause long-term harm to human beings. Do we tax them all?
It's a bad road to be going down.
Sigh. It's bad enough that I can't get my girlfriend to give me a RIM job.
We already know that. I mean, if you could, you'd be too busy to be hanging out here.
Motorola is no paragon of capitalism. They've been part of the military-industrial complex for a very long time.
Yes, and China suckered them out of a lot of money and technology too. Motorola is only reaping what they've sown, so far as I'm concerned.
I tend to say something along the lines of "your approval is neither sought nor required" in such a situation.
Back in the mid-eighties I worked for an outfit that really tried to nail their developers to the wall, contract-wise. When I was hired, I was given a bunch of papers to sign ... one of them was this completely outrageous non-complete/non-disclosure agreement. It said (among other bits of obnoxiousness) that any software I wrote, any products I developed, whether relevant to my work or the industry, or not, even if done on my own time, for a period of five years after I left employment with the company was the property of the company. In addition, I was not allowed to work as a software developer during the same period. I mean, what the Hell? Was I supposed to just switch careers after leaving the place? Anyway, that incredible document went on for some time in the same vein ... I'm not even a lawyer but I could see the ridiculousness of it. Probably it wouldn't have been enforceable, but I had an attorney look it over. He didn't even finish reading it before he said, "You'd be nuts to sign this." So I didn't.
... was that stupid NC/NDA. Sneaky. But I told her I had no intention of signing it.
Well, I got hired anyway, and apparently nobody noticed that I hadn't signed the thing because a few months later the HR guy's secretary comes by with a bunch of papers on a clipboard, and asked me to sign it at the bottom. "Just routine", she said, or words to that effect. I immediately noticed that there were several rather innocuous sheets on top, and underneath
She went away, and back comes the HR guy himself. He was nice enough, but he tried to convince me that I had to sign it, "Why is it a problem? Everyone else here signed it." I told him that if my continued employment was dependent upon that "agreement", that I would happily clean out my desk right then and there. He went away, and that was the last I heard of it. I was serious, however, and if they'd pushed the matter I'd have walked out right then and there. As it happens, I work in an "at-will" State: sometimes that sucks, but sometimes it works in your favor.
they are trying to make their bonuses
Golden Parachute opening in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
but after the first of the year they'll hire a signicant percentage of those laid off back when new budgets kick in.
That, and they'll hire some back as part-time or contract workers, and completely avoid the need to provide health care or benefits of any kind. I've seen that happen too: fire a regular full-time worker and then hire him or her back for just under the state's minimum requirement for "full time" status. They only work 39.5 hours/week, say, and the company saves the cost of the benefits. No effective difference in work load, but the employee gets screwed out of benefits. Yeah, it's kinda dirty, and totally violates the spirit of the law.
However, Motorola wants to keep these people unemployed.
I see a massive and expensive class-action suit in the offing. Motorola shareholders should contact the company's general counsel and tell him in no uncertain terms to cut that shit out.
-jcr
I doubt the shareholders give a damn, in fact, it's the shareholder's general lack-of-interest in ethical behavior that has bought corporate America to its current state. All Motorola's management would have to say is, "by doing this we're going to raise the share price." That would be the end of the matter so far as the shareholders are concerned.
You're right though: it would certainly be in the employees best interests to get organized, talk to a good law firm, and apply for class-action status.
Does anyone know exactly how many people we're talking about here? The articles linked were rather skimpy on details (in fact the first two were links to the same text.)
You'd think Motorola would want their competitors taking on those responsible for their vast array of shitheap products.
Depends. If they're firing lots of middle and senior management I'd tend to agree. Engineers design the kinds of products that management wants them to design: if those are shitheap then management is ultimately responsible.
I wonder what this plan to solve the crisis involves. Figuring out who is more likely to respond to unsolicited mail/email/etc...?
I think the charge of 3 baht per message says it all.
yet my Canadian fingers, who've never sworn any kind of allegiance to the US, or fought in the desert, get in no sweat.
Yeah, well, if twenty million Canadians ever migrate illegally to the U.S., that might change. Funny though, when I last went to Canada on business (couple years ago) getting in to Canada took about 45 seconds ("Good evening, sir. Business or pleasure? Very good. Enjoy your stay.") Coming back was a bit more complicated even then, and a lot more time-consuming. Heck, I was flying back home from LAX a while ago, basic domestic flight, and I was in a looong line waiting for the security checkpoint (the line actually ran up the stairs a couple of floors) when this dude in a TSA jacket comes along asking everyone to "have their papers ready." He got a number of double-takes (mostly from older people.)
Then again, the history of mankind on this planet is puncuated with massive loss of information throughout the ages. Libraries are allowed to fall into decay or are destroyed by conquering nations, languages are lost to time, and the like.
Yes, like the Library at Alexandria, and others along the way, probably many we don't even know about today. At least that's one good thing about the global network, in general (and through large-scale copyright infringement in particular) information is being replicated around the planet on a scale never seen before. If our current civilization falls, hopefull there will be enough information in different places to shorten the next Dark Ages by a few centuries.
Okay, let me rephrase that: so long as consumers are only responsible for the first $50 of any fraudulent transaction, nothing is likely to change. We don't care so long as we don't get stuck with the bill, and merchants simply roll their losses into their pricing structure. We all pay in the end, in higher prices.
Pushing this absurd patent is costing Amazon more in negative PR than the patent could possibly be worth.
-jcr
I think you greatly over-value negative PR.
True. Now, if a video could be shown of Jeff Bezos broiling and consuming a newborn baby ... that might do it.
What's REALLY needed is a law which prohibits the storing of people's credit card numbers. The only people who need access to your credit card info are you and your bank.
That would moot this stupid patent, but who cares.
Well, that won't happen as long as credit card issuers are responsible for any fraud. The thing is, sometimes they screw you over anyway.
Who ever said that practicing "law" or anything to do with it is a gentleman's game?
On contrary... You got a way to put that extra pound of pressure on your opponent, you use it. As long as it is legal and/or you don't get caught.
Heck... If duels were legal you can bet your ass that lawyers would start hiring people as proxies to challenge the members of opposing legal team prior to trial.
I'm surprised they haven't challenged Calveley to a duel.
and I'm sure the feeds are going to some hard drive array somewhere.
Nah, they go to my house. You should really be more careful where your pick your nose, btw ;)
If that's what floats your boat. Here ... watch this!
Loosely translated means they filed the paperwork online and the whole thing was accepted automatically. So if anything, it was Amazon being Ebenezer making its lawyers work Xmas eve, the USPTO didn't have to do anything.
Yeah, no kidding. I mean, we're talking government employees here.
After that experience, I back up all my truly critical data (if we really think about what's critical most of us don't have that much ... no, your House, M.D. .AVIs don't count)
What about my porn, xxx .AVIs?
Definitely in the "critical" category, I'd say.
Yeah, Travan, I remember them. Nice drives, long gone.
... maybe now's the time.
... no, your House, M.D. .AVIs don't count) to non-volatile media, with offsite storage, etc. Everything else gets copied over to the next generation of hard drive every so often. Heck, I've gone from a 5 Mb. Corvus to terabyte drives in the past 30 years. I just keep buying bigger drives and moving the stuff over.
I used to run a multinode BBS, and we backed up the file server every night onto an HP Sure-Stor DAT drive. I still have all the tapes, but the drive died years ago. I think I could still find one (EBay, whatever) but eventually that won't be possible. And like you said, it's not all that important anyway. Twenty year old Fidonet messages and thousands upon thousands of old DOS shareware apps. Not exactly stuff anyone really needs or wants. I just couldn't make myself throw them away. Packrat instinct, I suppose. Still
After that experience, I back up all my truly critical data (if we really think about what's critical most of us don't have that much
Like you said, though, you have to stay on top of it. It's all too easy to find yourself suddenly unable to read your old media. I understand that NASA is losing enormous quantities of 9-track tape data from the sixties because they can't find equipment to read them, and the tapes are reaching the end of their lifespan. Not good.