OT: Jeremy Anderson (was RE: filePro Wikipedia page)

[Kenneth Brody]

Quoting Fairlight (Mon, 17 Jul 2006 18:12:39 -0400):

> On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 02:52:59PM -0400, after drawing runes in goat's
> blood, Kenneth Brody cast forth these immortal, mystical words:
> >
> > While you're there, be sure to check out the "nastygram" from Sue
> Rubin,
> > which he includes in its entirety (AFAIK).  It's on the same domain as
> > his anti-filePro page, but under "/fptech_nastygram.html"  Now,
> perhaps
> > I'm a bit biased, but I wonder if anyone here sees anything "nasty" or
> > "intimidating" about the letter?
>
> From what I took away from it, it was the principle of Sue not
> responding directly to him, but instead making an "end run" (my
> words) around him to talk to his superiors.

Perhaps.  However, I see precisely _2_ e-mails from him to fpsupport,
and those were 9 months prior to the date Sue's letter.  The first
e-mail was about upgrading from 4.8 to 5.0 and switching from SCO to
Linux.  The second was a followup "thank you".  (Prior to his two,
there were e-mails from someone else at "$MYEMPLOYER", but those
were 5 years before his two.)

I see no attempt from his side to contact fpsupport for help.  I
happened to stumble upon his page via Google Alerts.

Were there e-mails straight to Sue?  Were the phone calls to fpsupport?
I have no way of knowing, and I doubt anyone who might have talked to
him at the time would remember.

Also, I have no way of knowing the actual e-mail address to which Sue
sent her message, but it's possible that "$CEO_NAME@$MYEMPLOYER" was
the e-mail address listed as the contact for the account.

[...]
> No, I don't think there was anything -nasty- about Sue's response.  I do
> think it was a bit indecorously handled overall, however--even if the
> guy was a complete pain to deal with.  Unless there's a legal issue like
> slander or libel to deal with, the CEO likely should not have been
> involved at that stage, I shouldn't think.  And the letter indicated
> nothing of the sort.  Assuming the representation was accurate, of
> course.  The people to talk to are the ones having (real or fictional)
> issues with the software, not management--who may have been almost
> entirely out of the loop.

Well, as I said, I have no way of knowing the actual recipient of Sue's
e-mail, nor how she got that person's address.  She may have gotten it
off of their website, or it may be that it was the contact address
listed for their account, or something else entirely.

Also, remember that he made no effort (that I know of) to contact
fpsupport about any problems he was having.

> Like I said, not nasty--just something I don't see as properly handled
> (probably on either side, although he conspicuously leaves out the
> context in which it was sent).

AFAIK, the "context" was that I asked fpsupport "who is this Jeremy
Anderson" after stumbling across his page.

> And it looks like he felt it was either retaliatory or an end-run, and
> approached it as such.

And end-run, perhaps.  Given his statement "what really rubs me is that
they never even attempted to contact me", he obviously feels that way
about it.  (Of course, he never attempted to contact fpsupport, either.)
However, given the title "attempted vendor intimidation", it sounds a bit
paranoid to me.

> I can't say I blame him on that one point, especially if he was the one
> made responsible for 'x' issue at his organisation.  Then it'd be pretty
> much like getting blindsided when it comes at you from the entirely
> opposite direction one is expecting, I should imagine.  I know I
> wouldn't take it particularly quietly, although it would be far
> different than his approach if I had to respond to it.

On the other hand, you would probably actually report problems you are
having to the people who could help you.  It's not even like his page
says "I tried to get help from fPTech, but..."

> Not that naming Sue directly was proper.  It wasn't.  And it's a pity
> that her name is out there attached to this incident when (TTBOMK) she's
> no longer even with the company.

Not to mention that he puts his e-mail address in a jpeg file, but puts
Sue's in plaintext "mailto" links.

--
KenBrody at BestWeb dot net        spamtrap: <g8ymh8uf001 at sneakemail.com>
http://www.hvcomputer.com
http://www.fileProPlus.com