Framed?



  • This story is a bit long, but I feel I need to take that space to eplain something that happened to me just a few days ago. Sorry.

    In some of my spare time, as a hobby, so to speak, I help a local private school that is training people in traditional chinese medicine practices, and I help them set up the computer for the administrative personnel, set up and operate their server, their internet connection, and other technical stuff. I do that for more than 10 years now, and billed all of my effort for a reasonable hourly fee.

    Last friday, one of the clerks, actually the only one working there for as long as I know the school, called me to help them update their most important software. The auto-update feature had worked flawlessly on their three Windows-XP machines, as well as on their three Windows-7 machines, but not on the only Windows-Vista machine. This, of course, was due to the fact, that the manufacturer of said software only officially supports XP and 7 but not Vista. I knew a trick how to install the new version anyway, and that took me less than 15 minutes. So far so good.

    Next, the clerk told me, that they had another problem with their printer/fax/scanner machine. Since last monday afternoon, they had been unable to scan stuff. Or rather, the scan happened alright, but then there was an error displayed on the machine saying it couldn't store the PDF of the scan on the preconfigured server directory. I knew right away that I had to check the printing machine's configuration website to check the configured network path / username / password, and or the server-side network-sharing options for the corresponding share. I told her that it would probably take me another 15 minutes or so to fix that, and proceeded to login to the server machine (via remote desktop) -- but alas, strangely enough, I couldn't login, it looked like my password was somehow invalid. So I asked the clerk for another administrator password (she always kept a list of the important passwords in her drawer), and with that help, I was able to reset my own password and then login as usual.

    In the mean time, though, she said that I should wait a second and she had to call the manager for permission. A phone call later, she explained to me, that I shouldn't do anything, the deputy manager had already started to take care of the situation and she would handle it herself. My help wasn't needed. This appeared a little odd to me, since I knew exactly that the deputy manager (nor the manager, nor the clerk for that matter) had any know-how in such system management matters. I repeated to the clerk that it would take me no more than 15 minutes to resolve things, but no, she didn't want that. So, I logged out from the server again, said goodbye and left the premises.

    The following monday, I got a call from the manager. She asked me to come by her office, there was "something to straighten out". I was wondering about her wording, but thirty minutes later, I was there. In her office, there waited the manager herself, her deputy manager, and a man I hadn't seen before. The manager sat me down at the table, closed the door behind me, and proceeded to tell me that they had found irregular activities in accounting, that they had fired the accountant on-the-spot, that there were other people involved, and that they were trying to identify, what exactly had happened and who was involved. As a first measure, they had brought in that external IT consultant, since they themselves had no idea how their IT infrastructure was setup and how it worked. He had already found out most of it by himself, but now he had a few questions he needed to be answered. I should, please, fill him in. As I had already noticed last friday, my password wad been changed to block my access to the system, but I had fixed that myself. I was so shocked that I didn't argue but sat that IT consultant at one of the computers in the office and showed him everything he wanted to know. An hour later, he was happy, and I was ready to leave. But before I could leave, the manager came with a sheet of paper and a pen and said that I needed to sign that paper first. I read it thoroughly. It said that a) I confirmed with my signature that I had instructed the IT consultant truely and completely, and that b) I wouldn't undertake any actions concerning the administration of their infrastructure anymore. I said, does this mean that I am under suspicion of collaborating with the accountant? And does it also mean that I am fired, that my services are not needed anymore? The manager answered, no, no, this was only during their situation analysis, and that later they would contact me again.

    I went home, flabbergasted. This kind of behavior could only mean that they thought that I was involved in some fraud activities. Sometime later in the evening, I wanted to check out my company mail, and logged in (their email is implemented with Google Apps), only to realize that my password was still intact, but I had been deprived of all administrative privileges.

    I could barely sleep all night, thinking back and forth about whether I had done anything wrong or not, coming to no conclusion (or rather coming to the conclucion that I had *not* done anything wrong). Early in the morning, it occurred to me that I still had a key to the front door of their building (that used to be helpful in case of emergency situations, such as the server needing a restart at odd hours). I prepared a last bill for my services (in particular for the 15 minutes last friday and for the hour on monday), drove to their offices, deposited the bill and a pay-in slip as well as the key and said to the manager, now that I had to sign a paper for her yesterday, I needed her signature on a paper confirming my returning the key. She said again that they would contact me later, and replied that she didn't need to bother. The bond of trust we had developed over the last ten years had been destroyed yesterday, and I didn't think that I would find the time to help her out anymore.

    My opinion is that this is inacceptable behavior or treatment of a contractor whom you trusted your infrastructure for more than ten years, that this was devious and sneaky behind-my-back conspiracy, and that the situation could have been handled much more friendly, *especially* if I am not under suspicion. My instincts say that someone, probably the deputy manager, is trying to push me out of business and that she wants to install her own IT consultant. And I have a hard time to fight back, I tend to cut my losses and just be disappointed by these people.

    What would you have done?



  • Similar enough to what you did - although I'd bill them at a far higher rate for every second of my time they took with their "meeting" also - its not anything close to what you normally do, so it deserves a higher rate (or similar justification)

    Don't go back. Don't ever go back. If they think its worth finding an external consultant for the first situation, they can find someone for anything else.



  • Oh, and, by the way, the reason why the scanner can't access the server anymore, must, of course, be, that they changed my password. Because I configured my own user-and-password on the scanner's network configuration page. So, as soon as they changed my password, the scanner stopped working. Heehee.



  • Somehow I thought they were going to say that the accounting irregularities had to do with them paying you (aka they thought you were not supposed to be getting paid), and are about to attempt to sue you for 10 years worth of billing.



  • @TheRider said:

    This story is a bit long, but I feel I need to take that space to eplain something that happened to me just a few days ago. Sorry.


    Don't be sorry, i didn't read it anyway.



  • @TheRider said:

    Oh, and, by the way, the reason why the scanner can't access the server anymore, must, of course, be, that they changed my password. Because I configured my own user-and-password on the scanner's network configuration page. So, as soon as they changed my password, the scanner stopped working. Heehee.

    This is what service accounts are for.  Shame on you for putting your own admin credentials into the scanner.  That's WTF in a lot of ways.

    Fuck that school.  I would not have signed their document, but I'm sure it won't hurt matters at this point.  Probably someone in upper management was involved in the embezzlement and was trying to confuse and misdirect with their investigation.  And potentially put blame on you for it.

    Nothing else will come of it.  However.  And listen to me good on this.  Damnit.  DO NOT TALK TO THE POLICE IF THEY COME TO YOU.  Especially if you think you are "proving your innocence."  There is no such thing as proving your innocence to the police.  Their job is to find things to justify filling charges.  If they intentd to file charges, they will do it whether you talk to them or not.  So many times people give the slamdunk evidence that is used against them to the police BY THEIR OWN FREE WILL.  It usually happens in a casual conversation where the cop comes off as if it's all just a formality, he doesn't think you did anything wrong, etc.  Keep your fucking mouth shut, and they will probably leave you alone because there is no evidence.  If they charge you with a crime, at least then they can't use anything you said against you.

    My wife is facing 6 years in prison because of an accident with her special needs child.  The kid is fine due to her CPR training, but she is going to trial for endangering the welfare of an incapacitated person.  It all comes down to the fact that the accident happened.  Had she not explained the events to the police, they would actually not even be able to prove that the accident happened.  And thus, there would have been no charges filed.  And believe me, they investigated her for about a month, and the entire time they were her friends and just doing paper work.  All just a formality.  Until the last few days before they filed charges.  Discovery is done, and the entire case is based on her word against herself.  Had she just kept her mouth shut (not lied, just not talked to them), the may have filed charges anyway, but at least then they wouldn't have her own words to use against her.  I'm not goint to elaborate on what happened.  The kid is perfectly fine, and this is the only accident she's ever had with him in 12 years.

    You watch this fucking video.  Watch all of it.  No, we never saw it until our lives went to total shit.  Watching it, the points are pretty duh.  I guess you don't realize it until something bad happens.

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc



  • @TheRider said:

    This story is a bit long, but I feel I need to take that space
     

    tip: whever you feel the need to tgape something,  try formulating it as a single tweet.

    You place that at the beginning and then do the rest of your story— assuming you're still feel that need.

    Now I'll go make a cup of tea and curl up with your post.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    There's two things that can be going on, and possibly both.

    First is, sure, they might be looking to install their own IT people. In which case they could have done it much more nicely. "Thanks for your services, we're going to be switching providers."  In an ideal world, they would have even paid you to do the handover. But whatever.

    Second, they might be in some emotional turmoil themselves. If it is the case of a long term employee (and possibly a friend/family member) who has been embezzling/stealing-- that's a pretty big betrayal of trust. They might not be thinking clearly. Maybe they just want to clean house. Maybe they don't know who to trust. They should have gotten a lawyer/neutral third party to handle things for them to prevent exactly the way you were treated.

    And of special note:

    @pauly said:

    DO NOT TALK TO THE POLICE IF THEY COME TO YOU. 
     

    Jesus fuck yes, follow this person's advice. Worst case is your former employer is out for blood, and will strike wildly at anyone in their path. Anger, denial, etc. If the police show up at your door, do exactly what it says in that video.  You are either under arrest and formally charged, in which case shut the fuck up and call a lawyer. Or you aren't, in which case shut the fuck up and call a lawyer.  That officer may be one of the many LEO who are just doing a good job-- or they could be incompetent, lazy, on a quota, friends of the owner of the business, etc, etc.

    Do not ever go back to the school. If you have any more material to hand back to them, do so via a lawyer who will handle it neutrally and with proper paperwork. Your relationship with these people is over. Nothing good can come out of further contact. If they suspect you of being an accomplice, ever moment you are in their presence, on their servers, looking at their website, ANYTHING-- is suspicious and will be used against you.

    Don't phone them. Don't respond to emails. Don't log into any of their assets. The End.  If they contact you, tell them you aren't comfortable maintaining your business relationship, and if they have further business with you, have them give your their lawyers number. And then give that number to your lawyer, and let them sort it out.

    This can get ugly and toxic really fast, and there are far too many people who have paid dearly to deliver you this one piece of advice:

    SHUT THE FUCK UP AND [b]EVERYTHING[/b] GOES THROUGH A LAWYER

    Note: I am not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. You know who does give legal advice, though? A FUCKING LAWYER!


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @dhromed said:

    try formulating it as a single tweet.
     

    Longtime client fired accountant, hired IT forensics and bounced me from office. Should I shit pants or call lawyer? #orboth



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @dhromed said:

    try formulating it as a single tweet.
     

    Longtime client fired accountant, hired IT forensics and bounced me from office. Should I shit pants or call lawyer? #orboth

     

    Impressive!

     



  • I think you're over-reacting just a bit. I'm not saying I wouldn't have felt the same way, but ...

    Consider their side of things -- they have discovered accounting irregularities. Here too was a "bond of trust" that they discovered was being abused. I think they have a right to be a little paranoid. They are probably treating everybody the same way -- they need to determine how far up or down the problem goes. Accounting and IT tend to be "black boxes" in most companies, a group of people who perform their magic that nobody else can understand, and they probably need an independent third party to fully scope the damage. They aren't suspicious of you, they're suspicious of everybody -- really, they're suspicious of themselves and their ability to select trustworthy employees. They need to reassure themselves that this accountant was a fluke, and not a pattern of employee misconduct or a systematic failure of the hiring process.

    Unfortunately, your honor has been broached, and it was not your fault -- it was broached by another person who failed to live up to his own ethical obligations. It's a very unfortunately situation to be in -- ask anybody who works at Penn State.

    I had an ending, but I lost it.



  • @pauly said:

    DO NOT TALK TO THE POLICE IF THEY COME TO YOU.
    I did watch the recommended movie. I WILL NOT TALK TO THE POLICE. Thanks for that most valuable piece of advice I ever got. Because otherwise, as far as I know myself, I would most likely try to explain myself and my innocence to whoever wants to listen. And I understand now that that is not helping. Except, maybe, if I talk to my lawyer. Thanks, guys!



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @dhromed said:

    try formulating it as a single tweet.
     

    Longtime client fired accountant, hired IT forensics and bounced me from office. Should I shit pants or call lawyer? #orboth

    I am not a fan of the current trend towards reducing all stories to the shortest possible character string.  The original post in this thread was an entertaining edge-of-your-seat narrative that held my interest from beginning to end.  The Twitverse version has all the drama of something you'd read on the wall in a public bathroom.

    Remember the synopsis of The Wizard of Oz:  "Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again."

     



  • @TheRider said:

    My opinion is that this is inacceptable behavior or treatment of a contractor whom you trusted your infrastructure for more than ten years, that this was devious and sneaky behind-my-back conspiracy, and that the situation could have been handled much more friendly, especially if I am not under suspicion. My instincts say that someone, probably the deputy manager, is trying to push me out of business and that she wants to install her own IT consultant. And I have a hard time to fight back, I tend to cut my losses and just be disappointed by these people.

    What would you have done?

    You say thank you with a smile, you wish them good luck and say that you are looking forward to assist them again in the future would the need for it arise. You are a service provider, so provide your services there or somewhere else, and let the people who work there full time enjoy their small slice of paradise.

    Whatever it was, that letter they wanted you to sign has no legal value whatesoever. It's not even a contract if there is no mention of you getting something in return so they can't even sue you in poor people's court. Just walk away, you've spent enough energy worrying about stupid people playing stupid games in their small kingdoms.



  • @pauly said:

    If they charge you with a crime, at least then they can't use anything you said against you.


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJRF8xGzvj4 from about 0:08 to 0:12 …



  • @TheRider said:

    So, as soon as my password changed, the scanner stopped working. Heehee.
     

    FTFY. Idiot. Do not tightly-couple personal accounts to service accounts.

    Ditto what others said on the billing - charge them the time taken to "provide consultancy to their new IT consultant", although they could argue that this was required because you didn't clearly document their infrastructure so anyone could take it up.

    It also helps if you document your story up there in preparation to giving a statement. Hopefully it won't come to that, but it helps to capture the info whilst it's fresh now - get your story straight.

    Then draw a line under it, consider it a closed door. Even if you go back to work there again, it won't feel the same.



  • @da Doctah said:

    Remember the synopsis of The Wizard of Oz:  "Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again."
     

    Well that's just wrong.

    It should be:

    Young girl gets transported to surreal land, causes accident and uncovers a scam at the highest level. 

    It's shorter, even.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @dhromed said:

    @da Doctah said:

    Remember the synopsis of The Wizard of Oz:  "Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again."
     

    Well that's just wrong.

    It should be:

    Young girl gets transported to surreal land, causes accident and uncovers a scam at the highest level. 

    It's shorter, even.

     

     

    Douch npc demands bullshit sidequest. Plot on yellow-brick rails. Bosskill ninja'd by asshole teammate. Loot I already had. Fucking lame.

     

     



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @dhromed said:

    @da Doctah said:

    Remember the synopsis of The Wizard of Oz:  "Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again."
     

    Well that's just wrong.

    It should be:

    Young girl gets transported to surreal land, causes accident and uncovers a scam at the highest level. 

    It's shorter, even.

    Douch npc demands bullshit sidequest. Plot on yellow-brick rails. Bosskill ninja'd by asshole teammate. Loot I already had. Fucking lame.
     

    Better still, this was supposedly an actual local TV listing for a repeat of the ST:TOS episode "Amok Time":

    Spock has the mating urge and attacks Captain Kirk.

     



  • The original instructions for Pong were: "avoid missing ball for high score"



  •  Plot thickens; becomes viscous; is smeared out indefinitely.



  •  Bottom line is that when you work in IT, you are automatically expendable and immediately suspicious if anything wonky happens.  Just in principal.  I don't know why it is, but it just... is.  It's like the time I unplugged a keyboard from a pc and the secretary accused me of damaging their phone system because (coincidentally) she got a dropped connection on a caller the very moment I unplugged the keyboard.

    Since the conversation is already veering into la-la land, I don't feel like I'm hijacking the thread by also relating a serious situation I fell into once.  I was working for a 911 agency as both IT support and programmer.  One summer the county decided to relocate us to a new building (which was desperately needed).  Move date was in September and not negotiable.  As you can imagine, you can't just turn off a near-real-time critical system like that, spend a few hours moving all the equipment and then turn it back on again.  You have to get new equipment in place, test it, build additional redundancies to the interfaces (telecoms and radio towers), move the people, and coordinate the transition from old equipment to the new stuff.  Which in my world means several months before this all happens, you implement and enforce a code freeze and all work from that point on is ONLY for the goal of the relocation project.  (I should add that we did not bring in consultants or any additional staff to help with this.  It was just me and my three coworker sys-admins.)

    Management would have none of that and laughed at my talk of code freeze.  One of them insisted that we work on and complete a new software-hardware interface for him, due a few weeks before we moved.  I refused.  They insisted.  I refused.  Things got tense as deadlines approached and no work on either the new interface or new equipment testing got done.  They called me into a meeting and tried to sweet talk me into doing the interface project at the expense of testing the new equipment and connections for the relocation.  (It will all work fine, you'll see.)  I politely refused and explained to them that I would not be held accountable if we moved to the new center and could not provide 911 services to the community.  They tried to say that I would not be held accountable, if anything went wrong it would be on them, I would just be doing my job.  I don't regret my ethical stance, but my diplomacy failed me and I responded with a comment about the Nuremburg trials.  The meeting ended soon after.

    But that was also when I realized that from that point on, if ANYTHING failed ANYWHERE in the network or computer systems, I would be accused of sabotage, simply because of all the hard feelings that were going around in all directions.  I had to quit, immediately.   Indeed, the "exit interview" with the director consisted of sitting there listening to her scream (literally, I'm sure everybody in the office heard her) about how I was a horrible person who was insubordinate and always tried to undermine her authority for the entire 9 years I worked there.


  • Garbage Person

    @jetcitywoman said:

    I was working for a 911 agency as both IT support and programmer.  One summer the county decided to relocate us to a new building (which was desperately needed).  Move date was in September and not negotiable.  As you can imagine, you can't just turn off a near-real-time critical system like that, spend a few hours moving all the equipment and then turn it back on again.  You have to get new equipment in place, test it, build additional redundancies to the interfaces (telecoms and radio towers), move the people, and coordinate the transition from old equipment to the new stuff.
    Er, actually, I've known people that worked on several cases where 911 centers were moved "hot".

    They built and wired the new center, and got it as close to ready as they could without installing any actual hardware. Then they literally just dropped the center offline and executed the DR plan - which consisted primarily of the neighboring counties taking over and getting paid for it. And then it was a mad rush of IT personnel 24/7 to get everything disconnected and unbolted and onto trucks and then reinstalled at the other en. It took a couple of days. No real big deal.



  • @Weng said:

    Er, actually,

    Wow, taking the "post starting with 'actually,'" to a whole new level there.



  • @Weng said:

    They built and wired the new center, and got it as close to ready as they could without installing any actual hardware. Then they literally just dropped the center offline and executed the DR plan - which consisted primarily of the neighboring counties taking over and getting paid for it. And then it was a mad rush of IT personnel 24/7 to get everything disconnected and unbolted and onto trucks and then reinstalled at the other en. It took a couple of days. No real big deal
     

    Was this agency handling 911 for an entire county, including one large city - police and fire?  Did their law dispatchers have to keep track of 30 - 40 units simultaneously every afternoon/evening shift?  The place I was at was that busy.  There's no way in heck they would have tolerated a couple days of downtime.  

    But actually, that's not what I was demanding.  Even the management didn't want to do it that way.  They just wanted to shove equipment into place without testing it and then flip a switch on moving day.  Pure idealism.  (Oh, and they didn't have a DR plan, either.)



  • @jetcitywoman said:

    (It will all work fine, you'll see.)
    Yeah, not so much.

    You see, Portland went through a 911 center move.  I was a dispatcher at a private ambulance company at the time.  When we had medical calls come in on our regular 10-digit line, we had to use the same triage card set that Portland 911 used.  If the triage cards deemed a call to be a medical emergency, we had to call 911 to initiate the full emergent medical response (fire and ambulance).  (Prior to the move, we had hotlines direct to Portland 911, Clark County [Washington] 911, and Cowlitz County [Washington] 911.  The Portland 911 line was disconnected and never reconnected.  By design I think.)

    Have you ever called 911 and sat there listening to "DO NOT HANG UP - HELP WILL BE DELAYED IF YOU HANG UP"?

    Have you ever called 911 and sat there listening to that same phrase for several minutes?

    Now . . . have you ever called 911 and received a telephone company busy signal?

    BTDT on all three.  Have you ever felt that sinking feeling in your gut when you were involved with an emergency situation and there was nothing you could do?

    Granted, from experience I know that many of these "emergency" calls end up truly being nonemergent -- it's the protocol being overly cautious.  And yet, there are some that you just can't tell for sure, over the telephone, whether they really are emergent or not.  Some people are good at knowing the key words -- "difficulty breathing", "chest pain", etc.  Some people are good at evading the key words.  Some people take advantage of those key words.  Some people avoid using them as much as possible (RNs are great for that -- they don't have the authority in Portland to downgrade a response).  So you're never 100% sure whether it's a hoax or a genuine emergency.  But I digress.

    I don't recall if anyone ended up with their tails in the fire because of the problems.  I think they just attributed it to inexperience with the new dispatch system and not being able to account for the call load.  Nevertheless, in a life-critical system like 911 I don't accept those as excuses.  And there was an incident at the end of that same year (pretty sure it was the same year) where they had turned on GPS (AVL - automatic vehicle locators was the term they used), but there was something weird going on, like they were letting the CAD system learn the street locations by watching responding units.  Around Christmastime, they ended up with a situation where someone called 911, there was a delay of several minutes getting the call, there was confusion about what was going on due to a language barrier, and the CAD reported the wrong location to responding units, all culminating in the death of some family members for a response that should have been fairly routine and no fatalities.  This all happened in 1994 as I recall

    You absolutely cannot allow screwups in 911 technology.



  •  Thank you, I feel vindicated by what you wrote.  I learned quickly not to be intimidated by the uptime requirements, but I agree 100% that screwups are not to be tolerated.  And there were so many.  Your tagline is also appreciated.  I miss that place because... well, you know how on some tv shows after the crisis is averted (deus ex machina, usually) they wind up the plot by having the main character observe joyfully how alive they felt?  That's kind of what working in 911 felt to me after I left it.  I summed it up once to my husband this way:  "I miss it; the floods, the blackouts, the evacuation (last, of course) due to a broken gas line, the explosions...  I hated it at the time, but now... man, it was NEVER boring."  (All of those were events INSIDE the 911 center, not things we responded to!  Because sure as snow is white, 911 is always last on everybody's budgets, which comes back to your tagline again.)

    Oh, speaking of 911 downtime and Daily WTF...  we had a breathtaking situation once when I was new there.  I had just come back from a week-long class learning how to upgrade our OS (OpenVMS).  The center needed to do that.  I was naive then, so I told my managers that even though I'd just learned how to do it in class, I'd prefer to bring in "professionals" from our CAD software vendor and watch them and learn some more, rather than doing it myself.  I lost my naivety during those two weeks.  The dude they sent to upgrade our OS, shut down the CAD system, parked his butt in a chair in the computer room and proceeded to read the VMS manual on how to perform a backup.  He kept the system down while he struggled to perform a backup.  When I noticed he was having trouble with such a simple task, I took a peek and asked him if he needed help.  He was typing examples from the manual verbatim - including the drive names - and could NOT figure out why it wasn't working.  Hello idiot, those are EXAMPLES.  The drive names are different here.  Do you know how to do SHOW DEVICE?  (Apparently not.)  It took him several HOURS to figure it out, the entire time of which the system was down.  Not running on the backup system; DOWN.

    I put up such a stink, it's a wonder they didn't fire me.  I insisted that my director call the vendor and demand that they replace that idiot with someone who knew what they were doing.  He did, but they didn't.  The net downtime for that entire episode was just under 36 hours.(For those not familiar with VMS, it was the original perfection of clustering, way back in the mid-1990's.  You didn't have to shut down the system to perform a backup.  Proper procedure would have been to transfer the CAD system to the backup server, then shut down the primary and do the standalone backup on it's OS drive - no downtime required.)



  • @TheRider said:

    @pauly said:
    DO NOT TALK TO THE POLICE IF THEY COME TO YOU.
    I *did* watch the recommended movie. I WILL NOT TALK TO THE POLICE. Thanks for that most valuable piece of advice I ever got. Because otherwise, as far as I know myself, I would most likely try to explain myself and my innocence to whoever wants to listen. And I understand now that that is not helping. Except, maybe, if I talk to my lawyer. Thanks, guys!
    To quote the back of a lawyer's business card I randomly got:

    @Random Lawyer's Card said:

    Assertion of Rights

    Officer please be advised as follows:

    • I refuse to talk to you until I speak to my Lawyer.
    • I refuse to consent to a search of my body, premises, personal effects or my car.
    • If you wish to question me I want my lawyer present
    • I refuse to participate in any line-up, or perform any physical acts without first speaking to my lawyer.
    • If I am under arrest I invoke my Miranda rights.  I will not speak to you without my lawyer present.
    • If I am taken into custody I do not consent to search, impoundment or inventory of my personal property.
    • If I am not under arrest I want to leave now.  If I am not under arrest tell me now so that I may leave immediately.


  • @Anketam said:

    And no I wont tell you how I got it
     

    Looted off his corpse.



  • @dhromed said:

    @Anketam said:

    And no I wont tell you how I got it
     

    Looted off his corpse.

    I never said it was a he.


  • @Anketam said:

    @dhromed said:

    @Anketam said:

    And no I wont tell you how I got it
     

    Looted off his corpse.

    I never said it was a he.
    Well, then, looted off *her* corpse? :-) ...or rather, looted off her pants while she wasn't wearing them?


  • @TheRider said:

    @Anketam said:
    @dhromed said:
    @Anketam said:
    And no I wont tell you how I got it
     Looted off his corpse.
    I never said it was a he.
    Well, then, looted off *her* corpse? :-) ...or rather, looted off her pants while she wasn't wearing them?
    And you totally missed the subtle reference I was trying to make.  I was doing the cop's line when in casual conversation they get you to say a fact about a crime that they had not revealed to you.  Like in this case, I never said anything about the gender of the victim yet he (dhromed) knew it.  If I was a cop at this point I would be dragging dhromed in for the murder of the lawyer all because he said the word 'he'.

    An example of this:

    Idiot says: "people get stabbed in that area all the time"

    Cop: "I never said that the victim was stabbed"

    *cop takes out handcuff*



  • @Anketam said:

    @TheRider said:

    @Anketam said:
    @dhromed said:
    @Anketam said:
    And no I wont tell you how I got it
     Looted off his corpse.
    I never said it was a he.
    Well, then, looted off *her* corpse? :-) ...or rather, looted off her pants while she wasn't wearing them?
    And you totally missed the subtle reference I was trying to make.  I was doing the cop's line when in casual conversation they get you to say a fact about a crime that they had not revealed to you.  Like in this case, I never said anything about the gender of the victim yet he (dhromed) knew it.  If I was a cop at this point I would be dragging dhromed in for the murder of the lawyer all because he said the word 'he'.

    An example of this:

    Idiot says: "people get stabbed in that area all the time"

    Cop: "I never said that the victim was stabbed"

    *cop takes out handcuff*

    Those crazy hookers are always getting cell phones shoved up their asses before strangling themselves with extension cords and throwing their lifeless bodies into the trucks of cars...  What?!


  • @Anketam said:

    I never said anything about the gender of the victim yet he (dhromed) knew it.  If I was a cop at this point I would be dragging dhromed in for the murder of the lawyer all because he said the word 'he'.
     

    Noooo I'm just a victim of commonly used habitual sexist language! Nooo! Damn you, misogynist culture!


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @C-Octothorpe said:

    Those crazy hookers are always getting [b]cell phones[/b] shoved up their asses before strangling themselves with extension cords and throwing their lifeless bodies into the trucks of cars...  What?!
     

    Well, I have my new ringtone.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @C-Octothorpe said:

    Those crazy hookers are always getting cell phones shoved up their asses before strangling themselves with extension cords and throwing their lifeless bodies into the trucks of cars...  What?!
     

    Well, I have my new ringtone.

    I prefer the guy who accidentally brutally stabbed himself in the stomach while shaving and the other guy who accidentally brutally cut his head off while combing his hair.


  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @C-Octothorpe said:

    Those crazy hookers are always getting cell phones shoved up their asses before strangling themselves with extension cords and throwing their lifeless bodies into the trucks of cars...  What?!
     

    Well, I have my new ringtone.

    You've got the wrong event: StranglingHooker.mp3

  • ♿ (Parody)

    @C-Octothorpe said:

    Those crazy hookers are always getting cell phones shoved up their asses before strangling themselves with extension cords and throwing their lifeless bodies into the trucks of cars...  What?!

    I had to double check. For a second, I thought morbs was active again.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @C-Octothorpe said:
    Those crazy hookers are always getting cell phones shoved up their asses before strangling themselves with extension cords and throwing their lifeless bodies into the trucks of cars...  What?!
    I had to double check. For a second, I thought morbs was active again.
    I aim to please.



  • @C-Octothorpe said:

    @boomzilla said:

    @C-Octothorpe said:
    Those crazy hookers are always getting cell phones shoved up their asses before strangling themselves with extension cords and throwing their lifeless bodies into the trucks of cars...  What?!
    I had to double check. For a second, I thought morbs was active again.
    I aim to please.

    Yourself.



  • @zelmak said:

    @C-Octothorpe said:

    @boomzilla said:

    @C-Octothorpe said:
    Those crazy hookers are always getting cell phones shoved up their asses before strangling themselves with extension cords and throwing their lifeless bodies into the trucks of cars...  What?!
    I had to double check. For a second, I thought morbs was active again.
    I aim to please.

    Yourself.
    Later, yes.  First comes trust, then I do.



  • Follow-up: These people have taken away all administrator privileges to their infrastructure. Except for one little bit: I am still the Tech-Contact for their domain, and am controlling the nameservers for their domain.

    In the middle of august, I sent them a mail asking them to take over the nameservers for their domain as well. I asked them to do that by the end of september, because by then I'd like to deactivate those nameservers.

    By early october, they hadn't reacted, as nothing had changed in the whois information. So I sent them a second email asking them to take over their nameservers within 20 days, because I was definitely going to deactivate those nameservers by the end of october.

    I intend to give them a last warning and notice period of 10 days, and then I would actually deactivate those nameservers.

    What would you guys do?


  • BINNED

    I'm trying to understand why you feel any obligation at all toward those people, and having minimal success. In your shoes, I would have shut down the name servers right away.



  • Do you have Certified Mail there?


    I'd be doing these contacts via both email and sending physical letters that were certified proof of delivery. They can always claim they never got email or regular letters, but a certified letter has proof.



  • @TheRider said:

    What would you guys do?
     

    Deactivate the nameservers.

    They've taken ownership of their IT infrastructure, switching over their nameservers is a responsibility of theirs now.

    Plus you also get the satisfaction of knowing their new techie is going to flounder for a bit trying to find out what's gone wrong that would be unprofessional.



  • Yes, Certified Mail. When they come after you for "sabotaging" their [pick some random bit of kit] pull out your receipt for the mail you sent and politely tell them to pound sand.

    Thomas



  • @TheRider said:

    I intend to give them a last warning and notice period of 10 days, and then I would actually deactivate those nameservers.

    What would you guys do?

    I'd do exactly that, except with the changes suggested above of using certified mail (or equivalent in my country) for all of the communications.

    And bill them for my time and for the cost of the certified mail. Not a lot of money, but still some to make the point.



  • @havokk said:

    @TheRider said:

    I intend to give them a last warning and notice period of 10 days, and then I would actually deactivate those nameservers.

    What would you guys do?

    I'd do exactly that, except with the changes suggested above of using certified mail (or equivalent in my country) for all of the communications.

    And bill them for my time and for the cost of the certified mail. Not a lot of money, but still some to make the point.

    And not for access to the name servers? And the thousands of queries per second ... etc ... :)

    Seriously, if you've been providing them this free infrastructure after they let you go ... you've a bigger heart than they deserve.

     



  • @zelmak said:

    @havokk said:

    @TheRider said:

    I intend to give them a last warning and notice period of 10 days, and then I would actually deactivate those nameservers.

    What would you guys do?

    I'd do exactly that, except with the changes suggested above of using certified mail (or equivalent in my country) for all of the communications.

    And bill them for my time and for the cost of the certified mail. Not a lot of money, but still some to make the point.

    And not for access to the name servers? And the thousands of queries per second ... etc ... :)

    Seriously, if you've been providing them this free infrastructure after they let you go ... you've a bigger heart than they deserve.

     

    I don't operate these servers on my own. I am using the free services of www.namecheap.com. So it's not really about "turning off my nameservers" rather than "deactivating domain configurations on namecheap.com". It doesn't cost me anything, I just want to get rid of the responsibility and thus want to remove these domains from my namecheap account.

    I went to the post office today and sent a written, certified, snail mail letter to them about this issue. Let's see what develops.

    Lets not speak of the big heart. I have just been fired by my employer (who has got nothing to do with the company I am talking about in this thread here) and am approaching unemployment because job search turns out to be more difficult than I thought. But that is a whole different story that I might pick up on another thread.



  • @TheRider said:

    Lets not speak of the big heart. I have just been fired by my employer (who has got nothing to do with the company I am talking about in this thread here) and am approaching unemployment because job search turns out to be more difficult than I thought. But that is a whole different story that I might pick up on another thread.

    I'm sorry to hear that. Good luck with your job search.

    I hear snoofle may need an assistant? :)


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