Lofty Ideals 0 Grim Reality 1

« The Aaargh! shop sign on Lastenkodinkuja in Töölö »

I heard about a rather unhappy turn of events for a friend of mine yesterday. Chip Salzenberg is one of the nicest people I know, most especially among those of the perl persuasion. It would appear that, in a fit of righteous indignation upon finding the unseemly underside of the company employing him, he sent a letter threatening legal action that elicited an unsurprising response from the company; he was fired, the company is suing him and police seized his personal computers since he worked from home and his computers contained proprietary data.

I have absolutely no doubt that what Chip wrote is an honest assessment, but being a cynic who has only rarely had low expectations of humanity be too pessimistic, I'm very sorry he didn't err on the side of seeking legal counsel before sending that letter and winding up on the defensive rather than the offensive side of the game. In a country where corporate crooks of the highest order walk every day, thinking that an angry letter would make a small-time criminal company go legit is, well, terribly näive. The moral of the story is always seek legal counsel if you think you're working for a bunch of crooks. Crooks aren't honest people and, lofty ideals be damned, they'll put a cap in your ass if you try something stupid like this. Welcome to grim reality.

I like to root for the underdog and for those getting screwed for trying to do the right thing. There's a website, GeeksUnite.net, that has a copy of the letter and a short bio of Chip that doesn't include his talent as a walking movie quote database or his love of MST3K, both of which are commendable character traits. I hope his lawyers are better than the MS Frontpage webpage design might suggest as he's in a serious bind and will need top notch legal counsel to extract his ass and his computers from the pit. Chip is a decent human being whom I'd hate to see get shafted by some sleazy grifters like this so donate if you can to his defense fund since I suspect he'll have an expensive case with a yet uncertain outcome. As always, follow the money and cover your ass.