"Where Is Everybody?"

JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 19:55:39 -0800 (PST)

From: "Kerry Burgess"

Subject: Re: extreme situation

To: "Kerry Burgess"


Kerry Burgess wrote:

I also remember a couple key moments of all this. The first one was when our new director started working in our group. She had us all meet together and the first thing she wanted us to do was stand up and take 30 seconds to describe a little about ourselves. Later I would reflect on a couple things about that request. One was that the first manager to stand up, whom I think was also the first person, spent a whole lot more than 30 seconds talking about himself. I brought this up to her later right before I left because I had been hoping that she was demonstrating a concept that I started thinking of as "time awareness." The reason we weren't logging labor with enough precision was because we kept getting distracted because we had customers that wanted us to be there at their beck and call, instead of being planned out resources. A few months ago I got an email from a former colleague about that manager not being with the group anymore, and I wonder if that is why they were telling me, to make it look like he was the whole source of the time awareness problem, but I knew that was BS, getting rid of people didn't solve anything, we need people to create a better solution, as I did provide before I left, which was to eliminate the labor deliverable altogether. So anyway, the second key moment was when I was speaking to the director in those last few days and she agreed on something with me about "subjectivity." I forget the context of that conversation, I think it was a secondary point about how performance reviews were tainted by inaccurate labor reports, but that of course raised another big issue. Performance reviews made a big difference in people's movement throughout the company, so if someone gets a good review based on faulty information, that is really unfair to other people. She agreed with me that reviews were subjective, so I didn't really understand that. But she also obviously didn't understand what I was talking about when I brought up the Resource triangle one time too.


[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 27 February 2006 excerpt ends]





JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Posted by H.V.O.M at 9:20 PM Thursday, September 15, 2011


I remember when this miniseries premiered on television in December 2003. I was stressed out about people following me but I enjoyed my work as an Application Development Consultant in Microsoft Premier Support. I had a very interesting project going on around that time that I hoped would lead to a job in the Visual Basic product team and I was using Microsoft.Net with Visual Basic to convert Microsoft Word documents to a different format. The customer had a lot of files to convert and there was a lot of detail associated with my efforts to automate the conversion process. The software I crafted would convert as a batch the documents and would not require users to do any manual conversions, which was a feature the customer requested.

I cannot recall if I finished that project. I was also concerned that Microsoft was going to become the next Enron and that was because I could easily cite examples of multi-million dollars of customer fraud that Microsoft would be blamed for. Across hundreds and hundreds of customers of Microsoft just in my division alone - a division marketing claimed would save those customers money by paying more for our services - the customers were being fraudulently charged in the millions.

Sure, sure, Robert McKenna is all over that. Jay Inslee is screaming every day at Bill Gates to shape up and do right by all the people Microsft Al-Qaida screwed over because of their greed and because of the perverts that run free anywhere they want to inside Microsoft Corporation.


[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 15 September 2011 excerpt ends]





JOURNAL ARCHIVE: posted by H.V.O.M at 7:26 PM Thursday, August 17, 2006


Coercion

Coercion

the use of express or implied threats of violence or reprisal (as discharge from employment) or other intimidating behavior that puts a person in immediate fear of the consequences in order to compel that person to act against his or her will

1: the act of compelling by force of authority 2: using force to cause something


Laura Longcore was very clear when I told her that something was wrong at Microsoft that I needed to quit talking. For instance, earlier I had complained to her that Microsoft was overcharging customers with the Microsoft Premier service contracts. A standard service contract included 4 annual subscriptions to the software package Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and it was a popular feature of the contracts among my customers. I pointed out to her that she was not offering the renewal discount of $500 per subscription. I estimated that Microsoft Premier was overcharging its customers by at least one million dollars per year. I expected an immediate correction to that policy because Microsoft Premier Support for Developers was marketed as a service that was supposed to save these customers money. But yet, if those same customers went to another Microsoft website and purchased the MSDN separately, they could get a $500 discount for each subscription. We added absolutely no value for the extra $500. I thought it was just a simple oversight that would be quickly corrected. It was also the kind of suggestion I thought she would appreciate. Not much earlier, she had given me the so-called "Bulldog Award," the second I had received in that group, and referred to me as a "rising star." I was also one of the lowest-level persons, in terms of pay grade, so I expected to at least receive a promotion for my due diligence. Instead, she told me to keep my mouth shut. I put in my notice after that and quit about 2.5 weeks later. I was hoping she would tell me that they were going to make the necessary corrections and I then would not have quit. I felt like I had a future at Microsoft.


[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 17 August 2006 excerpt ends]










JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Posted by H.V.O.M at 12:08 AM Sunday, October 21, 2007


From 7/16/1963 to 7/16/1979 is: 5844 days
From 3/3/1959 to 6/3/2005 is: 16894 days
5844 / 16894 = 0.3459

'34-59'

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/nyregion/03vilar.html?ex=1275451200&en=63a1abdb4f49f5f5&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Heiress Is Identified as Victim in Case Against Arts Patron

By DANIEL J. WAKIN
Published: June 3, 2005
Correction Appended

The investor whose money prosecutors say was stolen by Alberto W. Vilar, the philanthropist and investment adviser, has been identified as the 67-year-old widow of a California millionaire.

The investor, generally identified in a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint as "L. C.," but on two occasions as "Cates," is Lily Cates, 67, of Manhattan, supporters of Mr. Vilar said, clearing up one of the mysteries surrounding his arrest. The original charges, unsealed on May 27, gave no details about his accuser, who has been identified in unrelated court cases also as Lily Cates Naify.


[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 21 October 2007 excerpt ends]










http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/nyregion/03vilar.html?ex=1275451200&en=63a1abdb4f49f5f5&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0

The New York Times


Heiress Is Identified as Victim in Case Against Arts Patron

By DANIEL J. WAKIN

Published: June 3, 2005

Correction Appended

The investor whose money prosecutors say was stolen by Alberto W. Vilar, the philanthropist and investment adviser, has been identified as the 67-year-old widow of a California millionaire.

The investor, generally identified in a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint as "L. C.," but on two occasions as "Cates," is Lily Cates, 67, of Manhattan, supporters of Mr. Vilar said, clearing up one of the mysteries surrounding his arrest. The original charges, unsealed on May 27, gave no details about his accuser, who has been identified in unrelated court cases also as Lily Cates Naify.

Ms. Cates inherited $10 million from her second husband, Marshall Naify, who died in 2000. She was previously married to Joseph Cates, a major Broadway producer and a pioneering figure in television, who helped create "The $64,000 Question" and made television specials a fixture. Mr. Cates died in 1998. Ms. Cates is the mother of the actress Phoebe Cates, from whom she is estranged, the actress's manager, Tobie Haggerty, said Thursday. The elder Ms. Cates did not respond to several telephone messages left at her home and with neighbors, or to a visitor to her Upper West Side condominium.

Mr. Vilar is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center pending a bail hearing today. He is charged with using the investor's $5 million for charities and business and personal expenses. Mr. Vilar has denied the charges through his lawyers, who described Ms. Cates as a disgruntled investor.

The case has drawn attention because of Mr. Vilar's prominence as a benefactor of the arts. He has contributed more than $100 million to cultural causes, notably opera houses, orchestras and performing arts centers, but drew scrutiny for failing to fulfill pledges of tens of millions of dollars when he encountered financial problems in 2002. Universities - including Columbia and New York University - also did not receive promised gifts, according to the Web site of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Columbia University Medical Center had been promised $10 million for its department of neurological surgery, which was then named for Mr. Vilar. New York University was pledged $23 million for an artists' fellowship program. No money was received, and New York University was left with a bill amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars for the program, which was suspended, a spokesman said.

The Securities and Exchange complaint, a civil lawsuit filed on Wednesday, said Mr. Vilar's company, Amerindo Investment Advisors, had advised Ms. Cates since 1987.

"Over time, L. C. and Vilar developed a close, almost familial, relationship," it said. At one point, in the late 1990's, Amerindo said her holdings had reached a value of $18 million.

According to court papers and interviews with friends of Mr. Vilar, what had long been a relationship of trust quickly eroded in recent months.

In June 2002, Ms. Cates took up Mr. Vilar's proposal to make a $5 million investment in a new Amerindo fund, the government said. Meanwhile, another family had grown angry about what it said was Mr. Vilar's refusal to return its $11 million investment and had hired a private investigator to look into his affairs.

One of the Amerindo clients the private investigator approached, in April 2004, was Ms. Cates. The investigator, Edward Adams, said in an interview that he had alerted her to a $24 million tax lien against Mr. Vilar.

"She was sympathetic to Alberto," Mr. Adams said, and hostile to him. "She wasn't cooperating by any means," he said. "She was very annoyed that I had her phone number." Mr. Vilar has sued Mr. Adams for slander, accusing him of spreading negative rumors about his business.

But by last fall, after finally receiving written materials about the investment, Ms. Cates decided to pull out and sought her money back. But Mr. Vilar and Amerindo repeatedly put her off, lying about where her money was, government court papers said.

The first indication that the government had intervened came on May 20, when the Securities and Exchange Commission said it questioned Mr. Vilar about Ms. Cates's investment.

Ms. Cates had been married to Marshall Naify for less than a year when he died at 80 in April 2000. Mr. Naify, whose net worth had once been put at $385 million, made money from a chain of California movie theaters.

According to court papers filed in Superior Court in California, Ms. Cates sought to challenge a provision of Mr. Naify's will granting her no more than $10 million from his estate. The case was settled, but she then sued her lawyers for malpractice. She lost but has appealed.

Yesterday in Federal District Court, Judge Laura Swain approved the appointment of Robert Knuts, a lawyer, as a monitor at Amerindo. Mr. Knuts was appointed at the request of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which said in a statement that it sought someone to "respond to client concerns, and ensure the safety of Amerindo client funds."










http://www.simpsonsarchive.com/episodes/CABF04

Homer vs. Dignity

Original Airdate on FOX: 26-Nov-2000


Marge: Homer, we need to talk to a financial planner.

Homer: Financial panther, eh? [imagines himself standing in a bank lobby with an officious banker]

Banker: Mr. Simpson, you're a dollar overdrawn.

Homer: Get him, Sheba! [a panther leaps onscreen and mauls the banker] [back to reality] I'm on board.










1982 film "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" DVD video:


Linda Barrett: He's no high school boy.










http://www.tv.com/shows/the-twilight-zone/where-is-everybody-12585/trivia/

tv.com


The Twilight Zone Season 1 Episode 1

Where is Everybody?

Aired Unknown Oct 02, 1959 on CBS

Quotes


Reporter #2: What happened to him toward the end, General, before he pushed that button or whatever it was?

Air Force General: What happened to him is that he cracked. Delusions of some kind we assume. But let me tell you all something, gentlemen. If any one of you were confined in a box five feet square for two and a half weeks, all by your lonesome without hearing a human voice other than your own, I'll give you especially good odds that your imagination would run away with you, too, such as his obviously did.



- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 1:47 PM Pacific Time somewhere near Seattle Washington USA Tuesday 10 June 2014