work

Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Two former big pharma people were laid off when the local office closed. One is a chemist and the other has spent a lifetime in IT in chemistry land. We will call them Bo and Luke, because one is from Alabama and the other is from Mississippi and they are a couple of good ol' boys who never meanin' no harm.

Bo and Luke started a chemistry lab. Bo, the Ph.D. chemist, was going to do his thing. Luke was going to write software to help the lab. And Hazzard ChemLab was started. And it was good.

Eventually the company grew. The lab got lots of business and had to hire more chemists. Ph.D. chemists, B.S. chemists, etc. The software business started to grow too. Other chemistry labs wanted to use the software so Hazzard ChemLab sold its software to other labs. A big chemistry hardware manufacturer wanted to use some software so they paid Hazzard ChemLab big bucks to write a program that Big Hardware Manufacturer would OEM from Hazzard ChemLab sell themselves.

The company grew to about 10 employees. I was employee #9. I joined to help the software side. We thank the Big Hardware Manufacturer for funding my employment.

It became onerous on Bo to run the lab business and do his chemist stuff at the same time. Eventually he brought in a friend of his to help with his business stuff. We'll call his friend Lucifer (actually he kind of looks like Boss Hogg, maybe a little thinner, no hat, glasses, plaid shirts).

Lucifer has a checkered past. Lucifer started a chem lab in the late 80s that had satellite offices nation (world?) wide. They closed and eventually Lucifer's company went bankrupt in 2004. Lucifer was never found to have done anything wrong, but Lucifer (rightly) has a bad reputation in the chemistry space because of the malfeasance that occurred late in the company's lifetime. For between 10-12 months (I think it was closer to 10), employee's of Lucifer's Hadean ChemLab had their 401k contributions removed from their paycheck. However, the amount was never deposited in the 401k account. Lucifer claims no knowledge of this.

Did I mention that Lucifer and Bo go to church together?

Bo didn't let Luke know that Lucifer had been brought in as a business consultant. Yet Bo and Luke both own the company, 50/50. This created strife. Further, all of the employees at the lab knew that Lucifer had a bad reputation in the business and did not want him there. After all, if your main business consultant ran his company into bankrupcy (seemingly - whether he helped or not) sure doesn't look good to potential customers. To add to that, Lucifer is just a creepy guy who talks a lot.

Hazzard ChemLab got a big contract with a big customer to analyze a lot of chemical samples. The timetable to get the analysis done was aggressive. Further, one of our chemists was going to Europe for 2 weeks. Lucifer knew of someone that could help that had a chemistry degree. His daughter. We'll call her Daria.

Daria is actually very cool. Daria doesn't like Lucifer. She's been quoted as saying, "I hate having his DNA in me." Daria and Lucifer used to eat dinner regularly, like once a week or so. They went to eat at Souper Salad one night. Lucifer said, "Glad we can come here and save the $2 instead of going to Golden Corral. heh heh." Daria walked out. They haven't been to dinner since. However, it is unfortunate that Daria has been turned down for chemistry jobs because of her last name.

In an attempt to get some more efficiency, a part time (10 hours a week or so) employee was brought in to help with accounting entries and ordering of supplies for the lab. This happens to be Lucifer's step-daughter. We'll call her Henrietta, for she has a tumor inside her named Henry (no joke). Henrietta doesn't really regard Lucifer as blood relative, or any kind of relative really. When Lucifer married his 2nd wife, he asked Henrietta to call him "Dad." Repeatedly. Henrietta was very uncomfortable with this because...well...she already had a Dad and this guy wasn't her father. The story was told to me as if Lucifer did not respect Henrietta wishes or desires on this matter.

Things were not well in Hazzard County. Strange things began to happen after Lucifer started. It became obvious morale in the lab was sinking. I work at home so it was hard to see at first but it quickly became noticable. Bo and Luke started to disagree more often. Luke felt very upset that Bo brought in a business person without consulting him first or at least letting him know. It seems Bo felt that he could do what he wanted with his side of the business as long as he could economically justify it. Both of these viewpoints have their merits.

Bo & Luke debated for weeks, months, about Lucifer's role in the company. Nearly every lab employee voiced their opinion on how they did not want Lucifer as part of the company. But he stayed on anyway, even after employees threatened to leave.

Things eventually came to a head about a month ago when Luke finally got Bo to admit that Bo wanted to dissolve the partnership at Hazzard ChemLab. But how this was going to take place was another matter entirely. They had to come to financial terms.

Hidden from me at the time was how they 2 were negotiating. Bo and Luke started apart. Bo would move closer and concede a bit. Luke moved farther apart! Bo would concede more. Luke would move farther away still! At one point the 2 were close to an agreement. Then overnight Luke's counter offer was a new software company owned 40/30/30 Bo/Luke/Lucifer.

That pretty much did Luke in. That's an insult, and is negotiating in bad faith. Luke consulted with his lawyers and wrote a carefully worded email to Bo in the middle of last week.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday of last week, I went to the lab to do some stuff and found out there was a new employee! At lunch that day Bo sent an email out to the lab employees (not Luke or any of the other software people) informing them that effective immediately Bo would be working more in the lab on getting data out to customers. He would hand out the day-to-day business operation things to Lucifer and the new employee. Henrietta was to then report to the new employee. The new employee was Bo's wife. We'll call her Daisy to keep the theme going.

Luke was beside himself. I was beside myself. I had already sent my resume to several places but I was wondering when it was time to leave, to give in. There is some impressive business on the table, ready for the taking for the software group, but was it worth the drama? I wasn't sure until this. I spent some time setting up phone screenings and what not later that day.

Yet I still had work to do. So I tried to get some work done Thursday and Friday.

Now, Hazzard ChemLab is 20 feet from a sports bar. The employees usually go over on Fridays (what am I saying - they go over almost every day) for drinks and stuff after work. I was supposed to be notified when they went over. At 5:30 I texted one of them and they said they were drinking, come on over. This was this past Friday.

On Friday a company meeting (I guess that means 'just the lab employees') was called. Bo announced his immediate resignation. He was not going to report to work on Monday.

Well that's fun. Tropical Storm Hanna is coming through and one of the owners of the company I work for is abandoning ship. There was much drunkenness that night as people tried to come to terms with what this was going to mean.

Luke told me and another person to tell everyone at the bar there would be a company meeting Saturday at 9am, moved to 2pm due to weather. At this meeting some of his business associates were going to show up and we were going to figure out how to proceed.

Luke found out that Bo and Lucifer were still at the lab as of 7PM or so that Friday night. Luke asked me and another male who works there to come over to ensure everything was OK and there wouldn't be a scene. He also asked me to take pictures of the interior and assets of the lab on my phone. This was not comfortable.

Saturday comes around and I find out that I have a leak around some windows in my house. But I can't deal with it because A) it's still raining and B) I have a job to save. So at 2PM I go to the lab.

Luke gave Bo a second chance. Luke said, "Sleep on it, think this over." Luke and Bo announced they had come to terms on a buyout. Luke will be bought out. Bo will continue with the company. Under this scenario, I will be fired/laid-off/something from Hazzard ChemLab with a severance or something like that. I will be able to join Luke's new software company.

Were this not to happen, were Bo to change his mind and say, "I reneg on the terms we agreed to," Luke is going to hold the resignation as binding or deal with blackmail (details on that in a second) and take over the lab.

Here I learn that this all came to a head late last week after the carefully worded email from Luke to Bo. Luke said, "You're negotiating in bad faith. It's going to get ugly." A reply suggested a threat that Bo would just up and quit.

Also, Friday night, Luke called Lucifer and asked him what he knew about the situation. Lucifer said, "We had been working on offers that would be equitable for all parties." Luke replied, "Who is we?" Backpedaling ensued. Turns out Lucifer had been pulling many of these strings for a long time.

After the 2PM meeting, Daria had a heart-to-heart or "come to Jesus" meeting with Bo. She spent half an hour explaining things that I don't know and probably will never know. But in essence she explained what happened at Lucifer's Hadean ChemLab because...guess what...she was an employee there too and had first hand knowledge of the 401k debacles amongst other debacles.

*****

So here we are on Monday. Reportedly Lucifer has quit. I don't know if he was fired or resigned, but I'm guessing resigned. We are still waiting on signatures from Bo and Luke to finalize the agreement to separate.

My preference is to work for Luke in his new endeavors and to continue to work from home. It appears this is going to happen. The lab will be one of our customers and we will have close ties with them. I'm sure I'll be drinking with the employees there often.

Any questions?

wow

So Hanna is coming in. We have a leak at a window. Don't know how long we've had it but not long. There is a lip around the window on the outside of the house due to the vinyl siding. It's catching water and some of it is dripping down at the top of the window inside the house. Fun repair work tomorrow. Yippee.

My dog is not happy. He hasn't minded rain and storms and stuff, but not today. We opened the front door and he went and hid under a table. So after we got outside he tried to sit right next to the house. We have bushes within reach of our front awning and those were not palatable options. We had to walk around outside next to a tree and lamp post.

But as far as work goes...things are still changing and a full update will occur later this weekend. You will not believe...

The Dark Knight

I have to say I'm surprised that no review I've read has hit what I thought was one of the more obvious allegories of the movie. The Joker is a terrorist, and the film is an incredible analysis of the human condition when it is faced with the depths of humanity in addition to a meditation on the political ramifications of terrorism. Smartly the words "terror" and "terrorism" are not in the movie. They would date what is an instant and timeless classic. There are so many levels to the movie, including the depths to which we can sink when victimized, faith in humanity, and the consequences of our actions.

Unbelievable. One of the best movies I have ever seen. Christopher Nolan has created a 150 million dollar action/adventure crime drama art film. The Joker is the best bad guy on camera since Hannibal Lecter.

I am pretty critical of movies. I am on the Heath Ledger for Oscar bandwagon. Aaron Eckhart is amazing as well, but Ledger is so good he's overshadowing what is incredible acting on Eckhart's part as well.

I told my wife this and I need to think about it, but this is how good The Dark Knight was to me. It's the second best sequel I've ever seen. First is The Godfather Part II. That puts The Dark Knight ahead of The Empire Strikes Back. That's the level we're talking about here.

living the high life

I've been working at home since January. I'm using the same $99 leather office chair special (a high back! It was on sale!) since I bought it in 2000. But since I'm at home all day and sit in front of a computer I ultimately wanted something better. It wasn't bad but twice my back has hurt, probably not due to the chair, but a more ergonomic chair would help.

So I found a Herman Miller Aeron chair (aka, the "dot com" chair) on craigslist with lumbar support for $250.

And just as the stock market is crashing. Just like 2000. Could someone bring me some Perrier?

Charity Chase

Now that a friend of mine has linked to this on her facebook page, maybe I should update more.

On Saturday I ran the Charity Chase half marathon in Hickory, NC. Before I start, one thing you should know about me. I don't run well in the heat. I can train in the heat slowly (9:30-10 minute/mile pace), but I can't race. Heat for me is anything over 65 for running. Well, midday that's great but in the morning 60-65 means it's going to be 80-90 later, and that's hot. In the summer I have a 10AM rule - be done with my run for the day by 10AM. After that it's too hot for me. I am a heavy sweater, and I tend to push my body temperature up a bit. I wonder if I get close to overheating (although I always know when to slow down).

Anyway, Saturday was pretty humid. It was about 66 or so at the start of the race at least.

But the race course was sadistic with hills. Holy cow. For those of you that have run with me, Coach Bubba and Umstead are probably the toughest courses around. This was way worse. At mile marker 11, there is what had to be a 100 foot incline over 200-300 yards. That was the worst obviously, but the hills were constant.

Let me put it this way. This was my 4th half marathon, not counting 2 20km races (Coach Bubba in Durham is 20km, which is 12.4 miles). For the 2 20km, I finished about 1:54. Could I have finished 0.7 miles in 6 minutes? Maybe. For the 3 half marathons, my times were between 1:53 and 1:58.

At the Charity Chase I registered a 2:09 something. Could I have run faster? Maybe. More hill training? Maybe. I burnt out pretty quickly. I want to run a half under 1:51 to qualify for a corral for the Chicago marathon, and maybe I started too quickly. But I don't think I could have made enough improvements to break 2 hours given the circumstances.

Radiohead tomorrow

Going to Charlotte to see Radiohead tomorrow. Can't wait.

Is the primary over yet?

Why does North Carolina have to matter? Really. Hillary is only in it because she thinks she can strongarm the superdelegates into voting for the person with less regular delegates. And Obama is going to get the majority of the Democratic vote.

Nevertheless, I have gotten 2 calls from Barack Obama, one from Hillary, 2 from an Obama office campaign volunteer person, one from a Hillary person. And now an Obama volunteer rang my doorbell to confirm who I was going to vote for.

Stop the madness!