Ok, here it is.

	First off, this is not directly VW related, but _is_ directly
related to these lists and participation thereof.

	One morning, my boss left me a voice mail saying he wanted to
see me right off.  Go into he office, and he tells me to shut the door.
(uh-oh!)  He then proceeds to tell me that he thinks I'm sending and recieving
too much e-mail, and that it must cease immediately.  I ask him if he is
seeing anything detrimental in my performance, but he can't point to
anything - all my projects are ahead of schedule!  I point out that I spend
a lot of time coming in on weekends and off hours to fix stuff, install
patches, hardware bits, etc, but he says "it is up to me to choose the
compensation for those activities, and email priveleges are not the
compensation I choose to provide" and makes a big official reprimand to
go in my "permanent record."  Thats when I un-subscribed to the list.

	The only way he knew anything about howmuch email going in and
out was he got a buddy of his to show him where the uucp logs where.

	That was like a Thursday or so.

	Sunday, I went in at 6:00AM to install a patch and move some
equipment, and then I dialed in about 4:30PM to make sure everything was hunky
dory.  As is my custom, I did a "who" and see my boss is on.  Thats odd,
on a Sunday...  I do a ps, and see "vi sent" and I see thats even odder,
this guy is A) too dumb to know how to use elm, or B) reading someone's 
e-mail.  
	
	So I su and do a tail on his .sh_history file, and can see the whole
trail of where cd cd'd to /var/mail, su'd, did a vi on my mailbox and a
couple of others, and then changed to /home/thom/mail, cp's sent to a temp
directory, changed the ownership and permissions, and then did a vi on it.
He even tried to run encrypt, but was too stupid to figger it out.

	So I'm sitting here at home absolutely _seething_!  I called him
up with a chat program we had and just casually asked what was up
"Just working on Neptune (another machine)" blah blah blah.  "Oh," sez
I, "I noticed that you were looking at my mailbox"  Long, long pause, the
"we'll talk about it Monday..."

	I was _pissed_, so I hopped in the car and went down to the office
to get my stuff.  By the time I got there, I went to log in, and my account
was locked.  Now I was _really_ pissed!  It was all I could do to restrain
myself from downing the machine, booting with the install tape and do
some serious damage! (BTW - due to the massive amounts of data they deal with
(40-60G) they only back up small portions of it... _very_ vulnerable)

	SO I packed up everything and left.  later that night, he calls me
at home and tells me I'm on administrative leave for the next day.  I knew
what that meant, but I'd already made up my mind that I didn't want the
job even if they _weren't_ going to take it away from me!

	I went in Tuesday morning, and the receptionist told me my boss
wanted to see me in the conference room.  So we meet, and he starts in with
"I'm terminating you for ethical misconduct" blah blah blah and I just said
"yeah, right" dropped my pager and access cards on the desk, snatched the
check out of his and and walked out.  

	My inside sources (other programmers) overheard him on the phone
with the phone office desperately pleading "I've _got_ to get rid of him,
he's spying on me!"

	Nobody else in the office was told why I left.  He made the whole
deal real hush_hush, which made everyone even more suspicious.  My same
source told me he was a nervous wreck for the next 3 days - I think I 
psyched him by not giving him the showdown and rationalization he so
desperately needed.

	And now, the rest of the story.
	
	In the mail about a week later, I got the company's 1st quarter
report.  Last year's 1st quarter they did 25.9M gross.  This years's
1st quarter was 3.4M.  Two other programmers have been shown the door,
albeit under more graceful circumstances, and another head was on the block
bu reprieved when someone else left to get a job with the state.  The 
telemarketing dept was gutted and replaced with part timers.  A few days
later the CEO announced his resignation.

	And now you know, the _rest_ of the story.

Postscript:
	
	I sent out 6 resume's, got 4 bites and 3 interviews.  Got an
offer from Raley's Corporate office in West Sacramento, which I accepted,
but negotiated my start date to the end of May.  I'm making over 6K more
than when I was at transamerica, and I seem to be getting more respect.

	I took  my severance pay from Transamerica and all my newfound free
time, and worked like the dickens on the bus, setting the goal of having
it ready for the SOTO meet, Bug O Rama and the Bodega trip.  Made all
3 and the bus was a hit!

	Anyone out there work for TRW?  They're Trans's biggest competitor,
and this kinda info would be great marketing ammunition!
	
	Any large core files you have laying about should be sent to 
cmark@tim.com or thenderson@tim.com (thats the putz that started stirring
it up by leading him to the uucp logs)  or send them to trans@netcom.com,
where they will be billed for the disk space!

Thom
--
Thom Fitzpatrick
tfab@netcom.com