Note that I do not have full headers for this particular message, but believe it is legitimate. I have sanitized all references to my employer, but left Ms. Rubin's information accurate.
From: "Sue Rubin"
To: <$CEO_NAME@$MYEMPLOYER>
Cc: <$DIRECTOR@$MYEMPLOYER>
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 4:03 PM
Subject: filePro
Dear $CEO_NAME,
We received this link from one of our filePro clients and were concerned
that perhaps your organization was having a problem with your filePro
application that we were not aware of. We would appreciate if you could
please let us know if there is a problem. We believe that it was sent
by a
member of your staff. http://fileprosucks.angelar.com/ COMPANY NAME is a
valued filePro client and we would appreciate the opportunity to
resolve any
issues in a private forum.
Thank you,
Sue Rubin
fP Technologies, Inc
1-800-847-4740
212-517-5963
www.fptech.com
Commentary
I'm sure they WOULD enjoy discussing this in a private forum. I know they don't want to discuss it with me, because they never even attempted to contact me. Instead, they sent this to my boss. If I was being slanderous or libelous, they could sue me. But the fact of the matter is this: I'm telling the truth, and I'm posting my own OPINION. The statements against filepro made on my page are legitimate. They are genuine design problems. Filepro is no longer a good solution. Frankly, the computing and development world has moved on.
Again, my employer is not listed ANYWHERE on my page. They'd have had to do a Whois on my domain, then cross-referenced that with their customer list, to find my name. This email was sent at 1600 hours on Tuesday, April 5th. I've dug through my access logs, and can't find a clear record of an nyc.rr.com address hitting me. But I can find instances of optonline.net hitting me, and they're based in NY--just like fptech.com. It took them a few hours to track me down. I can't imagine their customer database is that big, but hey, I'm sure they had other things on their mind--like implementing biometrics.
What really rubs me is that they never even attempted to contact me. I would think that should rub most people the wrong way. And the unfortunate thing is, that in this Internet Age, everyone is a publisher. So, I can publish correspondence which is sent to me, and show the whole world when someone behaves badly.
Wondering why this is being published now? I'm back teaching, and I have the protection of a union to guarantee that I have the right to free speech in my off-duty hours--something I was sorely lacking at my lastjob.
Hey, Ken Brody from fptech.com doesn't see anything wrong with what happened. Just read this post. Basically, because I didn't call asking for help, they feel justified in bringing up my OPINION with my then-boss. Huh. Ken Brody didn't even bother to look into this--and claims that perhaps the CEO's address was listed as a site contact--which it was NOT. The ironic thing is that Brody feels he was justified in his company's actions. These pages aren't about "they aren't fixing these issues." These pages are more about "wow, this is not the right way to go." Apparently, I'm paranoid for titling this attempted vendor intimidation (the paranoid line is a quote from Ken himself). Huh. I guess he didn't have the come-to-jesus meeting with his boss the way I did. And that email certainly WAS sent directly to the CEO -- whose email address would be found only by going to the company webpage, and looking up the CEO/Owner. I didn't try to get help from fpTech, because there seemed to be little point to it. When I posted questions to the fpTech mailing list, I generally felt belittled by Brody. Yep, I don't know the product as well as Ken Brody, but that's to be expected. And Ken, I've put your email in a spam-harvesting form for a good reason. I want you to get spam. I want Sue to get spam, too. I dislike the way you treated me.
What Sue Rubin did was patently mean. She could have contact me and said "obviously, you're disgruntled. What can we do to fix that." It's amazing how much that would have changed how I feel about Brody's two-bit company. Personally, I feel that Ken Brody and Sue Rubin, and probably the rest of fpTech are less than honest. The email posted above is verbatim what was sent to my boss--which took a non-zero amount of effort for them to determine. Sue Rubin, I dislike you. I hope you treat everyone better than you treated me. Ken, I know you dislike me, and believe me, the feeling is mutual. I wish you no ill, but I will be amused the day that your product finally fails completely.
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