Here is another tale of incredible cheapness and chicanery…not necessarily in that order.

I remember the day that Shuh joined forces with graphical rich. As he was stepping off the elevator he was almost bowled over by an emotionally distraught employee who was just fired and in tears (tears of joy if you ask me). I can only wonder what he made of this first impression. I’m not quite sure that people running away in tears as you enter a new job on the first day is a customary warm welcome. Not in any culture that I know of.

Anyhow, part of Shuh’s job required the use of an expensive suite of software applications to which there should have been the correct licensing for. However, an exhaustive search of said license proved fruitless as it must have sprouted legs and walked away. Either that or a disgruntled employee sprouted some velcro hands and walked away with it. Regardless we were one license short of Expensive Software Version X.

We made the Riddler aware of our situation. His idea was to use the demo version of Expensive Software Version X2 because he was looking to upgrade anyway. Well, he wasn’t actually looking, or wanting, to upgrade until he discovered that you could no longer purchase E.S. Version X since the release of Version X2.

“Start using Version X2 from this point on, we are going to buy the licenses ASAP anyway.” These were the final words uttered by the Riddler on this matter.

Fast Forward 1 month later. The demo versions of the software had expired and we still did not have the licenses that were going to be purchased ASAP. The last month’s worth of work could not be accessed by anyone. The files were not backwards compatible with E.S. Version X and we could not use them, edit them or modify them in any way, shape or form.

Back in this stage of my career I was still naive. After telling the Riddler that all the work we had done in the past month was, for all intents and purposes, non existent, I thought he would instruct us to reformat our computers. That way we could get another 30 days use out of the demo and continue our work. Either that or pony up for the licenses so that we could continue our work within the parameters of the law. Alas, neither scenario was to have transpired.

Instead, The Riddler used his dark magic to convince The Designer to bring in his “home version” of the software to use at the office. Well we didn’t like it but we really didn’t have a choice if we wanted to continue our employment there.

“I’ve never worked at a place that required you to supply your own software.” Shuh confided in me one day.

“Maybe he wants to make us into contract workers to save money” I replied. “We supply the software and he supplies the computers, the space, the office supplies, the shitty salary and the grief without the convenience of working from home! It’s like a match made in Hell!”

FYI SIDEBAR

On a happy note, I have learned that one of our heroes have finally convinced the Riddler to buy the license(s) for a full, legal, commercial version(s) of E.S. Version XX. Hopefully this will reconcile the Riddler’s past software indiscretions and prevent future legal action on the part of Expensive Software Inc.

Commentary

The sad part is that as soon as we did legally purchase the new licensed software, any desire to do any work in that software was quashed. Why? Because we no longer employ anyone capable of using the software. Ironic justice in a twisted GR sort of way.
- HPDEB