[Info-vax] OT: The New Face of HP

[seasoned_geek]

On Oct 16, 11:06 am, Galen <gltack... at gmail.com> wrote:
> I too was once insultingly "blown off" by Mr. Vouters after contacting
> him when I was looking at a problem in some open source code which
> mentioned him as involved in its development or support. It's long
> enough ago that I can give little detail, but in my case at least Mr
> Vouters used no profanity or other comparatively "loaded" language.
>
> Did Mr. Vouters's emails in question flow from a "@hp.com" address?
> Where I come from, I don't think the bosses would exactly bestow a
> glowing smile on an employee who used his official company email to
> address _anyone_ like that, especially a potential customer.

I have instructed HP management to post an official reply here.  They
have emailed me in private, apparently realizing that having a person
claiming to represent them both brazenly break U.S. law _and_ issuing
racial slurs is not going to end well for them when either the DOL or
the Justice Department get brought into this.

Despite his claims, Mr. Vouters has not been an HP employee for the
past 6 months...at least according to the HP management people who
contacted me.  I have requested they contact the list members here and
several others directly.

Despite what our non-U.S. list posters wish to believe, in the USA it
is illegal to be a volunteer person and direct support requests to
paid services.  For those claiming the person spent all of the "free
time" they were willing to spend, you must, as others have pointed out
here, offer the "I quit" response in something along these lines:

a) [ ] I will get to it when I can.
b) [ ] I can't get to it for a long time - why don't you take a stab
at it?
c) [ ] If either a) or b) don't work for you, consider finding
somebody else
who can help you with this problem.
d) [] if you really want me to drop everything and fix your problem
now, you have to contact this other paid service, otherwise expect it
to be fixed via option a).


So, despite what the non-U.S. readers here stated of me, this person's
response was exactly what my gut and messages said it was, a
deliberate bait and switch.  They were trying to wiggle their way back
onto the HP employee ledger, nothing more.  The racial slur has pretty
much ensure that will never happen....but...hold out here for
_official_ HP comment.  Given the number of people involved in this
thread, sending a private email to me wasn't quite good enough...it
only bought them time.