Category: It Happened to Me

It’s a sure sign that this blog has made the big time: I just got my first legal “nastygram” — a “cease and desist” letter from the hamburger chain Wendy’s International, Inc. Here’s a photo of the letter, delivered to me via FedEx’s “Urgent” sevrice:

And here’s the text of the letter:

Dr. Mr. deVilla:

It has come to the attention of Wendy’s International, Inc. that you have been infringing upon Wendy’s International’s intellectual property rights through your unauthorized and unlawful use of video clips of Wendy’s training video “Grill Skill” on your website www.accordionguy.blogware.com. This is a copyrighted work of Wendy’s International, Inc. It may be reproduced only with the express written consent of Wendy’s International, Inc.

You must immediately cease and desist from any further unauthorized use of Wendy’s training video “Grill Skill”. Should you fail to cease your use of the marks and video clip of the training video, we will be forced to take any and all legal actions available.

In addition, you must provide me with information regarding the source and manner in which you acquired Wendy’s training video “Grill Skill”.

I trust that you appreciate the seriousness of this matter. Please give this matter your immediate attention and notify me as to your intentions.

The video in question features burger cooking instructions done in the form of a circa-1985 funk music video, which makes sense give the average age of a fast food line staffer and MTV back in those days, when they actually played music videos. It may seem silly, but it’s effective: I haven’t watched it since last year, and I can probably still tell you the Wendy’s-mandated proper time to flip a burger and what a “four-corner press” is.

Far be it from me to upset my favourite large hamburger chain. As far as I know, Wendy’s still doesn’t cook their burgers from frozen patties, but locates their franchises close to supplies of fresh beef. They make a far better chicken sandwich than McDonald’s or Burger King, and I applaud their contribution to materials science in the form of their “soquid” research. I cheered during founder Dave Thomas’ cameo in the made-for-TV movie Bionic Ever After, in which he and Colonel Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man himself, exchange a couple of lines in the middle of a hostage situation.

So although the video was posted without malice towards Wendy’s International Inc and I never made a dime from having it on this blog, I have better things to do than to deal with a legal department on the warpath. I have removed the video from the blog entry, thus ending what must have been described in the Wendy’s offices as “the year of terror”.

As far as telling them where I found the video, the best I can do is “I found it somewhere on the internet”. I found it on some website while surfing randomnly last year, and damned if I can remember which one it was.

I intend to send them a note letting them know that I’ve removed the video, and I intend to brighten the day of some junior lawyer at Wendy’s corporate counsel by having some fun in that note, which is where you can help. What do you think I should write? Let me know in the comments!

(This article also appears in Tucows Farm.)

Boss Ross walked up to me last Friday and said “Hey, Joe, do you remember back when you started working here, that you asked why developer relations fell under Research and Innovation and not Marketing?”

“Yeah…what about it?”

“Well, I didn’t have an answer then, but I do now!”

“Huh?”

“What would you say about switching departments? To Marketing?”

At this point, I would have expected a “chest-burster” alien to emerge from Ross and mangle me, after which I would wake up. This did not happen.

Noting my hesitation, he said “Would you have any objections to moving to Marketing?”

I was about to answer when he threw in a little addendum.

“Oh yeah,” he said, “and liking working for me is not a valid objection.”

Well, there goes my only objection.

One of the nicest things about my job is the autonomy. As long as I meet the goals in the Operational Plan that I drew up with Ross, I’ve got pretty much full discretionary power over what I do and how I meet my goals. That’s a latitude that many of us working stiffs don’t get, and that in itself is an amazing motivator and one of the reasons I love my job.

“As long as I get to do programmer things — talking to developers, writing tech stuff, doing some coding and ‘keeping my hands dirty’ in the techie sense — I can’t think of any real objection. And Ken’s [the VP of Marketing] a great guy.”

“Better go talk to him, then.”

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One of the functions of the Research and Innovation department was to identify a need, come up a service to fill that need, do the research, build a prototype version (or buy an existing solution) and help it through the transition into a ready-for-prime-time offering for our customers. Once the service was declared a ready-for-prime-time product, it becomes part of our mainstream product line and is assigned to a product manager.

The way we develop new services has recently changed a little, so the description above doesn’t accurately describe the way we’ve been doing things since last year. However, it’s a reasonably accurate way of describinghow Tucows got into the domain name wholesaling business and how products like Blogware were developed.

It may also accurately describe my position of “Technical Community Development Coordinator”. The TC/DC position, as I like to call it, is essentially another Research and Innovation department project. My job position — essentially developer relations — is still new enough that the first conference on the it was held only this February. I consider it to be like a prototype product; it’s been incubating in Research and Innovation and is now ready for prime time.

So there you have it: as of next Monday, I’ll be fully insinuated into Tucows’ Marketing department, complete with a change of desks to the newer upstairs part of the office and a new boss: Ken Schafer, VP Marketing.

My job focus will remain the same: I’m the developer relations guy, which means making life easier for developers who build on the Tucows platform. I’ll still be making sure that the information and resources that developers need are out there, acting as a bridge between the developer community and Tucows and even cranking out some code. The bonus will be that I’ll have the marketing engine to back me up (and more swag to hand out, too). I’m looking forward to working with Ken, Jacqui, Adam and Scott.

I’ll miss working with Boss Ross, with whom I’ve worked since Bastille Day 2003. He’s the guy who suggested that the company hire me as the developer relations guy and has been a great guy to work with. I couldn’t have made my job what it is today without his help. Although I won’t be reporting to him anymore, I expect that we’ll still be collaborating from time to time on various projects, and I’ve already roped him into a podcast for later this summer.

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Next: Oh crap, I work in…marketing!

Me and David Crow, pictured at the Rails Pub Night in April.

At the last DemoCamp gathering, I thought the biggest glitch was the cantankerous projector in the conference room; that night, it often refused to display what was on the presenter’s laptops. I was wrong: the biggest glitch happened to David Crow.

About twenty minutes prior to the start of the event, it was becoming quite obvious that David wasn’t looking or feeling well. Jay Goldman and I offered to take over the hosting duties.

“You’re not looking so hot,” I remember saying, “Maybe you should go home.”

“I’m thinking more like going to the emergency room,” he said.

“Shit,” I replied, noting that he was beginning to look really flushed. “Someone should go with you.”

Sutha Kamal went with David to the ER, while Jay Goldman and I took over and MC’d the event.

Later that evening, Jay got a call from Sutha and relayed the message to me.

“It was a heart attack,” he said. “He’s all right, but — wow. A heart attack.”

As you can see from the photo above, David doesn’t look like your typical cardiac ward case: he’s young (a relative puppy at 32) and he’s not obese. He neither smokes nor partakes of the Devil’s Dandruff. He doesn’t have a strong family history of heart disease. In the end, although you can mitigate some of the risk factors, there’s always a mathematical chance that you’ll have a heart attack. The best you can do is do what you can to improve your odds and hope that you’re near help should your number come up. As unfortunate that David was for having a heart attack, he was also fortunate for being spitting distance from the row of hospitals on University Avenue.

David’s doing much better now — at least well enough to write a quick blog entry about the experience, complete with ultrasound pictures — and I’m glad. On behalf of myself, Wendy, all your DemoCamp friends and Tucows, we wish you a speedy recovery, David!

(And yes, David, we’ll drop by. Wendy and I have a get-well present for you, and by the power vested in me as Tucows’ developer relations guy, we’ve got a gift for you on behalf of the company to boot!)

I still get an occasional email or comment about my entry about the difficulty Wendy and I have had putting together the IKEA “Expedit” bookshelf. That was last August, and yes, the shelf has been assembled.

As we suspected, the trick is that the last phase, in which you attach the last side to the shelf, is easiest with three people, especially with the 5-by-5 model. The extra pair of hands makes all the difference; when Wendy and I recently helped my sister with three sets of Expedit shelves, the three of us put together all three in less time than it took to put together ours last year.