Today I opened my mailbox to find this letter:<\/p>\n
\nTo all Current or Former Sun Microsystems and SeeBeyond Technology Technical Writers:<\/p>\n
A lawsuit entitled Dani Hoenemier v. Sun Microsystems<\/i> has been brought in California Superior Court, Santa Clara Counta on behalf of a proposed class of current and former Technical Writers (“TWs”) employed by Sun (and\/or SeeBeyond Technology Corporation) since September 21, 2002. The lawsuit alleges that TWs, such as yourself, were misclassified as exempt employees, and should instead have been treated as “non-exempt” employees subject to all the regulations that govern non-exempt employees, including the obligation to track hours worked, the right to premium pay for overtime worked, and the right to mandatory unpaid meal breaks or additional compensation for missed meal breaks. Sun alleges that it correctly classified its TWs as salaried exempt employees, that it is not obligated to classify and treat them as hourly employees, and that it therefore should not be required to do so.<\/p>\n
This letter is to advise you of the pendency [EG — “pendency”?]<\/i> of the lawsuit and that Plaintiff’s lawyers wish to obtain your name, address, and telephone number for the purpose of contacting you to obtain information regarding Plaintiff’s case against Sun. The Court has not yet determined whether this action shall actually proceed as a class action. You have no obligation to talk to Plaintiff’s counsel, but you also have the right to do so if you wish to do so. Sun is prohibited by its policies and by law from retaliating against you for speaking to Plaintiff’s counsel.<\/p>\n
You do have the right to refuse disclosure of your contact information to third parties. If you do not wish to have your name, home address, and home telephone disclosed to Plaintiff’s counsel to enable them to contact you, you must return the enclosed postage pre-paid, self-addressed postcard by July 17, 2007. Unless you exercise your right to privacy in this manner, you will be deemed to have waived that right and your contact information will be disclosed to Plaintiff’s counsel.<\/p>\n
If you have any questions regarding the release of your private contact information, you may call Rosenthal & company LLC at 1-800-xxx-xxxx.<\/p>\n
Please do not contact the court.<\/p>\n
Thank you.
\n To which I had these thoughts:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
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I have great sympathy for class action lawsuits against corporations in general. Often people who have been wronged simply have no other recourse.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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I do not know Dani Hoenemier personally, but I have met technical writers who are like Dani Hoenemier. Technical writers like Dani Hoenemier make life more difficult for those of us who prefer to make our living doing honest work.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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As someone who still has affection for his ex-colleagues at Sun, and more importantly as a current SUNW shareholder, I hope this suit fails catastrophically.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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If Plaintiff’s lawyers thought I might view this suit with even a shred of sympathy, that hope was lost when Plaintiff’s lawyers chose to include that asinine opt-out disclosure refusal form.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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We were<\/em> all salaried exempt employees, you numbskull.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Oh, and if any Sun Microsystems attorneys happen to stumble across this post, please note that I would be happy to assist you in any way I can.<\/p>\n
Best regards,<\/p>\n
Evan Goer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We *were* all salaried exempt employees, you numbskull. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":855,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions\/855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}