The thing about getting fired...

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, there've been a few people who have been concerned. Because they they hear that some guy went from Microsoft to Google, and then got fired. And I also went from Microsoft to Google. Was I writing under the pen name of "Mark Jen"?

Uh, no.

But similarities don't stop at "bloggers who work at Google who used to work at Microsoft."

You see, I too was fired. In January. From a well-known up-and-coming tech company who had recently gone public. For what I said on a public forum.

It's just that it was 1990, not 2005.

Here's the scoop. Late in 1989, Symantec was working on a new version of their product, Think Pascal. They had gotten far enough along that they had sent letters to all their registered users, and in turn many of those users had sent checks.

But the trouble was, the product was delayed. Now, a common problem then was "vaporware". On one extreme, young software companies would advertise a product to see if there was demand for it, and then if demand materialized, they would go and hire people to go and write it. On the other extreme, companies like Symantec would be nearly finished with a product, and then start selling it in advance of when it was done so that when it was done, they could start shipping it right away. Of course, if a product was badly delayed, you couldn't tell the difference between the two extremes.

Vaporware is not illegal, unless you start accepting money for a product you don't have, and giving false promises about the delivery date. So it was on this basis that I asked our division manager, "are we cashing the checks from users who have ordered the Think Pascal upgrade"? And she said, "No." Then she added, "but it shouldn't be your concern anyway." Which angered me... but it was the "No" that was the important thing to me.

A few weeks later, impatient users started asking, on our Symantec bulletin board (which was hosted on CompuServe), when will Think Pascal actually ship? And one user said, "hey, you cashed my check!" At nearly the same time, on a different forum, Henry Norr (the editor of MacWEEK magazine) had a similar problem: people who had actually paid for a MacWEEK subscription would not actually be added to the subscription rolls for weeks, even months! He had a suggestion for them: call up the distribution department and tell them "you cashed my check and I haven't received anything even after 30 days. But you collected my money through the U.S. mail. Therefore you are committing mail fraud, and if my subscription doesn't start immediately I will notify USPS pronto!"

Well, perhaps you've guessed the next step: I stole the idea. I told this user, whose check we had supposedly cashed, that if the check had truly been cashed, and 30 days had passed, then Symantec committed mail fraud and he should call to complain about that. Worse, the whole conversation took place on the official Symantec bulletin board, which at that time was located on CompuServe.

But it turns out Symantec had recently acquired a company called Living Videotext, makers of an outliner named ThinkTank. And its founder, Dave Winer, was now on the Symantec board of directors. And it turns out Dave liked to read CompuServe, too. He saw my message - the one where I had made reference to my employer committing mail fraud - and passed it to Gordon Eubanks, who was the president of Symantec. Gordon passed it down the chain of command, and a few days later I was on probation. But it was clear that the only reason I hadn't been fired outright was bureaucracy. The firing came a few months later.

Now, obviously, I have to be careful about talking about any specifics of Mark's case. But here's my point: If you crash your car, you are probably going to be a lot better driver the next day. Your insurance rates won't reflect it, but you will be. If you lose your girlfriend, you're probably not going to make exactly the same mistakes with the next one. The day after I got fired, there was no one in the world who was more careful about public posts on message boards than I was. Getting fired is absolutely the most powerful, poignant way to learn any lesson.

I guess what gets to me is all these people talking about "Nobody's going to hire Mark Jen again, ever. He's screwed!" Having been in his shoes, I know better. If you've ever been fired, and you're looking at hiring someone who just got fired, there's only one thing on your mind: did they learn the lesson? The only people you want to stay away from is those in denial. (Well, and those people who aren't qualified in the first place. But given that Mark landed interviews and jobs at both Microsoft and Google, I doubt that's an issue.)

Disclaimer: I have never worked with or even met Mark Jen. The above is only my personal speculation based on distant observations of Mark's blog and the striking similarities between my own experience of 15 years ago, and Mark's experience last month. Nothing I say should be taken as a recommendation or lack thereof. As always, the opinions above are only that (opinions) and do not necessarily represent those of my employer, family, or country.