A Fine Place to have Worked.

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ALL HARVARDNET NEWS, ALL THE TIME

As always, we've strived with all our abilities to make this site as accurate as possible. However, the many confusing aspects and applicable spin to the world of the Internet means that we could be wrong or mis-stating ourselves. If you think this is the case, do not pause for a single second before e-mailing us with corrections.

Sat May 26 21:41:46 EDT 2001

THE LEGAL CODA BEGINS TO PLAY

A busy day indeed. We find ourselves in our car, driving into Boston to pick up our crack legal staff, Lucy Lovrien, for a hearing. The suit against us by HarvardNet is over, of course. (Actually, they dropped it "without prejudice", which just means they can reinstate their suit if they so choose, but this is how things are done). What happened was that Lucy filed what's called a motion for Counsel Fees and Expenses Pursuant to G.L. c.231 6F, which is legal speak for HarvardNet sued us so we'd spend lots of money and stop reporting on how unstable and stupid they are, because they had no idea how to use anything beyond their spinal column to think. See, besides being dashing and intelligent, Lucy charges by the hour, and it was a lot of hours of hard work to present a solid defense against HarvardNet's flurry of legal papers they shoved in our face last year. This motion basically asks HarvardNet to pay us the legal fees we blew defending ourselves against this frivolous lawsuit. The hearing had been postponed something like 3 times, from February to now, May 24th. How many things have changed since we were first sued. We sat quietly on our bench at the Middlesex County Superior Court waiting for our case to be called. (There were something like 6 or 7 cases scheduled at the same time, and you all wait to be called in order.) There's not much to do in the oval-shaped courtroom, so your mind kind of wanders. You wonder what the other people are going through, what stories lie behind their cases. All of these hearings were our kind of legal maneuvers, final agreements or two lawyers submitting some sort of paperwork as required. One of the cases didn't even need the judge, for example; the clerk just marked off that papers had been sent and that was that. Sitting stock still a couple rows ahead of us was one of the two lawyers assigned to our case, Jeffrey A. Smaugula. The other is Daniel W. Halston, Esq. Halston is a Senior Partner, and was the one who argued HarvardNet's case at our initial hearing. He was the one who got an ex parte restraining order against us, the kind you use against wife beaters and stalkers. And Jeffrey is the one who gets to sit quietly waiting for a procedural hearing we've called to get our money back. You can't really find much to hate about Jeffrey and his job in this situation; a quick lookup on the web finds that he graduated from Harvard in 1996 (Government B.A.) and has a reunion this year. This means that in the last few years he's both gone to the Georgetown University Law Program and gotten himself hired at one of the Country's top (hugest) law firms, where he's slaving away in the Government Investigations and Litigation Group Attorneys department. Not bad. But now he's got to stand up and tell the Judge that HarvardNet shouldn't pay for harvardnetsucks.com's legal bills just because they sued for $120,000 and then yanked out a month later. He's just doing a job; the next day he might be saving orphans or defending the Alaskan wildlife against Oil interests. You never know, right? We "chatted" with Jeff after our hearing; we might as well have been playing Etch-a-Sketch for all the use of that conversation. A few burbled meaningless sentences in the elevator going back to our cars, and onto whatever other crap tasks he's had dumped on him. Anyway, back at the courtroom, the judge finally called us. Lucy put down her case, which said that we'd been sued over the publishing of a hostname that we had proved was given to every website that HarvardNet Browsed, that HarvardNet CONTINUES TO USE THIS HOSTNAME TO THIS VERY DAY, and they made no effort to have the hostname obscured when they printed it in their filings with the court. (The defense by HarvardNet for printing the hostname in their publically filed court papers, by the way, can be paraphrased as "nobody ever looks at court papers".) Jeff stood up and presented the HarvardNet side, which can be summarized with these basic points: HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM took down the hostname, so obviously they must have thought it was something violating our NDA. Well, no, we took it down because we were sued for a metric assload of money. After we got the right back to print the hostname, we didn't because it wasn't relevant. It's back now, because we can, but it's still not relevant anymore, and it never was. Who gives a flying hippo about what hostname the firewall has? The whole point of firewalls are to protect the machines inside, not obscure themselves. The NDA signed by our webmaster was a legal and binding agreement, and the webmaster doesn't dispute this. A classic case of misdirection. We don't think the Non-Disclosure Agreement applies, so the legality or non-legality doesn't come into it. We would be equally affected by HarvardNet's credit line with Verizon being valid or not valid, and it would affect us just as much, i.e. not at all. We would have proven all of HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM's defenses wrong and not applicable and completely vindicated HarvardNet had this case gone to trial. They have to say this. What are they going to say, "we don't think they should be reimbursed, regardless of our inability to have won?" What legal team WOULDN'T say they would have won in any legal case that they're in? Straw-Man argument. Next. HarvardNet dropped the case because it was in serious financial trouble and needed to redirect funds. Woah. Wait there. First of all, that's not true. HarvardNet dropped the case the day that the Boston Globe published an article called "Stuck in a Web of Bad Publicity" which described how HarvardNet was fucking with us, and said that you couldn't BUY this kind of bad publicity. This at the Newspaper that HarvardNet hosts. HarvardNet QUICKLY dropped the suit as soon as that ARTICLE came out. Money didn't have anything to do with it; HarvardNet had already blown many thousands of having Hale and Dorr sue us at that point. This wasn't mentioned at the hearing, of course; it was completely danced around. But it was the flaming sword of the free press that stopped the madness, not any financial issues. We don't believe Mark Washburn was overly concerned with the financial costs of the case; he wanted to see us nailed against the wall whatever the cost. This is what schoolyard bullies do; they punch and punch until you either cough up the lunch money or the teacher grabs them by the collar. The approaching teacher and the stupidity of beating someone up for a dollar doesn't come into it. It's just what you do. But all this aside, there was an amazing silver lining to this. See, to show that HarvardNet was in financial straits, JEFF OFFERED TO PROVIDE PROOF AT THIS HEARING. And he did. He submitted two affidavits, taken from two other pending legal cases. WHOOPS. Now we know about Civil Action No. 00-5906, BAY COLONY GROUP vs. HARVARDNET, and Superior Court PC No. 2001-0971, NEW ENGLAND BENEFITS COMPANIES, INC. vs. HARVARDNET. We would have never had the time to research these cases without them being dropped into our lap! Thank you! So as the murmuring of our hearing dies down (the judge thanked Lucy and Jeff for their testimonials, although he said they were a bit long, and said we would recieve our judgement in the mail), let's take a moment to give a few choice cuts from the Affidavit of Mark Washburn in Providence Superior Court PC No. 2001-0971: "Verizon has refused to support HarvardNet Leased Line Connectivity Services in Rhode Island unless HarvardNet made payment of approximately $6 million... [in back costs and fees]" - Mark Washburn "If the court continues to grant the requested relief, HarvardNet will likely file for bankruptcy protection." - Mark Washburn And the testimony of HarvardNet's fiscal cleanup service, Argus Management Corporation, is even more interesting! Here's some of the things mentioned by David J. Ferrari, the CEO of Argus, in BAYCOLONY vs. HARVARDNET: "Since January 2001, HarvardNet has sold most of its assets. Its assets were acquired by Allegiance Telecom, Inc. at a foreclosure sale initiated by Cisco Corp. ("cisco"), one of HarvardNet's secured creditors. There are no employees remaining at Harvardnet. Argus is currently marshalling HarvardNet's assets and intends to propose a liquidation plan to its various creditors, including Cisco and Verizon Communications ("Verizon"), the two largest creditors of HarvardNet, along with Bay Colony Group, Inc. ("Bay Colony") and the numerous other plaintiffs who have filed lawsuits against HarvardNet. Argus hopes to provide notice of its liquidation plan to its creditors within the next two weeks. At that time, HarvardNet will also disclose its balance sheet, which is currently in the process of being prepared, listing its assets and liabilities. "HarvardNet's current liabilities far exceed its assets. At present, Cisco and Verizon alone hold claims in excess of approximately $50,000,000 against HarvardNet (approximately $30,000,000 of which is secured by the company's recievables and equipment). The value of HarvardNet's assets of cash, recievables, and equipment totals less than $13,000,000." Wow. How did they blow through so much cash so quickly? How did they fall so fast? Did Mark actually physically burn money? Does money make a good heating fuel or garnish for salads? Well, we'll be doing lots of digging on these and the other legal cases we've found associated with HarvardNet and we'll be bringing the info to you. As for our own little case, Jeff stood up and insisted that if we do recieve a judgement in our favor, that a hearing be scheduled for them to appeal. Geez, thanks. We're going to enjoy the $10 we end up with at the end after legal fees. Mmmm, Victory Pizza.

Sat Apr 28 14:49:13 EDT 2001

LAST TIME WE POINT OUT THIS JOKE

It's way too easy to make jokes about the kind of junk e-mail we recieve at our numerous HarvardNetSucks e-mail. So we'll just show you this one and we'll leave it at that:

Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 03:21:26 -0400 From: etm_remove2@mailroom.com To: harvardnetblows@harvardnetsucks.com Subject: Hello Another. Dear Another, My name is John Barister and I work for a company called Electronic Traffic Management. Our Company has done a large amount of market research that has brought back some very interesting results. We suspect that you're not getting the return on investment you were hoping for with your website. If you would like, I would be happy to give you some tools that will start to bring in larger returns. You can go to our website and download the free video on how to get more business from your online investment. If you keep doing what you've been doing, you will keep getting what you've been getting! Just visit the link below and follow the instructions: http://www.electronictraffic.com/marketing.htm

Needless to say, we're not planning to visit their site anytime soon, as we've had quite enough traffic on this site for some time, and we doubt they're going to give us any good advice like "Find out what customers were offered stock before the IPO in return for signing with HarvardNet" or "Find out what services HarvardNet was selling that they didn't actually offer." They just don't seem that in-tune with our needs as a protest site. See everyone at the Party tonight.

Thu Apr 26 19:23:29 EDT 2001

RIGHT INTO OUR LAPS

Sometimes you don't even have to do research when finding material for your web site. Sometimes, it just falls into your lap. We checked the voicemail on our "official" phone line and found this sales call waiting for us (Transcripted): "Good morning, my name is Alice and I'm calling from Allegiance.....the reason for my call this morning is I've been working with a lot of businesses in South Boston who have been having problems with their DSL connection, helping them with some alternative solutions. Wasn't sure if you were currently online or having problems at all and looking for something a little more reliable. We want to make sure, basically, that you weren't out of service, and if you were, or looking to upgrade to a fiber connection, maybe you would give me a call. My number is 617-748-5226. The company name is Allegiance, and my name is Alice. Have a good day." Well how about that. A cold call to the HarvardnetSucked.com phone line asking if we want to do work with Allegiance instead of whatever losers got out of South Boston, screwing up our DSL. Thanks, Alice! Good thing we keep an extra pair of pants nearby.

Tue Apr 10 12:51:08 EDT 2001

PARTY! PARTY! PARTY!

Well, now that the little Mark and Our Gang Show is winding down, someone has finally decided to have a party and invite all the ex-harvardnetters and friends together for a last hurrah! Now that's class. We better point out for those people who care about such things that Harvardnetsucked.com has had nothing to do with the organization, planning, space renting, catering, whatever for this party. We got an invitation mailed to us just like a lot of people did. As it stands, of course, we reach a lot of ex-harvardnet folks ourselves, so we decided to spread the word. Some of our staff will be attending, of course. Looks to be an amazing time. To get an invitation, you must visit their site and let them send you the invitation to print out. We hope to see everyone there! Well, almost everyone.

Wed Apr 4 01:50:41 EDT 2001

A BIG HOWDY!

We'd like to take a moment to recognize the top browsers of our web site so far this month: None other than corp.external.dfw.algx.net (216.99.224.6), who have been checking us out quite a bit lately! Talk to the hand! Ask Mark about us! He'll probably demand you sue us for having a hostname. Don't listen to him; give him a pat on the head and give him an office with a window and a phone he doesn't pick up.

Sun Apr 1 03:40:25 EDT 2001

HA HA, APRIL FOOLS!

Sorry, no April Fool's jokes here. HarvardNet's already a joke as it is, isn't it? Besides, humor really isn't our strong point.... well, just ask the guys who ran HarvardNet; they don't think we're funny in the least. And if we're not reaching our target audience, then what's the point? Well, let's see if we can come up with a good knee-slapper: "Hey, did you hear the one about the telecommunications company that bought out a dying DSL company from Cisco for $34,025,000 in stock, and $3,000,000 in cash wired to the management of the DSL company for God Knows What?" Jeez, that joke isn't funny at all.

Fri Mar 30 01:10:55 EST 2001

A VERY IMPORTANT URL

http://Mark.Washburn.isgay.com Of course, any reasonable person might be asking why this is such an important URL. On the other hand, many people might have clicked on the URL without reading the rest of our text, come to conclusions about what the URL is about, and made decisions based on that. That's the kind of snap, non-well-thought-out decisions one might expect of someone who thinks an impressive title and a Porsche equals respect and admiration. It's a shame, really. But we have to point out this minor technological fact: Typing in anyone's name before the isgay.com address will cause the page to be dynamically generated with that person's name. Yes, that's right, we didn't put up that page. No one did. The page doesn't exist until you feed the isgay.com servers a person's name in the URL and then it creates the page right on the spot. A very clever hack, yes, and one which most reasonable people with any amount of technology background will give a smile to and move on. You might see where we're going with this. This sort of easy misunderstanding was the core of the lawsuit against us last year by Mark Washburn and HarvardNet. They sued us for $120,000 for printing the hostname of their firewall, information which anyone can pick up by looking at their own webserver logs. See, if a large amount of people from HarvardNet browse a site, the firewall is the machine that actually does the browsing, and that's the machine that we saw: hnchk01.harvard.net. Oops! There's the hostname again. Would you believe that HarvardNet actually claimed in court documents that printing the hostname of the firewall would be the same as breaking into it? Would you believe that they claimed that it would cost $120,000 to trash the entire security system and put in a new one because the hostname was printed? Why haven't they taken the basic steps of putting in a new hostname? Or even removed the hostname and made it a set of rotating IP addresses? Oh, it gets worse. Much worse. HarvardNet had an injunction against us to have the name of the firewall removed, claiming it was proprietary information. This injunction was IMMEDIATELY granted, without any hearing, and a hearing was scheduled for a week later. This is really unusual. Usually, notification of a hearing to have an injunction brought down would be given to us; we got both the lawuit and the injunction hand-delivered to one of the staff. What this shows, friends and foes, is a fundamental lack of understanding of the technical issues involved. This is the kind of ignorance that could doom a company that was solely in the business of selling technology. If the folks in charge don't understand firewalls, if they delegate it so far below them that they freak out at the slightest ignorant observation of a technical issue, well.... is it any wonder failure would occur? And why are we dredging all this up again? Well, because we filed a motion last year to make HarvardNet pay the many thousands in lawyer fees we (well) spent to defend ourselves against this legal jackhammering. It was a lot of money, and this says nothing of the emotional stress. And damnit, we want to be recompensated for all that unecessary, schoolyard bullying and terror. We'll give details about our court hearing soon. It won't be an episode of Perry Mason, but it's always nice to spend time down in Middlesex County Court with old friends.

Fri Mar 23 01:55:06 EST 2001

WHAT, YOU THINK WE TOOK THE TOYS HOME?

Nah. We're not the quitting type. Granted, we're a little taken aback by the pure depths of evil accomplished in just a few short months. Can it really be just 6 months since everyone was told the ship was running smoothly and everything was under control? Can it really be just 4 months from December, when hundreds of people were let go at HarvardNet? Remember that brand new focus on Web Hosting as the core business? How that was going to bring the company to the next level, to help it get out of the dotcom blues? Suckers, all of us. Look at the place, a hulking shell of its former self, left adrift and being vandalized under our very noses! We have acquired information on the whole process of HarvardNet being given to Allegiance Telecom, and the details are quite interesting indeed. We'll be printing said details next week. Short form: HarvardNet was split into a few tidy pieces, with some going to Prexar, some going to Cisco (HarvardNet owed Cisco Mega-Pimp-Loads of Cash) and the rest going to Allegiance. But here's the amazing, legally-tricky and really slimy thing: This is all being done such that the stockholders are COMPLETELY FUCKED! No, really! They're not going to get a dime for the money they dropped into HarvardNet for stock options! They're getting the Big Fat Null for whatever COBRA benefits they still had lying around! And where do you think the vast, vast, vast majority of employees of HarvardNet from last year are? Nowhere near this deal; they're all huffing paint fumes or working at some other, hopefully saner employment situation. As far as we can tell (and please correct us if we're wrong), millions changed hands, stock was used for the majority of the transaction, and Mark Washburn, the silly little man who drove this company into the ground, has actually bounced into an even MORE IMPORTANT JOB than his current one! Let's put that one in bold, folks! THERE IS A VERY GOOD CHANCE MARK "HAPPY FEET" WASHBURN, WHO HAS DISPLAYED AS MUCH COMPASSION AND LEADERSHIP IN THIS SITUATION AS A POPTART, IS GOING TO COME OUT AHEAD FOR HARVARDNET'S DEMISE! Doesn't that make you just... wrinkle your nose in the univeral symbol of A Very Bad Smell? Stay tuned for next week's very enlightening information.

Fri Mar 23 01:55:06 EST 2001

SOME BROTHERS IN ARMS

Looks like HarvardNet wasn't the only DSL company to give morality and fair play a run for its wallet; we recieved in the mail a delightful "you go" missive from the administrators of disconnectsouth.com, which is an ex-employee support site about connectsouth.com. Needless to say, if you think HARVARDNETSUCKED.COM is harsh, then you've forgotten what harsh is! Go check out their site and see the incredible jibes, the named names, the merchandise, and of course the rather disturbing photography. Needless to say, we walk away from that site having quite the opinion of ConnectSouth, which that company would probably not prefer we have. Kudos to you, gentlemen! You're doing the Good Work!

Fri Mar 23 1:55:06 EST 2001

HOLY ENDLESS DISCUSSIONS, BATMAN

With over 2,800 comments spanning 145 pages, the Fuckedcompany Message Base on HarvardNet continues to just grow and grow. We're stunned. But it's that smiling like madmen kind of stunned.

Wed Mar 14 02:16:28 EST 2001

SHUT UP KID, I'M YOUR NEW DADDY NOW

Oh, what a difference a day makes. Like a little peeping tom trying desperately to see into an inconveniently-placed bedroom window, we sort of listened to the noises and tried to determine what sort of shennanigans were taking place inside of HarvardNet this week. It gets pretty difficult these days, seeing how there's almost no one left. It would appear that HarvardNet has found a solution to having too much debt, failing at its core business, discarding over 70 percent of its employees, and generally being run into the ground. DIE. Of course, these days, with all those crazy laws and all that, you have to do some pretty involved things to die as a business. And yes, that does almost make the words "Failure" start to burble from your colleagues' lips. But that would appear to be what's going on. Management has been filleted. I.T. is gone. The head of Web Services is gone. The shipping guys are pounding pavement. Tech Support's mortally wounded. We'd be surprised if all the office supplies are where they were Friday and all the laptops were accounted for. Everyone who has somehow survived the layoffs, the morale-busting attrition, the freezing lack of information, the random direction shifts, and the rest of the breathtaking experience that has been Life at Harvardnet now have a new offer to consider. Yes, that bright and shining star you see is none other than the logo of Harvardnet's newest sucker, Allegiance Telecommunications. It would not be in our interest to suddenly start attacking Allegiance Telecommunications just because they're going to gut HarvardNet's carcass; someone was going to do it eventually, maybe even after they had no employees. So we'll let you learn about HarvardNet's latest biznatch by pointing you to their official website, their current stock performance, and some company background. Hello, friendly huge-ass telecommunications conglomerate that could squash our asses like an errant bug! We love you! We absolutely promise not to register WWW.ALLEGIANCESUCKS.COM! Somebody already has it! Expect HarvardNet to declare itself a non-existent concern very soon, and go into some sort of unpleasant legal proceedings, while the whole place spontaneously becomes a part of Allegiance. Who gets screwed? The stockholders, mostly. And everyone who bought into the HarvardNet Dream and now walks a tad funny. Of course, what happens to everyone's favorite Corporate Chum in all this unpheaval? Well, we don't have confirmation, but we're going to look into our crystal ball and imagine him jumping from the flaming wreck of this once-proud company into a soft, almost pillow-like landing at the new outfit, in some meaningless position crafted out of butter for him. And well, maybe we're just seeing horrible, scary patterns where other people see white fluffy bunny clouds, but isn't it just a little... coincidental that Mark Washburn used to work at MFS as a vice president and the founder/chairman, Chief Technology Officer, Head of Sales and five other vice-presidents at Allegiance came from MFS as well? And shouldn't the fact that Mark Washburn helped initiate the sale of the company he was working at to a much larger concern both with HarvardNet and XCOM start to make you... well, think? Well, look at the bright side. He might have to move to Dallas.

Mon Mar 12 14:41:05 EST 2001

THIS WON'T HURT US A BIT

The bright, eye-watering spotlight of publicity on HarvardNet has turned to other events in the Dot Com Slowdown. Taking advantage of the safety of darkness, some moves are made and a few quiet "oofs" eminate from One Cabot Road. From our lonely perch, we can't quite tell if these sounds are the surprised grunt of being pushed, or the saddened sigh of finally making the Final Jump. But the outcome is the same.. the company has to send out a lot less paychecks. Think of the postage savings alone! Yes, what we're saying is... people are leaving HarvardNet in droves today. Some have already cleaned out their offices, shut out the lights and left quietly. Others, perhaps, just had their Mondays start out a little harsher than those cute little posters indicate. The current numbers being reported to us are somewhere in the range of two dozen people. That's a pretty significant portion! If anyone wants to mail in thoughts and narratives of the experience, there's always room on our site. Well, Mr. Washburn, you certainly can't be accused of being a cruel or incompetent captain if you don't have a crew. Excellent "Out of the Box" thinking!

Sat Feb 24 22:48:41 EST 2001

DOT DOOMED

A site called "DotDoomed" has given HarvardNet a relatively unhealthy rating. Geez, whatever gave them that idea?

Fri Feb 23 11:25:17 EST 2001

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE TELECOM

Oh, the rumors are coming in fast and furious once more, like a torrent of rain after a desert-like trickle that parched our swollen throats. We know many people have continued to wait for the goods to come shuttling down our little web page, and our logs show that (including an awful lot of hits from some machine at .harvard.net, although we seem to have forgotten the name for the moment....) Like a no-good neighbor who borrows your Garden Weasel at the beginning of the summer and then slowly, over time, comes to convince himself (and you) that HE actually owns it, HarvardNet is now moving as quietly as it can to turn itself into something else and then claim it was the big plan all along. Oh, yes, the DSL equipment is being tucked away like a present for Christmas (when's the sale?) and employees are going through all sorts of off-putting behaviour while the Dance of the Elves goes on to look good for a new "partner". Note we didn't say "Look for a Partner". Oh, no, the negotiations are under way, the numbers are being worked out, and we can expect some news rather soon, mostly involving a "bold new alliance ( allegiance?)" and, eventually, a new "name change" to reflect the "positive new steps" the company has taken. Only a completely self-deluded individual would look at this poor attempt at slight-of-hand going on at HarvardNet and convince themselves that there's some sort of equitable trading and merging going on. No, what you're witnessing is a buyout, friends. A little fire sale to salvage what's left of HarvardNet for the use of a larger company. And the key word here is "use". At the least, we can hope that the smart minds at the buying company are wrinkling their noses at any attempts to get huge payout packages by the current management staff, and silently plotting in their minds to jettison this canoe of losers like a 5lb block of ham out of a space capsule once everything's signed. More on this little development shortly.

Tue Feb 20 12:30:16 EST 2001

UH, WE'RE NOT HOSTED ANYWHERE RELEVANT

Geez... it appears boston.com isn't announcing they're hosted by HarvardNet anymore.

Tue Feb 13 16:01:16 EST 2001

CLEANING OUT THE MAILBOX (AND OUR DESKS?)

This one came in a while ago:

Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 09:53:01 -0800 (PST) From: Doin Well To: letters@harvardnetsucks.com You guys seem pretty bent, as in out of shape. What did they do to you over there? Where does the anger and cynicism stem from. If you hated the company so much why did you get fired? Ideally, wouldn't one quit if they were unhappy. It seems to me that HarvardNet was unhappy with you. I am just looking for some clarification. One thing is clear...you are all pole-smokers... Go ahead print this one and answer the question what did they do to you? Ripple

There seems to be some common misperceptions on the part of folks who consider three phone calls and an e-mail reply to be a busy workday. One of them is that we're somehow blowing hours upon hours of our time to maintain the site. Nothing can be further from the truth! A well-organized, semi-scripted site can be as hard to maintain as a diary, if you take the time in the beginning to work out what you want. This is the reason that HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM went through a design change after the legal brouhaha settled down; we set it up so the addition of a new story takes seconds. Now, as for being fired, well... no one involved with the production of this site was fired from HarvardNet. Sorry! Maybe some of our contributors were laid off or ejected from that firm, but not us. We quit, after making our unhappiness quite known from within. Fat lot of good THAT achieved, all things considered. Now, if we're being philosophical, one would think that EVERYONE who gets fired from a company tends to hate that company. And people who are unhappy at a company don't necessarily quit; especially if they have a family to feed or credit payments to make. Did you think through your letter longer than the time it took you to set up a yahoo account?

Fri Feb 9 22:21:33 EST 2001

OVER HILL, OVER DALE, SCREWED AT WORK AND FORCED TO BAIL

Mail's in! We were sent this missive quite recently. Obviously we have no idea what the real facts are or if anything in this letter is true, but at least it's one side of the story, which is more than we were being given previously.

From: "chester" To: bankruptcy@harvardnetsucks.com Subject: Hello Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 01:47:51 -0000 I worked for HarvardNet's tech support department until two days ago. I was one of three original techs who survived the Maine layoffs and was brought to Medford to be bolted to a headset and help customers deal with the DSL droppage aftermath. It sounded like a decent deal at first. We get a bump in pay for doing the same basic tech support shit (or so we were originally told) and the company puts us up in a hotel and pays our food and travel expenses. Eventually (we were told) we would either get a severence package or a job with whoever bought HN. It sounded better than unemployment checks so the three of us went along with it. Needless to say, the first couple couple weeks were harsh on the phones. Most people actually sympathized with us at first but slammed the company as a whole. Eventually the customers stopped feeling bad and just let loose on us with every call. (You would not fucking believe the way IME customers are now being treated. In a two day period we had over thrity cancellations) The pressure was beginning to build. Not to mention all the managers, directors, and officers continuously scrambling to portray some form of a functional ISP/webhosting operation. Whatever. We all new it was bullshit, even during the dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. (The only thing Lori Carr ever did right.) A few weeks into this we start to lose morale and start thinking about going home. Then one day we're told that HN would no longer be paying for our hotel accomadations up front like they had been, and that we would need to pay the way and wait for reimbursement checks. (The real reason, I found, was that HN never paid the hotel for the three weeks we'd been there and the hotel told them to fuck off.) Since NOC engineers had been in Charlestown for a month without any compensation checks we decided to leave. Somehow someone overheard us talking about leaving and word got to NOC. If we left NOC was going to have to answer the phones. NOC got pissed and threatened to leave. Suddenly, reimbursemnt checks got the NOC engineers the day before we were to leave. Coincidence? Then the company decided they would continue to pay the hotel bill. Yay. A few days later we're told that HN would be bringing two techs down from Maine for a two week period to help us on the phones. We were told they would be paid more but that this was to compensate for their temporary status and lack of reimbursement for lodging, food, etc. After this two week period one of the two temp techs (the one who was actually good at her job) left. The other idiot was, for some fucking reason, asked to stay. It turns out he was allowed to keep his mega-wages AND get the lodging and food reimbursement. Myself and another tech, who were senior Tier II techs, found out about this (the tool left his paycheck on his desk. It was only natural not to trust HN so we sneaked a look at the check and shat our pants) and demanded compensation. We were lied to, being told that "our facts were wrong." We were innocently asked why we wanted to leave. Instead of answering we just plopped our shitty laptops on the chair and pretty much said buh-bye. We walked out that afternoon leaving two clueless techs and the remnants of the shithole billing department to support technical issues. Since the NOC is already short staffed they wouldn't be of any use on the phones and morale there has pretty much flatlined. So that's my story. After a year's worth of labor, acheivements, and countless hours of overtime, HN turned it's hairy, pimply back on me and basically forced me out. I'm almost tempted to think they wanted this to happen to lower the head count for severence payouts. Whatever. I will say that I've learned a great deal about networking and webhosting and I've met some fucking incredible people, some of whom I've become close friends with. This is what I have come away with. Yeah, it sucks to lose severence pay but I'll forfeit that money for the sake of my mental health and to not have to fellate the management team to receive what's owed to me. Oh yeah, word of our jumping ship actually reached our old co-workers and friends in Portland before we made it back home. Apparently we had a fan base. They probably had a pool going to see how long we would last. One final note. It was quietly said to us last week that February 14th was the day we would know who was buying HN and what the future would look like for those of us who remained. That's about it. Oh, and if you want a good laugh call 1-800-772-6771 and ask the remaining techs how to read a zone file. I swear you can actually hear them drooling.

Well, that's definitely a strong set of opinions there. Do people have any rebuttals, agreements, or threats? Please, mail them in to the usual place.

Tue Feb 6 00:41:14 EST 2001

HARVARDNET MAKES POSITIVE STEP; EVERYONE AMAZED

HarvardNet finally updated their web page! We're not talking just another press release or two, but an actually full-scale revamping of the entire site! This is big news on several fronts, because on one side it means HarvardNet has had a chance to look at all their content and retool it to focus away from DSL, and on the other side it means that people browsing the site won't have their browsers crash from the goulash of javascript, java, and overloaded politically-motivated jargon that caked the previous site. For example, if you visit the page called The HarvardNet Difference you see the mention of their "Laser-Like Focus" to Web Hosting, which sounds a lot better than "Our remaining possibly-profitable business". The information about their tape backups is.... refreshing.... The press room has been carefully filleted to only talk about HarvardNet's hosting facility (well, actually one about DSL slipped in) and therefore is about one-tenth of what it used to be. But now it loads faster! And HarvardNet is Hiring Again! You have your choice of positions in NT Administration, UNIX Administration, Network Engineering, Technical Writing, and Systems Architect! Guess that mass exodus of engineers finally caught up with them. The hiring process seems to be handled by Webhire.com; is anyone even left in Human Resources? We're also pleased to finally see they have a web page up about John Burke, the CIO of HarvardNet who testified in the Harvardnetsucks.com legal case that (and we quote from his testimony in Middlesex Civil Action Docket # 00-4878 here): "Because HarvardNet's corporate network sits behind a firewall, a sense of security is often assumed and host-based security and data encryption often need not be enforced in the same way as it would if the machine was sitting outside the firewall. HarvardNet is extremely vulnerable to attacks from external networks in the event the firewall is comprimised." We read that as "Our internal security depends entirely on our firewall and is borscht without it." We understand that the nature of the affidavit was to make it look like publishing the hostname of the firewall would immediately breach the security of the firewall, guys, but really. Oh well, old news, right? At least now we know what he looks like. Speaking of which, while we're being catty: Congratulations go to George Kerns for capturing the perfect "Deer in Headlights Look".

Fri Feb 2 14:39:56 EST 2001

REQUIEM FOR A SLANDER BOARD

With some sadness we call your attention to the quiet end of the FuckedCompany Super Happy Fun Slander Board for HarvardNet. New messages are trickling in, but on the whole the enterprise has ground to a halt. We can't be completely sad, though; the message base had many unpleasant aspects about it, including the need for some cowardly folks to settle old scores with nasty, unpleasant references to anal intrusion and stock options. Names were named, often inaccurately, and the bitterness was absolutely palpable from paragraph to paragraph. On the other hand, we think the board was good for a safety valve for all the employees who felt really screwed by HarvardNet's poor judgement and mysterious corporate choices, and prevented other potential approaches to the issue. Sometimes the messages rose above the din, we might hasten to add, and really had something amazing to say about learning to work together on something everyone believed in. Too bad they got shouted down. Again.

Fri Feb 2 01:23:16 EST 2001

IRONY OF THE WEEK

Apparently HarvardNet let their on-staff recruiter go today. We hope he didn't have anyone he was supposed to call back tomorrow with offers.

Mon Jan 22 14:52:35 EST 2001

AND NOW, THE DEATHWATCH

No, no incredible late-breaking under-the-wire news to report. We're going to be taking a break from updating the site with obvious HarvardNet news, because we think there's going to be an awful lot in the next month and a half, and then we're going to be quite busy indeed. We're obviously still available for your informative and helpful e-mails you've been sending us, and of course if anything major breaks in the meantime, we'll let you know immediately. Meanwhile, we'll be off blowing away our 401(k) payout check and snorting Ramen. See you all soon!

Mon Jan 22 14:52:35 EST 2001

A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

So say you're a company that requires over a quarter-billion in funding during its (relatively) short life, and you find that you're not quite making the grade financially. So, you get out of DSL, which turns out not to have ever been profitable anyway, and give hundreds of people the Black, Shiny Boot. Well, now you can focus on your "new" core business, web hosting. And while you're sitting there trying to regroup your forces, and bring yourself out of your financial hole, what's a good first step? Give Away Your Business For Free! Brilliant move; in a desperate attempt to bring in business, try and provide one of those money-losing deals that usually only comes from two types of business: Massive companies with the money to burn or porn sites. Which are we dealing with here?

Sun Jan 21 04:22:39 EST 2001

QUICK! GET MORE PRESS RELEASES OUT!

Press Releases are great; they make it look like you're doing something. Keep 'em coming, Samurai of Spin! Glorified Nielsen Ratings Workalike hosts with Harvardnet. (January 9, 2001) That's all fine and good, except it appears they're hosting their main page with Winstar.Net, not with HarvardNet. Embryonic Start-Up (Founded June 2000) brings highly-suspicious "give the product away free" business model to HarvardNet; Company No Doubt Attracted by HarvardNet's "bleed cash like a wounded billionare" business model(January 17, 2001) Extra points to soundbite.com for having the guts to host with HarvardNet AND put up a picture of themselves in goofy yellow shirts.

Fri Jan 19 11:08:14 EST 2001

IT'S FINALLY HERE: THE HARVARDNET DSL DETECTOR!

We're way late and over budget, but our team of crack Web Developers have finally produced our much-promised HarvardNet DSL Detector! We saw a need for this detector because there apparently exist people who, after being totally screwed by the DSL deal, are STILL USING HARVARDNET TO CONDUCT BUSINESS ON THE INTERNET! Frame Relay and T1 access has been shut off as well, but that hasn't made the news. We're now concerned that these foolish people might somehow have missed the story that HarvardNet shut off its core business and might be under the impression that it is still providing it. That might explain why they're still hosting their machines in the Charlestown facility. Finally, these misguided folks (we're sure they've been very busy) can determine once and for all if they can thank HarvardNet for their network connection. Simply Click on Mark Washburn's Head To See If You Have HarvardNet DSL!

Fri Jan 12 14:18:19 EST 2001

OH, DID WE SAY DSL? WE MEAN EVERYTHING

We're starting to hear the rumor that HarvardNet is pulling out of leased line business in Maine. That's a little sad; some are companies that got their net connections with IME and went along to HarvardNet who are going to be left out in the cold. And rejected with 30 days before their lines are shut off? Wow. Apparently HarvardNet's starting a trend: Announce they're getting out of a business, and then give notice that they know full well isn't enough time to get a suitable replacement. Well, at least there's someone to pick up the pieces this time. Maybe they'll be picking up other aspects of HarvardNet as well? You never can tell. HarvardNet certainly has a lot of stuff right now that's cheap and pretty, like... well, you know. Oh, and apparently the new 2001 Holiday Schedule for HarvardNet's been posted. Isn't that a little too hopeful?

Fri Jan 12 02:13:33 EST 2001

WHOOPS AND GOODBYE

Apparently, Verizon went ahead and shut off a bunch of HarvardNet customers a bit early. HarvardNet is doing its best to rectify the situation, which reminds us a little of that irony where they sterilize the needle used for lethal injections.

Tue Jan 9 12:16:36 EST 2001

WHY ASK WHY

Thu Jan 4 09:37:52 EST 2001

NO NEWS IS NOT GOOD NEWS

Well, apparently the meeting revealed a big goose egg, except for letting people know that if they're not already laid off, they can expect to linger, glassy-eyed, into February. At this point, the only people left at HarvardNet are trapped, ignorant, or plotting an exit strategy, so it's all kind of silly to even be calling meetings to people to lie to them. That's for HEALTHY organizations to do! The words "Partnership" may be dribbling down from above at this point. Remember, in HarvardNetSpeak, a bizzare and otherworldly tongue that far too many people have learned, this actually means "takeover". Who would "partner" with HarvardNet? That's like "Partnering" with a hitchhiker. Or a Lamprey. Speaking of sucking, isn't someone going to change the IME.NET web page to warn customers that they're shutting down? Or is the final hurrah going to be the current message cutting back support hours and mail storage, moves which are no doubt HarvardNet trying to save a few bucks? That'd be a poor epitath for such a fine little company. In other news, we've seen a couple folks' complaints that we should "drop it" and "why focus all your energy on the bad", etc. This is the same lack of attention span that sunk the whole barge in the first place. Focus, people. Keep things fresh. HarvardNet wants everyone to forget they've ever experienced any trouble at all. That they're still a competitor. That things are going to be okay. Plus, HarvardNet made us wear a tie. You don't forget that.

Wed Dec 27 15:43:18 EST 2000

THE FIRST RULE OF HARVARDNET....

...is not to admit you worked at Harvardnet. But the more important second rule is that if everyone at HarvardNet is called to a Company-Wide Update Meeting at 9am in the morning that includes remote conferencing for other locations, perhaps you shouldn't be walking in there with the greatest of expectations. It doesn't help if the words "Optimistic and Excited" are included. We speculate Buyout, although of course we have no inside information about that. People have been chanting "Buyout" since the layoffs, but that's what you have to do when you don't have the information. You chant. So, let's chant. BUYOUT. BUYOUT. BUYOUT. By the way, the meeting is for January 3rd. Sorry, we're in suspense until 2001!

Sat Dec 23 10:28:34 EST 2000

A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FOR MARK WASHBURN

We never like reporting anything with less than two non-related sources, so it's with pretty firm confidence we can say that Mark Washburn, CEO of HarvardNet has sat in his office and browsed this site with no small energy and interest. Being the type of guy he is, he has no doubt been worried about what people are thinking of him, and is probably absolutely convinced that we have some information that could turn the entire computer network of HarvardNet into a steaming heap of slag (we don't). So, he sits and browses and waits for the phrase "THE SECRET PASSWORD IS CHOWDA" as if the whole place could possibly rest on the knowledge of long-gone employees and hopes that today isn't the day it all comes crashing down. Well, we don't have any such information and we're not in the business of making the remaining employees' lives harder by making them have to do extra work to protect against problems long inherent in the system. This has never been about that. No, let's talk about you, Mark. It's nice to have people under your employment to throw out absolute bullshit spin about how happy the 280 people are to be shoved into the wind. And it's certainly nice to be able to get one of the most famous law firms in the country to pick your schoolyard fights for you. But this approach only gets you so far in the world, and it never makes friends. People hate you, Mark. Granted, being who we are and what we're doing here, we're a good target for the disaffected and the axe grinders to offload onto. But there's a big difference between being given the meager "thumbs-up" from people who long ago lost their voices of outrage, and the sense that the person speaking has an unbelievable pool of bile inside that's devoured their hopes and faith that hard work and competence wins out. Obviously you don't have the ability to single-handedly cause all the layoffs and the quality of workmanship that HarvardNet showed, but you have insisted on it being your face that speaks to the press, and your (crafted) words that get quoted in press releases, so it wouldn't be unusual for people to equate you with the events of the past few years. We hate to reiterate what we've been saying ever since you dropped the lawsuit: All your problems with this site could have gone away with a simple phone call or even a letter. We did this site as a joke, as a little side-effort to make some hay and make some very, very sad people still under your employ laugh. But your basic ignorance about matters of firewalls, and for that matter what part our staff played in the company (nothing to do with firewalls) means that you brought down the full brunt of the law to do your dirty work. The fact that it was quickly proven to be quite frivolous doesn't seem to have dissuaded you. We surmise a lot of smashed toy trucks in your childhood. As you go into your Christmas with whatever thoughts you blanket yourself with to keep out the cold and the unwanted, please keep this thought in your mind: PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING ON THIS CHRISTMAS, AND THEY ARE SUFFERING AS A DIRECT RESULT OF YOUR ACTIONS. AND THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU FOR IT.

Tue Dec 19 09:35:29 EST 2000

FIRST AID FOR A FAILED DOT-COM

This poster for sale at the Modern Humorist web site is somewhat eerie when you look at the list in the lower right.

Sat Dec 16 13:29:04 EST 2000

THE FIRST OF THE FALLEN

Newman! Jim Newman officially left HarvardNet yesterday, December 15th. HarvardNet hasn't updated their web page, but that's probably just because there's no one left to do updates with any speed. We pause for a moment to regard the work and legacy of the Vice President of Operations and we wish him luck on whatever new company he's landed for himself. No doubt while the "planets were not aligned with DSL", some sort of astrological opportunity in the technology industry will present itself in the future. HarvardNet's been kind enough to leave Mr. Newman's voice mail and e-mail active for the next 30 days, so if you know him, send your regards. Oh, and why are we calling him the FIRST of the fallen? Well, HarvardNet never seemed to care much for anyone beyond management, so why should we? One down.

Fri Dec 15 12:17:05 EST 2000

THE SCARY LITTLE MAN (A MORAL TALE)

At the HarvardNet Hoedown, we were all laughing, playing pool, taking unpleasant pictures of others giving the finger and generally getting busy, when we felt a presence enter the area. A little man, with thin moustache and dead, rat-like eyes came to the party. He wore a dark coat, and a tie. His hair was combed straight. He darted this way and that, obviously knowing no-one, obviously seeing all. He looked about as comfortable as Mark Washburn at a Bankruptcy proceeding, and came off like a shark in a guppy tank. Naturally, our table thought him a Narc, and said so. 'Narc! Narc. Hey, Narc.' He pointedly ignored our jests. The little scary man was from Digital Broadband Communications, a rival DSL company to HarvardNet. And he was there to give his card, which he did quickly, and quietly to everyone whose eye he could catch. Normally, this wouldn't have earned a mention, this little bottom-feeding action by a low-totem little man, but wouldn't you know it, Digital Broadband has gotten itself into the news as well. Maybe they'll be kind enough to publicize the location of their Digital Broadband Hoedown so that others can vulture their ex-employees?

Thu Dec 14 09:50:31 EST 2000

A FEW POINTED QUESTIONS

What else is being shut off with DSL? Do you expect more than roughly 30 days notice if something else is shut off? What customers still think they should stay with HarvardNet's other services? Are there still loyal HarvardNet Employees excited about the future? Has the management team really committed to saving HarvardNet? If HarvardNet is sold to someone will this be spun as an "exciting partnership"? Why are we still getting hits from HarvardNet's lawyers? How much are the HarvardNet Vans? We want to buy a HarvardNet Van. Update: THEY SOLD THE VANS! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Tue Dec 12 01:39:30 EST 2000

THE MARTYRDOM OF IME.NET

As usual, while the HarvardNet main page tries desperately to reinvent a DSL company into something other than a DSL company (note how they still offer a huge bucket of Careers at HarvardNet even though it's doubtful many of those job titles still exist), the IME.net web page makes no mention that it's now the walking dead. However, it does have a large message about the reduction of support call hours, no doubt imposed from HarvardNet. This is typical; HarvardNet never knew what to do about IME.NET from the moment they merged with them. The HarvardNet we know (knew?) today is actually the combination of at least three companies, each bringing to the table certain components of an ISP and preparing the whole set for a nice fat IPO. IME was a good portion of the Dial-Up customers. Remember Dial-Up? It still exists, especially in places (like Maine) where there's an awful lot of space and technology like DSL or Cable becomes incapable of bridging "the last mile". And IME knew Dial-Up. To be honest, IME was always our favorite. It stands for Internet Maine, and was at one time the largest Dial-Up ISP in Maine. (If it still is, it's because of the sheer mass of users, not because of any remaining "special sauce"). Located in Portland, ME, and later Westbrook (sort of a suburb of Portland), IME had some of the best, the brightest, and the time-tested folks that were later transferred into the heart of the Charlestown Office, where their skillsets could be used for the intended expansion into DSL and the sleek, shiny new hosting facility. These folks were among our favorite to work with. What was left behind in The Big Merging was whatever it made sense to leave up in Maine because (and here's a big shocker) it's cheaper to hire people in Maine for things like technical support. You don't have to be as fussy with who you hire, because you can just keep hiring folks at these cheap rates until you end up (out of sheer erosion) with the folks who will work well for low pay. Meanwhile you can save the nice big paychecks for people who "look" the part for the investors and customers you want to impress. No doubt this situation exists in many companies, in many ways, but this was our first real experience with it; pardon us for being disappointed. And now, as IME slowly sinks into the muck, let's rip the lid off one of the ugliest aspects of the entire HarvardNet experience: Boston hated Maine, Maine hated Boston. Boston always seemed to be like Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's: the little escort who is doing well in the Big City who wants to forget that she was once known as "Lulamae Barnes", even though Boston, utterly, absolutely depended on Maine. Maine was where those telephone calls went to when people had stuff that was broken. Maine was where major parts of the information databases were kept. Maine was pretty damned important, and the best that HarvardNet could do was point to the piercings, the purple hair, the youth of these soldiers taking the front-line flak. HarvardNet was the college kid living off his parents who wore the nice suit and acting like he was the big self-made millionaire when all he'd done was take out a big loan against his family's mortgage. Sure, the later big money came in due to his efforts, but to act like nothing had come off from that initial collateral, well.... Maine, for its part, always came off as the seething spouse, abused and forgotten, forced to make itself known only with nasty side-comments and exasperated hand-wringing while Boston spent money like a cocaine addict with a charge card. Maine was dependent on Boston for paychecks and power, and Maine knew it. It also wouldn't be out of line to say that Maine had a hell of a work ethic, and did the best with what it had been given; and one couldn't really feel anything but sympathy for the look and feel of the Maine office when compared to the Charlestown office. Visits from Up North to Down Below must have been murder to the morale. This is all speculation, of course; we were Boston, and that was the end of that; acting like we were Maine insults Maine. So these two disparate groups, with different culture and different goals, tethered together throughout the years, needing each other and hating each other... this wasn't entirely healthy. But let us say, Maine, that if the chips had been down and we had had to choose; it would be YOU repositioning yourselves as a non-DSL company (easily done, a return to Dialup and some relatively inexpensive fixes to the infrastructure) while Boston would be left to swing in the wind. We conclude with a letter sent to us from an Internet Maine employee, now seeking work while lasting out the death sentence handed down from Boston. We think it captures the heart of IME and the way things were.

Turn Off the Routers, the Party's Over... Greetings to the Good People who got out BEFORE the BLOODY AXE FELL, Though I am merely a lowly tech in Maine, I feel I must finally send you lovely folks a note about our experience up here. And yep, I wish to remain psuedo-anonymous, just in case someone decides that I'm an idiot. I'm really freakin' fragile right now... I heard the rumor Monday 12/4 from a friend/co-worker before I came in to work. At work, I was told by several other friendly co-workers that "something is happening on Wednesday." I couldn't sleep for the next 2 nights. Wednesday inevitably rolled around, and with only a couple of exceptions, the entire Westbrook office showed up at 8:30 am to find out what this Mandatory Meeting was all about. Yah, you could cut the tension with a knife and all the other cliches. Jim DeAngelo, after introducing himself (as most of us had no idea who the hell this guy was) gave us the news; "That all, folks. Enjoy the buffet, you'll be here until January 15th." We were a bit stunned. We were expecting lay-offs...not the entire office folding! The funniest thing happened, though; in the hour or so after the announcement, office morale SKYROCKETED. We were all in the same situation, no reasons to be bitter at each other or Jim. (Most of us actually respected him for having the guts to come to Maine and face us. Sure, the bodyguard may have seemed a little unnecessary, but you know how people can so stressed during the holidays...) We had our own little "hoedown-thingy" up here that night. Yep, grabbed a couple o' those big ass HarvardNet banners they made us put on the walls a few months ago, hung them up in the bar...and a good number of us proceded to get stupid drunk... From accounts so far, most of us had a pretty good time doing it too. I HATE DOING TECH SUPPORT FOR RUDE, IGNORANT LITTLE PISSANTS WHO CAN'T FREAKIN' READ A MANUAL OR HELP FILE. Yes, there were some nice folks in the mix, but not nearly enough to make this job worthwhile. What did, then? The frickin' $$$, that's what. This is the best paid job I've ever had (this is Maine, after all) and yeah, I learned some of the basics of networking an' stuff. But I don't care about this crap. How can I? Same problems EVERY DAY: "My sales rep won't return my calls! I was PROMISED that XYZ would be done YESTERDAY!" "I can't get my email! Your service is terrible!!" (Well, let's take a look at your settings/etc. What is your email program? "Internet Explorer..." "My DSL has been down for the past 35 seconds!! I want a Tech dispatched to my site IMMEDIATELY!!! (Ummm, when you signed that "Service Level Agreement" in the blood of your first-born, did you actually READ IT?!) I guess I could go consult or something. Hell, I can alway call Tech Support...God knows THEY did...(You'll need to talk to your System Admin about this. I can't Support your internal network issues. "But I AM the System Admin..." And please don't tell me I'm hopelessly naive, ignorant, etc. I know THAT, fer chrissakes...I attempting to vent, that's all. I know that ANY company/corporation is like HarvardNet: * Management is more important than employees. (usually.) * The more you know, the more the ignorant look for ways to get rid of you so you will stop embarassing them. (does that sound familiar to anyone?) * The customer has a right to tear my head off, but only to a certain point.(then i can let them tear my manager's head off.) * The more the customer pays, the more important they are.(ooooch, yea) * Most times, training consists of being thrown to the wolves. (especially if you don't work days) I'm going home now...but I'm really only marginally disgruntled. (today, anyway)

Sun Dec 10 21:42:23 EST 2000

WE'RE BACK LIKE A BAD HABIT

Hey, as promised, we got our act together and the site's back up and humming as you might have expected. Too bad we lost that massive wave of folks who came after the second FuckedCompany.com mention (although we still get a nice collection of folks from the now-classic original FuckedCompany.com mention so it wasn't as painful as it could have been.) By the way: The "Vulture of the Month" award goes to "John Smith", a headhunter who has set up a pretty kick-ass e-mail address for you to contact him and ask him about job opportunities as you wash up on HarvardNet's beach: getmeoutaharvardnet@onebox.com. (617-598-1046 x2699 is his Voicemail and Fax number). Coming soon: Job Opportunities and a Critique of the "Realignment" of HarvardNet's Home Page.

Wed Dec 6 23:27:43 EST 2000

HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM HOEDOWN A SMASHING SUCCESS

The party went off without a hitch. We should do that more often! Everyone at the party had similar regards to send to HarvardNet and their restructuring initiative:

Thu Dec 7 01:15:40 EST 2000

HARVARDNET HANDS OUT THE KOOL-AID(tm)

Well, the mass media have all started to pick up on the news about HarvardNet's newest strategic initiative and what it actually truly entails: HarvardNet to stop DSL Service, fire more than 50% of Staff (Boston Globe) Ending DSL services, HarvardNet fires 200 (Boston Herald) HarvardNet to Ax Jobs (Boston Herald) HarvardNet Drops DSL Business, Lays off 280 (Associated Press) (DigitalMASS.COM) (Yahoo.com) And, of course, another mention in fuckedcompany.com. Let's talk a little about what's going on here, how it's being done, and how things got to be this way. If you're looking for our usual ha-ha humor, you'll probably be disappointed. That's OK; disappointment seems to be the theme this week. HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE HAVE LOST THEIR JOBS. Some are out the door as of the day of the announcement, others have been given this rat's-bait dangling of promised severance to make them linger on into January. But the extent of it is, they've all been fired. Out the door. Canned. Given The Big Boot. Sent packing into what will be (for some of the less-experienced employees) the coldest Christmas they will ever know. Don't think we don't know the pain of being happily at work one week, feeling like "Something's Wrong" the beginning of the next, and then suddenly told that your entire company, not just you or your group, but your entire friggin' COMPANY is going to be torn to shreds. Oh, that hurts. It hurts because you want to fix it, because you worked on your little problems in your little cubicle and you thought you had them pretty under control (except for the jerk in Lexington who couldn't get Windows to boot) and now you see this whole "layoff" thing as another problem that could be fixed, if just the right amount of thought was put to it. The worst part is, you're probably right. If the priorities of the company had been screwed on properly, and if the people who made the company what it initially was hadn't been driven out, and if a dozen other ifs divergent from the path HarvardNet took hadn't gone the way they had, HarvardNet would be DSL. It'd be what Microsoft was: Podunk one decade, a government-fighting behemoth the next. Millionaires littering the sidewalk. Free soda, snacks, foosball, video games, outings, you name it. People just owning the market. Hated by many, envied by all. Ohhhhhh yeah. But no, that didn't happen. No, Mark Washburn ran a company that needed millions to stay afloat across the years, that needed a line of credit from Cisco with all the scary requirements that would entail, that pushed for expansion after expansion and which moved its employees out of one building into another at who knows what costs (we don't) just to have it all flame into re-entry. Everyone was told it would IPO. It'd tried to IPO. It was yanked back. The company went into this massive death-spiral as it claimed that the IPO was just around the corner, that the stock options would be worth something, that if we just waited..... Yes, we suppose we could now print 438 paragraphs of "Dirty Laundry", wherein we recount every heinous thing we witnessed, every lie, every nasty occurence that made us drive home and blast the car radio and try to forget what we'd just heard and seen. And please, don't think we wouldn't want to. But we signed a non-disclosure agreement when we left the company, and as HarvardNet has already proven they will sue us for stupid amounts of money at the drop of a hat, we're just a little too tired to tempt fate. HarvardNet is for all purposes dead, but like a wasp flat on its back and seemingly passed on, there's always the chance of one last reflexive sting if we prod it. So let's not go there for now. But we can at least tell you "The Moment" for us. That special, never-forgotten moment when we suddenly looked at the company we were working for and a whole new way of looking at it presented itself. Everyone has that moment from HarvardNet, who ultimately left it. It's when you stopped looking at how long you'd been there, and you started wondering how long it was before you'd leave. That moment for us was the demotion of Chip Ach. Sweet, friendly Chip. Chip who was CTO and speaking to the FCC on behalf of DSL providers and coming up with new directions for the company and who had been there since the beginning; Chip who loved computers and could think like a tech but not blink or hesitate about the big picture; Chip who would have liked the cash of the Internet Gold Rush but not built on a pile of lies and exaggerations. Chip who, even though he was in one of the top positions of the company, still took pride in sticking his hand into places in the infrastructure that got his hands dirty or his nights sleepless. One day, Chip Ach was Chief Technology Officer. The next day he was not. The next month he was gone. Why? Well, we can't entirely explain that one. Even the question "Why?" indicates a reason that you can get out of your mouth without it being slapped by someone with their head less rectally positioned. The fact is, we saw it happen. And we lost something there. A little while later, we left too. That was our "Moment", and we won't forget it anytime soon, long after HarvardNet brings up the same memories as, say, some 1970's sitcom. Of course, others who have left no doubt have very different Moments. Bill Southworth and Brent Paine leaving. HarvardNet's IPO crumbling. Someone who you thought was indispensable in your department going elsewhere in a quiet exeunt (See you, Chris. See you, Matt.) and you making the discovery that yes, in fact they were indispensable. And now, what are we left with? Memories. Promises. Spin. There are still employees who are telling us in e-mails that it's not over! They're still convinced that there's something left here for them! That there's some sort of escape in the final reel from the oncoming train! What hicks! What huckleberries! What rubes! IT'S OVER. We have no privy or inside information on any aspect of the company's plans over the next few months (all our friends have pretty much left) but we can reasonably guess that the operative subjunct for the next quarter is FIRE SALE. FEEDING FRENZY. EVERYTHING MUST GO. But no doubt we'll get a different Spin out of it from HarvardNet itself. And while we're on the subject of spin, HarvardNet's own spin on this entire process is an absolutely amazing piece of work. You have to hand it to Susan Shelby, the writer of this little sand castle of words: She took absolute crap news and stressed whatever small positive plastic trinkets she could yank out of HarvardNet's steaming carcass. This is the type of talent for calling mass-firings "rightsizing" and lying about profits "massaging the numbers". (She did neither of these things; she's simply shown the same ability). Susan, we honestly hope you find another job quickly. Your kind of talent is wasted at a company with no remaining positives, and a positive firm would really use you properly. Let's make this clear: HARVARDNET IS GETTING OUT OF THE DSL BUSINESS. This is the business that HarvardNet made its entire focus for the past year. This is the business that they claimed they were #1 in, that they had the largest presence in New England for, that would be the way that they would become the next Yahoo, the next EMC, the next Cisco. And now they're getting out of it? What part of this whole plan says "bright future"? And please, don't lay any of the blame on us. Don't even try to work it out in your mind that existence of HarvardNetSucks.com affected HarvardNet's practices or destiny one little iota. Isn't it supposed to be our job to self-aggrandize, to promote ourselves as the light of the revolution? No, that's not us. We're a little tiny website up on a 486 with 83,000 hits and a couple newspaper articles about us. HarvardNet flat out sued us, no warning letter, no phone calls, flat out sued us for about $120,000+ one week after we put our little humorous site up. What paranoia. What hamfistedness. What petty, pedantic, numb-nut, knee-jerk, from-the-hip, asinine, mole-sighted hubris. Just sue 'em, scare them out of their tree, shoot them with an Uzi. All this while the buzzards must have been circling and the plans for this layoff were coming down the pike. What a waste of resources and time. As for the future of HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM, well, it's unlikely that there'll be a HarvardNet to Suck soon, and after that the domain becomes kind of silly. There have been alumni websites in the past, where people have set up ways for ex-employees to keep in touch with each other, but to be honest we're not all as close as we might like to have thought we were. Honestly. We had our little cliques but the whole "together" vibe just didn't gel. Plus, some people are going to look at the domain as being generally negative, as opposed to the kind of "gallows humor" you often find around adults who have been through a lot together. You know where to find your friends. Enjoy your time with them. This site will stay up for the forseeable future, and we'll probably file another story or two, probably just collections of links. But it's about time to focus on our lives again, don't you think? Always feel free to send e-mail to us, of course; we like hearing from you. Merry Christmas. - Broken Promises Disclaimer: Broken Promises just made everything up. It's all a work of fiction. It's not relevant to anything. Don't sue us. Down, lawyers, DOWN! HEEL! Aigh! My leg!

Tue Dec 5 14:21:01 EST 2000

THE FIRST ANNUAL HARVARDNETSUCKS HOEDOWN

We've been rather proud of ourselves for not posting a single, solitary message on the FuckedCompany HarvardNet Board, but that doesn't mean we don't read the crazy thing. Rumors are now at fever pitch, people are making horrible, untrue accusations, and there's generally a big to-do. But once again, we've yanked a precious gem from the crap-pile of messages and see that people are calling for a Party! Well, if there's one thing we do like, it's Parties. So let's have a Hoedown! If you're a current or ex-HarvardNet Employee, come on down to the Dockside Restaurant in Malden, MA, conveniently located near HarvardNet's Headquarters, and party like there's no... tomorrow. People were calling for 5pm on the board, but that's crazy. Make it 6pm; some folks have actual employment that requests them to be there until 5pm. So, again, that's: DECEMBER 6th, 2000 DOCKSIDE RESTAURANT, MALDEN, MA 6PM SEMI-SHARP Print out the directions while you still have access to the printer!

Sun Dec 3 14:12:35 EST 2000

THE SECRET TAPES REVEALED (A Little Humor)

While sitting around at your desks wondering about what's going to happen next, be sure to enjoy some of these helpful multimedia presentations, garnered by our Secret Ninja Force of Spies: HarvardNet Training Video: Dealing with Management (.avi file, 810k) Hidden HarvardNet Summer Outing Video (Mpeg Movie, 590k) HarvardNet Day Care Center (JPEG File) And, finally: The Official Mascot for HarvardNet's Christmas Party/Season In case HarvardNet decides that this is something to sue us over, let us state clearly: We're making a JOKE. We are employing HUMOR. We are being SARCASTIC and employing a sense of IRONY. There is PARODY at work here, a big heaping bucket of LAUGHS. Thank you.

Fri Dec 1 12:32:03 EST 2000

DARK CLOUD RISING

Over the past few days, we've been recieving a ton of little rumors; most of them ghastly, many scary, a few horrifying. But we haven't printed them. Why? Because rumors are interesting things. The ones that get around long enough to reach the ears of people who aren't in a very "connected" department means they almost sound plausible. If a person takes a look at the rumor, and it seems like just the sort of thing that might just be happening, then they'll believe there's some germ of truth and pass it along. (Of course, some rumors are so wild-assed and "out there" that they're passed along for pure entertainment value and as a hedge bet; in an era where Michael Jackson wed the daughter of Elvis Presley in Costa Rica, well, you can never be too sure.) We don't print rumors. We only print what we have as facts. This means that the updates to this site are slower than, say, a complete all-out rumor board. On the other hand, we start to see trends in the information we're being given. And just because the rumors are apocalyptic, that doesn't make them true. That just means they scare people, and so they add a little veracity to them as they pass them to the next person. And in the absence of direct communication from top, such rumors will gladly persist. An observant and talented management team would keep people abreast, involve them, make them a part of the direction the company is taking. Keep your head high, those who lambasted us and have somehow thought that we are the reason for any problems you might encounter at your work. We worked as hard as you when we were there. We never paid attention to what the outside world thought. We knew what we knew because we asked and we kept our eyes open. Are you doing the same?

Mon Nov 27 20:24:24 EST 2000

HARVARDNET GETS INTO THE ANTI-HARVARDNET BUSINESS

Imagine our surprise when it was pointed out to us by a faithful fan that HarvardNet has gone ahead and tried to monopolize the "HarvardNet Sucks Site" market by buying up as many domains as they can! HARVARDNETBLOWS.COM HARVARDNETBLOWS.NET HARVARDNETBLOWS.ORG HARVARDNETISAJOKE.COM HARVARDNETISAJOKE.NET HARVARDNETISAJOKE.ORG HARVARDNETSUX.COM HARVARDNETSUX.ORG HARVARDNETSUX.NET IHATEHARVARDNET.COM IHATEHARVARDNET.NET IHATEHARVARDNET.ORG HNETBLOWS.COM HNETBLOWS.ORG HNETBLOWS.NET HNETISAJOKE.COM HNETISAJOKE.ORG HNETISAJOKE.NET HNETSUCKS.COM HNETSUCKS.ORG HNETSUCKS.NET HNETSUX.COM HNETSUX.ORG HNETSUX.NET IHATEHNET.COM IHATEHNET.ORG IHATEHNET.NET Now that's the way to spend $490 a year! How inexpensive to snap up any potential domain that might concievably say something non-positive about you! EXTRA POINTS: Simply use Domainsurfer.Com to find out all the names that HarvardNet has NOT reserved to prevent you from using them! It's a shame, for example, that they never got around to registering HARVARDNET.ORG. This isn't the first time a company has gotten sensitive about non-positive domain names, either. Can you imagine the meeting that HarvardNet must have had to decide HARVARDNETISAJOKE.COM was in danger of being snapped up?

Mon Nov 27 09:12:00 EST 2000

WHERE EVERY DAY IS TURKEY DAY

Hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving Holiday. As we expected, the FuckedCompany anonymous posting message base for HarvardNet quickly descended into a spiraling tower of black smoke and wild speculation about sexuality and who did what when during the embryonic years of the company. While we were impressed by the threads covering the balance between sales and engineering in the health of a firm, a lot of the message base has lived up to its name and made statements that would normally earn you the wet kiss of a crowbar in normal discourse. Speaking of making wild statements, the HarvardNet press releases are in for November. With an earth-shattering three this month, they give you the deep, dirty lowdown on the company (except where they've abbreviated and sanitized, of course). Since you'd have to play Web Safari to find the press releases (and load up that workstation devouring main page to even get that far), we'll just give you links here: November 7 Booming Boston Real Estate Market lets Company afford HarvardNet's DSL and Hosting Prices November 20 HarvardNet finally gets around to offering 'High Availability' servers, deciding that 'No Availability' servers weren't Working Out November 20 Blue Dolphin needs 26 Sun Servers to reprint articles from print media; increases Burn Rate by paying HarvardNet to do everything technical for it, belies knowledge of situation by calling data center 'World-Class'

Sat Nov 18 14:00:40 EST 2000

STAND UP AND BE COUNTED

We've recieved a ton of letters from people who are current and past employees and customers of HarvardNet. Unfortunately, very few of them we can print ourselves, for the expected reasons. If you have something to say, try posting it on the web and letting us know about it. We'll include a link to you in our next stories. Extra bonus points if you host your story on a HarvardNet hosted Web Site.

Thu Nov 9 19:08:33 EST 2000

TWO LINKS AND A SITE OVERHAUL

Welcome to the newest WWW.HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM web site! We're glad you were able to get through whatever technological hurdles were thrown in your way! Think of this new, easier-to-browse site as our thanks for your sitting through the lack of updates. No more of that for a while... The Boston Herald was kind enough to print a story about our legal troubles. Thank you! And a customer named Naomi sent in a link to her site. Keep those letters coming! We read them as we burn them for winter heat.

Fri Nov 17 20:12:17 EST 2000

IT'S ALL ABOUT ACCESS

If you're somebody who wants to be kept up on the most current events and don't want to rely on rumor and hearsay to get the news, you want to check websites like this one. If something happens, like mass firings or a buyout of cutting-edge technology companies, which makes more sense: You seeing the information with your own eyes or you scalding your hand squeezing a styrofoam cup of coffee while some co-worker conspiratorally relates the latest goings down to you in the lunchroom? Do you read sites like this one and feel like you can't spare the time from sending out your resume and calling all your old bosses to let your co-workers know about henious and horrible decisions made about their futures? Thanks to research gleaned from our web logs, here's a way you can help: www.the-cloak.com www.spaceproxy.com www.anonymizer.com These sites are what are called "Web Proxies"; they're utilities that let you look at a site anonymously, and in a manner which hides your identity. Basically, you're hooking up to a special website, which goes off and accesses any banned sites which you might be prevented from going to directly via some sort of magic abilities of your local administrators. They're very popular with political dissidents who are afraid of being tracked back by nasty dictatorships, or by people who want to write informative e-mails to a news site without fear of being tracked back. Sometimes they're even used by law firms to gather evidence! (Remember, blame the tool users, not the tools.) If you work in an unenlightened firm which is not allowing your co-workers to browse certain sites, give them these addresses! They'll thank you profusely, assuming their current lack of information hasn't left them with a permanent, distant bovine stare.

Thu Nov 16 07:19:42 EST 2000

HARVARDNET HOSTED SITE OF THE MONTH

Who else but boston.com?

Sun Nov 12 13:04:02 EST 2000

CHECK OUT OUR READING LIST

We've used that venerable Internet Start-Up Amazon.com to give your our suggested reading list. Remember, reading IS fundamental! By the way, don't buy us any of the books; we're all set reading legal documents and you should save your money for more important things, like your monthly Verizon DSL bill. We just keep stumbling over folks who have something to say about HarvardNet, and are occasionally surprised where they're not mentioned at all. Bonus Activity Corner: Count the Buzzwords!

Mon Nov 6 18:06:51 EST 2000

WE DON'T APPROVE

Many e-mails to us ask us to put up some sort of message board, where people can post their feelings or ideas about HarvardNet, or talk about where they've moved off to since leaving. We decided against having any sort of public-access message board because we were severely concerned about what the outcome of such a feature would be. To see our fears realized, one merely has to look at the FuckedCompany.com message base hosted with their story on HarvardNet. While we see the occasional germ of truth or accuracy go by the messages, there are many, many wrong details, misplaced angry diatribes and ineffective name-calling. The staff of HarvardNetSucks.com has not posted on that message board, and will not; we have not encouraged anyone to post there, and we ask that you not subject us to more legal pain by implying we had anything to do with it. Some people are angry about all of what's happened to us. We understand that. But posting mistruths and guesses will solve nothing. And we're not fat.

Sun Nov 5 22:38:39 EST 2000

FIVE THOUSAND

According to our web logs, over five thousand different sites have now stopped by HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM. That's an awful lot of people reading what we have to say. Keep the mail coming; it really does make our day. We thank you for your continued patronage, and promise to bring you further content shortly.

Tue Oct 24 18:13:30 EDT 2000

HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM IS FOR SALE

While we worked at HarvardNet, we were often asked to work late hours fixing outages, repairing broken connections, and soothing unhappy customers. Being that we were on salary and not given overtime pay, we were instead given promises. Part of what we were promised were stock options in HarvardNet's eventual IPO, and we thought this was a pretty good deal. Well, we're out on the street now, scratching together our two dimes and spending time hand-crafting the fine stories for this site. When HarvardNet has their IPO, it won't be the staff of HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM raising our hands as the pennies from heaven drop into our mouths. So what's a place to do when it's got to raise some needed cash? Well, they could get outside investors, maybe keep asking for cash as you need it afterwards. But this puts an awful lot of pressure on you to justify those investments. That's an awful lot of stress. So, the next solution is... sell your assets! If you've got something that others want, whether it's your desk chairs, your office space, or your unfinished co-location space, sell it! And that's what we're doing. Unfortunately, our only asset is our domain name. So there it goes! Simply step on over to Ebay and Plunk Down Your Cash on the Barrel for HARVARDNETS UCKS.COM. We'll even throw in a copy of the current site (web pages and images) so you can start the whole business right where it left off! We see a huge potential in this space, so act now. Weird Job Opening of the Day: Human Resources Generalist. This is just our opinion, but it appears that the job description is "Do everything associated with Human Resources internally as well as be the face of Human Resources to everything outside the department, and be excellent at it." We hope it pays well!

Fri Oct 20 16:38:30 EDT 2000

MORE MONEY TO BURN

HarvardNet just got another $12.5 Million in funding, according to this story. Geez, where's all the money going? The story mentions the $70 million given to HarvardNet last year, but HarvardNet's own site claims they got $120 million in debt financing from Cisco in April of this year. We don't even pretend to understand the intricate aspects of finance and running a business; maybe if HarvardNet's IPO had happened we could have some information about profit and growth to make sense of it all. By the way, how's the New York Data Center coming along? It'd be a real powerhouse in that market.

Thu Oct 19 16:27:01 EDT 2000

GET TO KNOW THE MANAGEMENT

In today's rough-and-tumble Internet Economy, where companies come and go with astounding speed, and employee churn is at among the highest in any industry outside of those employing migrant workers, the only way to really get a feel for a company is to see who they bring on as a management team. The management (usually) stays for much longer terms than other employees, and it's their decisions which make the difference between a company being a vibrant, money-enriched paradise and a dusty, unwanted catacomb. In many cases, a company will have above their management team a regularly-meeting Board of Directors who will keep the Management Team in check and help them answer for their actions. Between this system of checks and balances, the company can thrive or crash. Some people might work for HarvardNet and not really know who makes the big decisions. Oh, they might glance at the top of the corporate bulk-mail explaining new directions or changes in the company, but if they're like most of the world, they kind of ignore the high-powered fog that the ship of HarvardNet sails through as it goes about its business. So, let's rectify that quickly. The Board of Directors is already available to you from the HarvardNet page. Some of them represent major investors in HarvardNet, including a few employees of Fidelity Ventures, who gave HarvardNet 18.5 million dollars in funding (along with M/C Venture Partners). Another member of the board is an employee of The Sturm Group, who along with Vulcan Ventures also provided Capital to HarvardNet. None of these companies would probably appreciate getting referring links from a site called HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM, but there's no way to tell without asking them. A quick glance at the Management Team page will tell you the following bits of information: HarvardNet's President and Chief Executive Officer is Mark Washburn. HarvardNet's management team includes George Kerns (who worked at BBN Planet, which became GTE Internetworking, which became Genuity), Pete Ciaraldi (who worked at GTE Internetworking, which became Genuity), Neal Searls (who used to work at GTE Internetworking, which became Genuity), and Peter Sundquist (who used to work at BBN Planet, and later GTE Internetworking, which became Genuity). Here is Genuity's Current Stock Performance.

Wed Oct 18 15:57:56 EDT 2000

GREETINGS TO IME.NET!

While HarvardNet in Boston (Medford, Actually) has blocked Employee access to HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM, they've apparently forgotten about all their employees at IME.NET! This is understandable. IME.NET is located very far away from Medford (outside of Portland, Maine) and while it's the largest Dial-Up Internet Service Provider in Maine, they can probably feel like the red-headed stepchild because it's a lot of effort to constantly dial (207) before everything. In this case, however, it's worked in their favor; the people who administrate access from Harvard.net are probably not the same people who administrate access from Maine, so they're free to browse our site! Excellent! We should also mention that the state of Maine is very beautiful and all the people there are very, very nice. The people working in Medford who used to work in Maine probably miss it very much.

Wed Oct 18 12:53:01 EDT 2000

WE'VE STARTED A TREND, APPARENTLY

Coming hard on the heels of the groundbreaking HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM, someone (we don't know who) has registered the helpful and informative WWW.HARVARDNETSUCKS.NET domain. Based on Harvard.Net's previous efforts, we expect that site (which is just nasty) to be blocked by HarvardNet within 24 hours. Note to Harvard.Net: You still could probably pick up HARVARDNETSUCKS.ORG and protect yourself from at least 33 percent of all potential HARVARDNETSUCKS browsers. Sticky eyeballs, advertising-based revenue model and all that.

Wed Oct 18 01:13:32 EDT 2000

OLD NEWS: HARVARDNET'S BUSINESS MODEL HAS RISKS

This is old news to anyone who read HarvardNet's August 1999 SEC Filing, but their business model presents risks. We're mostly telling you because it makes some interesting filler while we prepare other stories about the place. If you want to be bored silly, come read an excerpted portion of HarvardNet's 1999 SEC Filing and learn what concerns they thought potential investors should be aware of. Of course, since HarvardNet withdrew their IPO a month later, there's no further information from them of this nature in the public record, but you can extrapolate, we're sure. Heck, if you're a HarvardNet employee, you were smart enough to figure out how to browse this site again, right?

Tue Oct 17 16:17:06 EDT 2000

HARVARDNET BLOCKS ACCESS TO HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM

Oops! It appears that Harvard.net has blocked access to this site! This means that while the general public can read opinion pieces about the state of Harvard.net and gain access to information that helps them make quality decisions, the employees of HarvardNet are intentionally being kept in the dark by the administrators of Harvard.net. For shame! Our suggestion is that people who can read this site call your favorite HarvardNet employee (1-800-772-6771, press 1, press 9, and the first four letters of their last name) and read out any new stories to them. This will help them keep informed in the environment of censorship they have unwittingly entered, and it will slow down the pace of work even more than if they'd been able to take a quick glance at the site! It would be beneath us to speculate who made the knee-jerk decision to block access to a site critical of Harvard.Net, but it isn't beneath us to speculate what other blocked sites or monitoring is going on of employees.

HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM MAKES A BIG SPLASH

As evidenced by the e-mails and webserver logs, HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM has gotten a bit of attention by both HarvardNet customers and employees alike. As of yet, HarvardNet has not blocked access to this site, but should they do so, employees will be able to use their company-provided home DSL lines to browse instead. You...have gotten your company-provided DSL line, right?

THE SHARKS ARE CIRCLING

Within a few hours of HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM's "Debut", we recieved a letter from Ira Klau of RJS Associates, a headhunter firm in Hartford Connecticut. How do they do it? These guys can sniff opportunity out of the air! Obviously, when we called him back, we called him the worst kind of ambulance-chasing vulture, but the fact is, you want one of these guys on your side if you're looking for some good solid employment. Here's the brochure (actually a large JPG file) that Ira sent along. Good man! Be sure to tell him where you heard of him.

SOME HARVARDNET CUSTOMERS SPEAK

Feel free to review some of these postings on the DSLReports Web Site regarding HarvardNet. We can't guarantee any accuracy or truthfulness in these opinions, and of course don't endorse them for making any decisions about HarvardNet's level of service. HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM is not affiliated with DSLReports.com.

FIVE THINGS ABOUT HARVARDNET

The HARVARDNETSUCKS.COM team looks over its body of knowledge to give you five tidbits of information on HarvardNet and Internet Maine that you might not have previously been aware of.

YOU'RE ENCOURAGED TO CONTACT US

If you're an ex-HarvardNet employee, if you're a current HarvardNet employee, if you're a current and about to become ex-HarvardNet employee, you're encouraged to mail us a letter. We will do our best to answer you or post the information you send along.