This got me thinking about a story I heard once about an interesting question encountered at a job interview. The question was “What would be your response if I asked you to do some push-ups?” The job being interviewed for was something software related, development or testing; I forget. The nature of the job is unimportant except for the fact that there are not any physical requirements for the job, other than being able to show up at the office and operate a computer.

The answer that landed the job? “I’d ask you why you want me to do push-ups.”

From what I understand, the employer in question would not hire anyone that upon hearing the question decided to get down on the floor and do push-ups. Nor would they hire anyone who asked “How many would you like?” or any variation thereof. Many candidates when asked this question immediately got defensive, telling the interviewer it was inappropriate for them to ask for push-ups at any time, especially during a job interview. These candidates were also not considered for the job.

What most candidates for this particular company forgot to do was listen to the question. No one was asked to do push-ups. A question was asked about a hypothetical scenario in which an interviewee would be asked to perform a physical activity. The ideal candidate would know there is something wrong with an interviewer asking someone to do push-ups, but would be inquisitive and open-minded enough to inquire as to “why” push-ups would be requested before making their decision. Those candidates that immediately became defensive of their right not to have to do push-ups are not considering that there may be, even though they are unaware of the possibilities, a valid reason for such an odd request. It represents a closed-mindedness that the company was trying to avoid having in their employees. Candidates who immediately decided to do push-ups or ask for details about the push-ups they were about to do, while obviously eager to work for the company and willing to sacrifice, did not listen to the question, and lack the important instinct to question authority.

So, remember its OK to ask “why” during a job interview. But if an interviewer actually asks you to do push-ups, ask yourself if you’re OK with that level of disrespect.

I see examples of this a lot on JobVent.com. Someone gets fired from a job, and decides to write an extremely negative review. They have every right to express their opinion, but people reading the review really should consider the context in which this person was motivated to write it. Why were they fired? Unless the company or other people within the organization decide to respond to this review, readers of the recently terminated employee’s review will only be reading half of the story, and they need to keep that in mind. We have no idea if the employee was not performing their job well enough to justify their continued employment, or if there were any number of unmentioned issues that the other side could have had with this employee.

Always consider both sides of the story, even when you’ve only been handed one of them.

Here’s the link:
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=5509206

Traffic spiked yesterday due to the segment, and has now tapered off, but is still higher than normal.

My Ad revenue from YeildBuild was one quarter what it should have been yesterday. And that marks the end of my patience with YeildBuild. Sorry guys. I’m willing to try it again if you change your algorithm for ad optimization, but right now, it just wasn’t worthwhile. I’ve lost enough money already just trying it out for a few weeks.

So now I’m back to straight AdSense and Bluelithium, as well as individually sponsored ads.

1. YeildBuild maximizes your text ad revenue
2. YeildBuild takes the guesswork out of ad formatting
3. YeildBuild Installs as easily as adsense

So far I can only confirm #3. Before I implemented YeildBuild on JobVent.com, Google was serving up both text as well as graphical ads. The eCPM on the graphical ads that are now missing from JobVent due to the YeildBuild implementation seem to be larger than that for the textual ads. So far, my ad revenue from contextual ads has been basically cut in half, but I’m going to give YeildBuild a little more time to optimize their ads for JobVent.com. They claim it takes about 100,000 impressions to optimize, and while they’ve already surpassed that and are still underperforming compared to a standard ad-sense implementation, I’ll give it a few more days, because I like the concept of not having to manage and optimize my own ads. But until they can prove that they can generate more revenue, the jury is out on #2 and #3.

Of course, like many other companies on JobVent.com, reviews have been removed because they violated any number of our policies. The same applies to comments about those reviews. There’s no explicit policy against it, but comments that threaten to expose users of JobVent.com have to be removed. Some of the comments stated that identities would be exposed. And based on how JobVent.com is built, that’s simply an impossibility. Any “Exposing” of user identities would simply be conjecture.

Anyhow, this one particular person making threats kept doing it. So they had to have their account blocked. This is the email I received for my troubles:

Hello Venter (another name for Complainer),
So you decided to block me because I did to you what you do to others.  You really are a pathetic loser.  Guess what?  In just 40 or so short days, I will be launching a site that will expose all of those complaining losers on your site.  Know what else? I will be advertising on your site and there is nothing you can do about it.  That’s right……hire an army because you will need it.  I will be worming my way around LoserVent.com.  In the mean time, I will just create unique e-mail accounts and toy with you.
James

After the laugher subsided, I tried to come up with an adequate response, but failed. This guy references a site called LoserVent.com. That’s an unregistered domain name. I was tempted to register it myself, but this guy isn’t really worth my $10. Besides, he’s apparently going to advertise on JobVent.com, which if he goes about it properly will net JobVent.com at least $100 or so. Otherwise, his claim that he is going to advertise on JobVent.com and “there is nothing you can do about it” holds no merit whatsoever. The best he can do is post a review or comment with a new account referencing his site. And those, of course, will be summarily removed. Why, exactly do I need to “hire an army”?

Since his email was received, 20 or so accounts have been created. None of them by him.

This is one the rare cases where an email to Venter@JobVent.com is not going to get a response. This email doesn’t deserve one.

The email: (my comments and edits are italicized)

Mr. XXXX XXXXX (Me)

XXXXXXX (here he goes on to list an address for me that is out of date by several years)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

www.arlingtondev.com

CC. Arlington Development, LLC

Although we are in agreement with freedom of speech and a place where people can vent their frustrations, we take great offence to Arlington Development, LLC (XXXX XXXXXXX (me again)) for allowing damaging defamatory accusations to be posted about XXXXXX. We are preparing to take immediate legal action in the courts of Arlington, Massachusetts against XXXXXX XXXXXXXX (me, yet again)
and Arlington Development for posting the following blogs:

• Mention names such as my name (XXXXX (his name)), an employee’s name (XXXXX) and my wife’s name (XXXXXX) which is against your own rules as you know this is simply illegal.
  
• Defamatory comments about an individual that includes name calling – “XXXXX is a BIG TOOL”
  
• Statements that XXXXXX (Company name) is committing illegal software pirating – “Pirated software: Yup. XXXXX ran pirated software, and they installed it on customers machines. One not mentioned already, XXXXXX. It was used extensively, without license, to image just about every computer that went out the door.”
  
• Accusations about possible illegal drug problems with XXXXX – “It could be drug related but who knows”
  
• Accusations about Tax Fraud – “Tax Fraud: Oh yeah baby. Lets buy a brand new TV for the office, deliver it to XXXXXs home, and claim it as a business expense.”
  

To prevent any further damage, XXXXXXX demands that all blogs about XXXXXXX be immediately removed from your website by the end of Thursday January 10^th, 2008.

We also demand that all of the names or email addresses of all persons who have posted these blogs be immediately released to us so we can pursue legal action against those persons. In preparation that Arlington Development claims that PIPIDA prevents the release of these names, we are preparing an affidavit to the courts of Arlington, Massachusetts to obtain a court order to force Arlington Development, LLC to release the names of individuals who have posted these blogs.  

It is our legal opinion that Arlington Development has not taken the necessary steps to review, filter or ensure that the information posted in the blogs on your website are not defamatory, untrue or harmful to a third party. Arlington Development has also not collected sufficient information about your users to ensure your user’s accountability which in turn causes Arlington Development, LLC to be liable for all third party damages.

We have sustained considerable provable damage directly from our clients reading these untrue blogs and we are currently preparing our statement of claim against XXXXXXXX and Arlington Development, LLC which will further outline in detail the damages that XXXXXXX has incurred.

Regards,

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

CEO

(additional address info removed)

So, this CEO makes several mistakes. First of all, he sent me my resume. So right from the start, he has no credibility. It’s like shouting “I found you! I found you!” and expecting me to be shocked. I’m a software engineer. I’m all over the internet.

Arlington Development, while the office used to be in Arlington, MA, is actually incorporated as a Delaware LLC. He goes on to list a very out of date mailing address for Arlington Development, LLC, and tells me about the affidavit that they’re preparing to force Arlington Development to release the names of people who posted on JobVent. Its anonymous. When will people get it? We don’t have that information. Perhaps I should be clearer about that on the site.

He says it is his “legal opinion” that we haven’t adequately filtered and reviewed content that gets posted. Are you a lawyer? If not, I’m not interested in your legal opinion. Plus, we have no obligation to review all the information that comes into the site in real-time. Plus, JobVent.com is not liable for any damages in your “statement of claim” because we acted on the removal of the reviews as soon as we received his email. CDA of ‘96. Read it. Maybe you can get your government to block JobVent.com. Best of luck.

Anyway, what follows is my response to this guy. Again, my edits are italicized.

XXXX,

Normally we do not respond to legal threats of this kind. When a company politely asks us to remove something from our site, we take immediate action to review the content in question, and if we determine it has violated our policies, the content is then archived and removed from public access. We do not have the resources or desire to monitor every review and comment as they come in to our site.

We did however take a look at the reviews about your company after we received your email, and noticed that each and every one of them violated one policy in particular which warranted their removal. The policy that each review about XXXXX violated was that no review should attack anyone personally.

You personally seem to be the subject and target of each review.

The reviews have been removed from public view due to their violation of our policies, but I hope you read and addressed the issues they discussed.

As per your “demand” that we give you the names or email addresses of the people that posted information about your company: It is clear you don’t understand how this site works. It is anonymous. People can post without logging any identifiable information about themselves; no name, no email address. So we don’t have this information that you are demanding.

Why did you send me my own resume? I already have a copy.

Additionally, you have listed a very out of date address for Arlington Development, LLC.  

Please let me know if you continue to have an issue with content that appears on the site.

Good luck, and best wishes, (this was my wife’s touch… brilliant)

XXXXXXXX

JobVent.com

The email:

Your email reply has been forwarded to me regarding the ‘review’ of easyflowers.com.au on JobVent.com. I should first of all mention that I am XXXXXXXX, CEO of XXXXXXXX “the boss who has no respect for staff” as referred to in the review of XXXXXXXX on your website.

I would first of all like to thank you for removing the more defamatory comments made about me personally on your website.

Secondly, I would like to ask you to reconsider your decision not to remove the review of XXXXXXX from your website based upon the following reasons.

1. The information contained in the review is false and misleading.
2. Under Australian law, your organization may be making defamatory statements. http://www.artslaw.com.au/LegalInformation/Defamation/DefamationLawsAfterJan06.asp
In particular I refer you to:
“Everyone involved in the publication is potentially liable and each, all, or some can be sued. This means that writers, publishers, editors, artists and gallery owners must all be aware of the potential dangers. This also means that it is no defence to argue that you are only repeating rumours or a comment made by somebody else: you can be liable for a republication”
3. Under Australian law, your organization may be in breach of s52 of The Trade Practices Act 1974 which relates to ‘misleading and deceptive conduct’. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/tpa1974149/s52.html
4. Australia, it would appear is also outside your area of operations with regards to Arlington Development, LLC, hence we see no benefit to your organization for pursuing this matter any further.

While we appreciate that you may be conducting your business in accordance with the laws of the United States, there are substantial differences between the laws of Australia and the US particularly in relation to defamation. We trust that you and your organization will respect the laws of other countries as good business practice and remove the review on your website which is clearly in breach in this instance.

I look forward to your response on this matter.

Kind regards,

I’ll give you an example.

Message #1
There is a review on your site of XXXXX that includes a personal attack against the CEO, calling him a “greedy narcissist,” that violates your own posting rules against personal attacks and amounts to defamation of character.

I would like to request that this review be deleted. Thank you for your immediate assistance.

Sincerely,
XXXXX

My Response
Thank you for your request, but after reading the review, we’ve decided to leave it on the site. If you disagree with this assessment of the CEO, I urge you to add your own comments to the review or add your own review of the company to JobVent.com.

Message #2 in response to my message
I believe that under Florida law, this statement amounts to false light defamation and is legally actionable.
Do you have someone I could contact in your company related to legal disputes?

My Response
Hi XXXXX,

Please send any legal correspondence to me at the email address you have been using.

Thanks!

And that was the last I heard from them. This kind of behavior happens alot:
Company: “Hi JobVent, remove this review”
JobVent: “Thanks, but no.”
Company: “Perhaps we’ll sue you”
JobVent: “Please direct all legal correspondence to Venter@JobVent.com”
-complete silence-

Comanies seem to like to use the possibility of legal action as leverage. Most of these companies know that the worst thing for them to do from a PR standpoint is to sue a website that at its core is upholding free speech rights of its users and operating completely legally under the Communications Deceny Act of 1996.

While I’m not prepared to publish a web service to access all of the data in JobVent’s database programmatically, I don’t mind if developers use some of our pre-existing functionality.

JobVent companies can be queried by using a URL formatted as follows:
http://www.jobvent.com/browse.php?searchText=COMPANYNAME&search=true&searchType=company

the above URL, when you replace COMPANYNAME with a urlencoded query string will perform a company name query and direct the user to the results on jobvent.

Alternatively, you can use our XML generator that we use for one or two AJAX calls.
http://www.jobvent.com/include/autocomplete.php?field=CompanyName&input=Verizon

The above url will generate XML which contains an id and a company name for all companies that match the urlencoded input string. It is important to leave the field=CompanyName string in the URL (do not modify this string). In this case, verizon will return two results, verizon, and verizon wireless. The id can be used to redirect to the company specific page… http://www.jobvent.com/companyBrowse.php?CompanyID=900