something's getting in the way

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If I had to / I would put myself right beside you So let me ask / Would you like that? Would you like that?

Effing… blast. Just took a call from my boss back home.

I’m not sure if I told this story yet, nor am I sure if I’m authorized to do so. So. This involves a company. Company A. I worked for Company A, as part of Group Q (to choose an arbitrary identifier). Group Q did well and brought much success to Company A. I felt good to be an intern there.

And I don’t mind / If you say this love is the last time So now I’ll ask / Do you like that? Do you like that?

Then Group Q went all indie and started Company B. Did their level best to keep everything legal and completely above board. Company A did not like this – they had lost an excellent group and now had clients leaving to go with Company B. Naturally, they sued.

No

Unexpectedly, they included me in the suit. Little old (well, not really) me, at one point an intern for Group Q, now being included in this ridiculous corporate lawsuit.

Which was okay for a while. I didn’t actually have to do anything except throw a signature on whatever papers had my name printed. The rest of Company B was going through hell, yes, but I’m just an intern.

Something’s getting in the way Something’s just about to break I will try to find my place in the diary of Jane So tell me how it should be

So I leave Company B and go off to school. Life is relatively good. Math decides to be nasty, but that’s beside the point. The point is that, halfway into the semester, I get a call from my boss. While boarding public transit with my cousin, I get this call – apparently the lawsuit is entering legal arbitration and depositions are required of all related personel. Apparently, that meant me as well.

Thursday morning – conference call with me in my room in Chicago, three attorneys and a court reporter back at Company B. Twas not a difficult call, really. As our attorney said, they weren’t trying to be evil to me. I’m just a kid. … A kid that they’re trying to use in part to nail Company B, yes, but a kid nonetheless.

Try to find out what makes you tick / As I lie down Sore and sick / Do you like that? Do you like that?

There’s a fine line between love and hate / And I don’t mind Just let me say that I like that / I like that

The questions generally followed a single theme – did you, in fact, take any data away from Company A that would have been used by Company B to achieve such spectacular and immediate success?

I didn’t, of course. But I did make a backup. And therein lies today’s problem.

Something’s getting in the way Something’s just about to break I will try to find my place in the diary of Jane As I burn another page As I look the other way I still try to find my place in the diary of Jane So tell me how it should be

The tape backup system had ceased to function properly at one point. So I made an emergency backup on cds, just to ensure that, at the end of the day, we’d have our data.

My testimony included the fact that there were six or seven cds. This being due to the limited capacity of a single CD, and the larger-than-700mb server hard drives.

Desperate, I will crawl / Waiting for so long No love, there is no love / Die for anyone What have I become

Which made sense to me. Apparently they took that to mean that I had made a backup, and made six or seven duplicates.

… I think the proper response to that assumption is a simple ‘wtf’. Especially when one considers that the backup in question occured early on into my work at Company A, and any data from that time would have been more or less useless by the time Group Q went indie.

sigh. Anyway. Apparently this thing didn’t die for me as hoped for.

My train is here.

Something’s getting in the way Something’s just about to break I will try to find my place in the diary of Jane As I burn another page As I look the other way I still try to find my place In the diary of Jane

(and no, the song has virtually nothing to do with the story. except frustration. >_>)