I bought the wrong type of toilet paper again, and am spending too much time picking little paper pellets out of my unmentionables.

You probably didn't want to hear that, but it's true.

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I'm not sure what to say. Well, what to say that is printable in a magazine that you might leave lying around where small children can get at it, in any case. Or maybe I should, just to disabuse the little dears that life is fair, and people are good, and similar shit.

What I am looking at is a remarkable document indeed. It purports to date from Feb. 26, 2002. We received it March 11, 2002, which I could probably deal with. However, it purports to be an extension to a letter of assignment dated December 15, 1999. It extends the extension of W's assignment from October 31, 2000 to March 29, 2003. Now, aside from the fact that I've never seen ANY extension letter from these folks, EVER, and I should have, being W's lawyer and all (got to earn my keep somehow!), Should we have not seen this closer to the expiry of his old contract in, apparently, Oct. 31, 2000? A year and 4 plus months is a bit behind for anyone, even those of the Italian persuasion, surely?

And yet, this is not the bit that makes cartoon smoke come out of my ears and cartoon anvils plummet from the sky. It is, among other things, the clause that apparently says that W will become an Italian employee, with the commensurate Italian pay and benefits, if we are still here in March 2003, IF NO PLANS HAVE BEEN MADE TO REPATRIATE YOU TO YOUR HOME COUNTRY. Which we have no plans of doing. I say 'apparently', because they haven't even enclosed a copy of the extension. And why they would possibly think that we would be delighted about becoming a local, italian employee also defies explanation, aside from the obvious fact that it's better and a hell of a lot cheaper for them.

And there is more, which I might subject you to if the cartoon smoke coming out of my ears wasn't obscuring the screen.

This is insulting. Not just for what the are trying to do, but for the fact that the obviously believe that we'll just shrug, say whatever, and sing on the dotted line of the letter purporting to explain the "slightly unusual" bits of a contract we've never seen.

I will say this: W is not going to sign this letter. (He cannot, of course, sign the contract itself because THEY HAVEN'T EVEN HAD THE COURTESY TO SEND IT TO US, MUCH LESS MAKING THE SLIGHTEST NOD TO THEIR LEGAL OBLIGATIONS.)

Sorry for all that shouting. I'm a bit pissed off. Well, I'm really extremely pissed off, if you want to get picky about this whole thing, which The Company obviously does not want to be.

Enough. We're out of here.

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Got a new toy today. A keyboard for my Jornada. Bruce brought it back for me from the US, since I couldn't find one locally. I adore the thing: it's very clever, and folds up into a very cute package.