Centocor, a dysfunctional division of Johnson & Johnson (the fuckers who
sued the American Red Cross for using a red cross, beyond all parody), are stiffing me on payment after I did a holiday party quiz for them two weeks ago.
UPDATES:
After or instead of reading this, read the resolution.
1) The claim now is that I should be getting a check on Friday, December 19 via FedEx. Let's see if it happens. Note that this means that I never needed to submit another invoice nor fill out a W-9, and any claims to the contrary have been obstructionist. I could have had a check cut all along a couple of weeks ago, and people chose not to do so.
2) Apparently this post has been picked up on the Cafepharma message boards, and at least one employee in Hopewell, New Jersey has been Googling my name to find this. My message to the company: now that I FINALLY have your attention, where's my check?
3) Looking into things, no W-9 would be required of me because the amount is under $600. This is a totally spurious claim.
4) I removed the link to PA code as it referenced wages and not contracts. Centocor is actually in violation of contract law.
I took a photo of the winning team and was planning to post that and scores here. Now that just ain't gonna happen. And why, you ask, if you're a Centocor employee visiting the blog, looking for a photo? Because your company friggin' stiffed me.
We had a verbal and written agreement that I would receive a check in hand for the quiz at the event I did for them at a restaurant. No check at event. There was a silly claim that because they couldn't print my Word doc invoice the way they'd like, my invoice was "not valid" and therefore, somehow, I didn't merit a check for work already completed. Incidentally, the claim at the time - I was told I was not getting a check while doing the program, in between rounds, by the by - was that people enjoyed the event itself. We're just dicking me around at this point because they're a corporation, and I'm one guy, and I suppose they figure might makes right. Well, these people are trying to fuck the wrong guy.I told my public relations contact there last week that my next step if no check were forthcoming was to go public and go negative. This is Portion A of that process. Portion B is getting the word out via other, more popular websites. I don't think that should be difficult. This public shaming will continue until I get my check. If you're reading this and love to pile it on wrongdoing corporations, please feel free to send this link out and post links to it. The more the merrier.Centocor wanted me, in the week after I should have deposited their check, to reproduce an invoice, in a different format using software I have repeatedly told them I don't have, in order to get paid. I have had over 40 email and phone exchanges with a variety of employees, most rude, a couple helpful (including one who literally laughed at how unjust her own company was being, stating "none of this should be [my] problem"), to try and get my lousy, piddling 3-figure check. I have now done far more work trying to get paid than I did in order to present the program.Last Friday, after five aggravating days of fighting phone trees and in-company bureaucracy, I was told via an email from human resources that I should get a check in the mail on or about December 17. Today my public relations contact at the company told me on the phone in a call he initiated that that is not what is happening. The latest excuse that I "can't" get paid is that they now want me to fill out a W-9 form, a brand new demand that as late as this past Friday was not being made, and had not been brought up from when I was contacted to do the quiz months ago until today.
I always love the use of the word "can't" in an organization when someone chooses to do the wrong thing. See also Nuremburg defense. And note also the result of its use.
I know they can pay me; they choose to use company rules they select as they go along for not doing so.
No one contracting me to do a program - not even the law firms I've done quizzes for - has demanded this before, for the simple reason that I am not an employee of any sort of Centocor, or of any other quiz host. I am not really even a normal contractor or sub-contractor, I did a one-off program and we agreed on payment arrangements, based in doing the work and in an invoice they accepted from me weeks ago, on two separate occasions now (the second after Centocor unilaterally violated the first). Usually an organization pays me out of petty cash or the like; this is the party budget here, I'm not an accounting temp or the like.I've made it very clear that Pennsylvania law states that I'm owed this money, and no amount of post-quiz mid-level-management office petty tyrant jiggerypokery un-makes their debt to me. I just want my damn money. The next step is I sue in Small Claims Court, with damages and costs, and win.
Centocor, one may learn through the information superduperhighway, is a bunch of morally challenged mother-stabbers and father-rapers. The public should avoid doing business with them and avoid their products. To wit:
- Apparently Centocor's anti-arthritis medication Remicade jacks up your chances of fatal cancer, "significant blood abnormalities ", and can even lead to latent TB kicking your immune system's ass. (In fairness to the company, the joint pain melts away in the cold grasp of death.)
- There is an unfortunately underutilized blog called CentocorGossip that people locating this post who may work for the Unholy Machine may use to bring it down from the inside. Please do so. The lone post on there thus far contains the ever-popular combination of medical malpractice, unlawful firings and the magic words "strip club." Ha! I love you, Internet, and your internal dirt cornucopia!
- Even better is the bitter harvest of employee rants in the Cafepharma anonymous Centocor employee message boards. Juicy! Hopefully this post leads more employees right to it, where the internal workings of pissed off workers can do to the management of Centocor what Remicade does to you. Thrill to employee accusations of fraud and illegal mismanagement! Meet such lovely Centocor employees as "Patty Patty Puke Puke," the "Virginia Beach Nazi!" Find out which pharm sales rep is a "middle-aged hag" whose "husband doesn't love her anymore!" Learn which department is "useless!"
These are the people making your medicine - what could possibly go wrong?
This is post #1 of the Centocor posts in my attempt to get paid, which will be updated. I'm sure vast amounts of dirt on Centocor can be dug up easily, and this is what will be happening on this blog until the damn check clears. In the long run, it would have been much easier to cut me a check.
Pay me, Centocor! And pay me fast! Justice delayed is justice denied.
For many of you this will sound like the beginning of a bar joke ("A bar atmosphere walked up to a rabbi for a change, and..."), but it isn't. I'll try to make up for the lack of a punchline here at the end of the post. Congregation Anshe Chesed in Linden, New Jersey, an Orthodox synagogue, brought me up to host a quiz for the general membership on Saturday night. What's more I even did Judaism for the Subject Round, and I'm going to hold off on printing those questions here so that I can stick it to those of you I know are Jewish in person through the next couple of weeks.Finklegotbaers, a team charmingly named in conjunction with nervous system disorder, beat all competitors and are now in a very official fashion the smartest volk in the shul. All intramural problems should now be solved with that in mind.
Should anyone doubt the record:
Beautiful Gold: Finklegotbaers 150So-So Silver: Humble Superior Beings 141Shameful, Shameful Bronze: Harvard College Drop-Outs 115 (OT)Also-rans:
New Jersey New Yorkers 114 (OT)
Dan & The Golden Oldies 108
Cardinals 65
Before launching into usage of a multiple-thousand-year-old religious tradition to do some schtick, allow me to say I had a great time and that everyone was welcoming and friendly as can be. If all of my bar games were as delightful life would be that much easier. This was my first quiz for any religious congregation, although people do frequently yell something or other about Christ at a high percentage of my contests. Allow me to share some of the things I learned in doing research for this quiz.Ten Little-Known Facts About Judaism:1) The Torah does not have a Glossary, rendering reading it extremely difficult if you don't know Hebrew.
2) Abraham Lincoln, despite the name and beard, was not Jewish. Who knew?!3) Judaism is an ancient religion, pre-dating even Billy Graham.
4) If Spongebob Squarepants and his pals were real, Jewish dietary law would forbid consuming them.
5) Despite the widespread belief that Jews are born with horns, in actuality most take up an instrument later in life, if at all, and frequently woodwinds or even strings.6) Famous Jewish-Americans include Woody Allen, Winona Ryder, Jerry Seinfeld ... and, to be completely fair... Pauly Shore, Larry King and Senator Joe Lieberman.
7) Celebration of Christmas isn't at all theological in nature. It is related to shorter lines at movie theaters.
8) Although Hebrew is written right to left, Israeli baseball teams still run bases counterclockwise. This is known in linguistics as the Hank Greenberg Paradox.
9) Most of the world's largest industrial banks are now located in Japan, rendering explaining Jewish control of the world's banking systems significantly more difficult at John Birch Society meetings these days than it ever used to be.
10) Orthodox Judaism has no specific prohibition against trivia competitions. Drunken multi-state armed robbery sprees, however, are still out.
Mark and Laura Solomon did the socially correct thing this past weekend - they retained me to run a private quiz for their friends in their home. You can do the same by using the contact info above right.
Do not adjust your computer; the winning team's name, Tze U'lmad (pictured at left), is in transliterated Klingon, the ancient language of the Hebrews. At least this is how I recall it, but I'm sometimes fuzzy on details. The name translates as "the gentile must be mocked." Note: This is a joke. It actually means "Go and learn" in Elvish, the ancient language of the Hebrews.
TU featured a rabbi, as did a losing team. This will no doubt result in a schism, as we saw in the Old Country when rabbis would square off on such issues as which deli sold the best pastrami. Naturally it follows that the TU portion of the Solomon's social circle are the smartest people they know, and no amount of soap will wash away their other friends' ignorance. It is fitting and appropriate for the winning team to bring up their victory in any future debate or disagreement between parties, especially spouses. Quizzo is not just good for society because of its encouragement of alcohol consumption, it's good for marriages!
Beautiful Gold: Tze U'lmad 142So-So Silver: Pink Villains 137Shameful, Shameful Bronze: Blow Us 133Also-rans:
6 Breasts and a Dick 122
Clydesdale Five 108
Helmites 78
Dirty Frank's regulars will be amused to note that 6 Breasts and a Dick was exactly four people, three women and one man. Who knew it becomes that simple in the 'burbs? The Helmites are named after the village-of-idiots Chelm of Jewish tradition (humor examples at the link). And they finished dead last. Again, these parties are a great way to sift out which groups of your friends or employees are accurate self-assessors.
There are a few scientifically acceptable ways for the modern manager to compare the intelligence and world-awareness of employees. Most of the better methods were banned in the most recent round of Geneva Conventions and would bring Amnesty International down on you pretty hard, but among those remaining I'd say that hiring me to run a quiz at your event is as accurate as it gets. Note that even team names can tell management a lot about what you're working with in terms of human clay. The team that inappropriately named themselves Winners for example are clearly "incompetent and unaware", whereas Basement Dwellers, painfully aware of their limitations, are humbly fit for trainable rote tasks, and apparently amenable to them. Work assignments are so much easier to distribute post-quiz!
Pearls of Wisdom (pictured) edged out Best Directors - thus necessitating a management coup in this quizmaster's opinion - for the win at the annual Hamilton holiday bash, held in the posh surroundings of the Jasna Polana golf club in Princeton, New Jersey. Jasna Polana (means "bright meadow" in Polish) was the former Johnson & Johnson heir's estate, renamed by Barbara Piasecka Johnson (means "Anna Nicole Smith" in Polish).
Hopefully Hamilton's staff had as pleasant a time as I did. Anyone who wants to bring me over to their organization for a little intramural trivia smackdown can do so easily by using the contact info at right.
The teams were huge by bar standards, roughly ten people in each. Your scores:
Beautiful Gold: Pearls of Wisdom 133
So-So Silver: Best Directors 129
Shameful, Shameful Bronze: L'ville Rockers 124
Also-rans:
Winners 114
We Be Cool 104
Table of Ten 95
B*****s 90
Red Hot Red Bank Babes and Rick 89
Team Awesome 82
Barking Spiders 79
Name: Team 54
Basement Dwellers 53
The Delaware River isn't there just for dumping motor oil. It's also there for battery acid, and tires. And the good people at the Delaware River Basin Commission help keep all of those elements well-mixed. This is, at least, my understanding of their function, but you might like to visit their website.
When they wanted an organized activity for their holiday bacchanal, they contacted me first. We had a pub-quiz-style throw down at the Brick Hotel in quaint Newtown, PA, despite the fears of the city fathers of the bad element that basin commissions are known to bring into a burg when they get rowdy. In the end everything turned out well, with the only minor disruption being a brief challenge to a knife fight from a visibly tanked Alycia Lane, who was soon escorted out by a team of burly female cops. I wonder how her weekend turned out with that start..?
It's clear that this group of women are the most smartest of all the people in the commission, and should be given charge of the Key to the River, or the biggest cut of the dredging graft or whatever of value isn't sitting on a Superfund site. Note that the woman-dominant team finished first and the all-male team last!
Scores were through five rounds, as we ran out of time there near the end. If you'd like to hire me to run a quiz at your office party, just contact me using the info at right.
Beautiful Gold: The River Sirens 113
So-So-Silver: Flying Food 101Shameful, Shameful Bronze: Friday Lunch Bunch 94
Also-rans:Merry Sailors 85
Four Men and a Woman 80
The Sweathogs 78
Love That Dirty Water 47
Friday afternoon I was FedExed a soaking wet envelope (accepted as damaged at the driver's suggestion) with my darn check. I let it dry overnight, scraped it off of the inside of the envelope on Saturday and was fortunately able to deposit it.
