On my second day in a new job as a tech support person, I started a download of OpenOffice.org, a free alternative to Microsoft Office. Midway through the process, the system administrator came up to me and asked what I was downloading. When I told him, he stated that “we use Microsoft Office. We sell software, and we support other software publishers.”

I’m not one to take dictation from anyone, and our disagreement became rather noisy and ugly. This was on a Tuesday. Two days later, my boss called me into a conference room and fired me. Why he didn’t fire me immediately? Because he sent an email asking me to talk with him to the wrong email address, and because he chose not to sacrifice a day working at home on the Wednesday.

This post was submitted by Tim Carmell.