Well folks, despite my best efforts to create a place where people could comfortably discuss issues about the Plan of Liquidation, Settlement or any other issues related to the demise of Heller Ehrman LLP, I’ve seen a definite up tick in comments that are not only crude, cruel, personal attacks and outright lies as part of a disinformation campaign.
Bloggers hate to stifle speech let alone moderate and edit comments. But I won’t tolerate the posting of what someone purports to be a fact in the comments when I know from personal knowledge that it is untrue. This is not a matter of opinion or view on an issue – this is when someone descends into rumor mongering disguised as fact in order to intimidate or sway opinions.
For now, heavy moderation of comments will take place. I’d hate to turn off comments all together but that’s a consideration. I highly suggest to those who want to turn this site into one of anarchy rather than one looking for solutions and providing assistance, to set up your own blog. It is simple, takes less than five minutes and really, anyone can do it.
We haven’t had an “end of the day” post for a few days now and your cruise director thinks it is high time we had one – we deserve it.
Recap of the past few days:
- another round of terminations are planned, emails sent out to many, far too many, passengers of the S.S. Heller Ehrman. Tomorrow is the last day for them – if you know anyone please send them your good thoughts. Tell them how it is a week later if you’ve been let go. Welcome them with open arms – we know we’ll make it ashore eventually
- Heller management has seen fit to make the Placement Opportunities website available externally – check it out here
- there is an offer to our Los Angeles passengers for a free coaching session – check it out you might be surprised
- various updates on a class action lawsuit by the loyal employees of Heller Ehrman LLP with various posts
- several passengers have filed various wage claims and WARN Act claims – read through this site for their advice
- if you were terminated last Friday or will be tomorrow, please see this post as to what you can do
Just a closing thought or two: I’ve been off the S.S. Heller Ehrman for a week now and still don’t have my bearings – it will take time I guess. As many thanks and kind words have come in via email, I really feel the need to thank you all for your support. I know it takes effort to just get up some days but when you sit in front of your keyboard and take the time to send feedback – any feedback – about this site, I want you to know it is appreciated. Now if only I could turn this skill into a new job! Is Carnival Cruises hiring? Do they need an on-board blog master/mistress?
On a more serious note, as we’ve seen week by week, more passengers are unceremoniously tossed off the ship, and then you have to wonder who or what will be left. And if you are in the water and floating about like me, while it isn’t great, it could be worse. I would much rather be treading water with this group of supportive, driven, determined, intelligent, creative, sometimes contentious, many times sad but more times angry group of ex-Hellerites than with anyone else in the wide open sea. Heller Ehrman knew what they had when they had us. They knew our work ethic. They knew our skills. They knew our creativity.
And yet some of them, perhaps a small sheltered group living in their elaborate penthouse deck, thought that we’d just quietly paddle to shore and look for the next passing ship. Go our separate ways and never look back. But did they really think that at a firm known for fighting for those outside the margins, those often not seen, those thrown overboard – did they really think that we had witnessed all that good work and had not learned a few things?
Tonight out on the Lido Deck, is a real rocker that is a fave of your cruise director: from 1982 here’s Patti Smyth and Scandal singing Goodbye To You.
A very quiet day – and no wonder. Not many people left aboard the S.S. Heller Ehrman I guess. I think having today as a holiday didn’t help much either – we were hoping to hear about your experiences with unemployment offices, etc.
Not much of a recap but now that the network of those privy to emails and information has shrunk, I am wondering if someone can confirm this issue:
- if you had money sitting in your Flexible Spending accounts, basically you can kiss it goodbye. I am wondering if this is for valid expenses you had during your employment this year but for which you haven’t yet handed in receipts. Or is it just all gone due to your termination?
I’d appreciate any information along these lines especially if the much touted FAQ is updated and disseminated via email.
For today’s “cheesy 80s music” entertainment as one of our devoted followers so aptly put it, I present on the Lido Deck, a-ha with Take On Me. Now most of you know this music video, it having even been spoofed in an episode of Family Guy. But this production by DustFilms is quite funny and sort of “splains” what is actually going on. I wish someone could do that for me in terms of the S.S. Heller Ehrman.
Well kids, I along with a few hundred of my co-workers have been “made redundant” as the Brits say. I guess, according to the oh-so-personal way of notifying me – via email – that my services are non-essential. So I will join the rest of you in the unemployment line and filing a wage claim etc.
I will miss Heller Ehrman but I won’t miss the mind games, the sloppiness of its communications or lack thereof in its final days. I will miss my closest co-workers as well as the ones I’ve been able to meet – virtually – as part of this project.
What will I do now? I am not sure yet but your old Cruise Director is feeling a life change coming on. And part of being connnected with oneself is knowing when those changes come and capitalizing on them. Some have told me that I am a Polly Anna looking a the glass half-full but I don’t have a choice. I can be bitter or I can be better. I choose better.
What I won’t stop doing is managing this blog. There are still crew members on the S.S. Heller Ehrman and my fear is that their fate may be worse than mine or that of others. They may come in one day and get an email like we did and then have to leave, without a final paycheck or accrued vacation.
Heller Highwater will still be here for all of you – ex-Hellerites and Hellerites. And for our other readers and we know who you are: those at other law firms in a similar position as Heller Ehrman LLP and those who just want to follow the saga of the S.S. Heller Ehrman.
No recap today – just too much actually. But I will probably be posting over the weekend if I get info.
For tonight’s entertainment I’m presenting something I’ve been saving. Let me warn you this is not an easy one. And I’ll also say that I am not an overly-spiritual person but I am very grounded and centered in my sprituality. There are times when you just have to let go and let God, Goddess, Buddha, Mohammed, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Ceiling Cat or whatever your preference is. Please take a look at this film about Hopratio Spafford who lost his son, his business and most of his family yet after all that could see the glass as half full.
Barry Levin and Patty Thayer are attempting to put together a list of Heller secretaries who are seeking employment and such list will be passed on to shareholders and their new firms. What we don’t understand is why the same offer has not been made to IT staff, paralegal and the lovely voices of Heller Ehrman in the San Francisco office (aka Reception)
In case you missed it, the Plan of Dissolution was leaked earier today and makes for some fine reading
Well we are so tempted to continue with some god-awful German entertainment, considering all the sturm und drang of late, but your Cruise Director wants to take refuge in his reliable, familiar 80s haven. Tonight on the Lido Deck is The Ocean Blue (love the name) with Between Something and Nothing.
This is one of the days that mama said there’d be, right? But I’m still here, readers are still here, people are stopping by but we seem no closer to the shore today. Notice how I don’t care for the term “rescue” which, given recent talk of “bail out,” has a sullied connotation.
We don’t need to be rescued – we just need to be given the proper tools to get to shore on our own. And those tools are that to which we are entitled and should expect to receive from the management of a once world-class law firm.
Wilson Sonsini has posted some great positions especially for non-attorney staff which seem hard to come by these days
Your Cruise Director gets philosophical over at Why This Place Exists after taking in on the chin from some “rats” trying to wage a campaign of misinformation and divert attention away from the real issues
Tonight’s entertainment comes to us from Germany (back when there was a West and an East Germany for you younguns) in the form of Cindy and Bert singing what has been called Der Hund Von Baskerville which we know to be a version of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. See, your Cruise Director knows his way around the German tongue and thinks that this clip, even without a rudimentary understanding of German, is just bizarre. Confidential to Bert: nice scarf, pretty boy.
Not my best day, I’ll admit. But readers should know that I have no problem with criticism and trying to listen to the other sides of a discussion. And when I’m wrong I’m wrong and will admit it. I will admit that I was too harsh in my criticism of today’s goodbye emails. Perhaps it was the fact that they came one after another. Perhaps it was the reminder that many of us haven’t made it off the S.S. Heller Ehrman. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Well this has been a busy day here on the S.S. Heller Ehrman as is typical of Mondays – over the past month all the “action” seems to take place on the weekends.
As evidence, I offer up the fact that on Sunday we had the 41st most popular post at WordPress: I Hate Mondays. And in a bit of irony, guess what was #42? What’s Next by John Heald, an actual cruise director for Carnival Cruises! Coincidence? Bizarre? You decide.
Recap:
the best torture is slow torture, wouldn’t you agree? I offer up today’s Heller management communication concerning the fact that at least we’ll be paid this Friday, October 10th.
question: does Heller hold a week’s wages in arrears? Meaning the check on Friday is acutally for work through October 3rd? Can anyone answer this? It has been so long since your Cruise Director first joined his shipmates that he can’t remember. He believes his first paycheck was paid in salt and fur pelts though.
have you been backing up your personal data? collecting all your evidence for a possible wage claim? a few Hellerites have also suggested keeping a diary or a timeline of all the activities and communications – good idea! If you need help, go back to when this blog started and you should be able to at least copy what you need to file a wage claim, possible unemployment if needed, and any other claim you might anticipate.
speaking of claims, we’ve secured WARN Act representation in case Heller Ehrman does declare bankruptcy or if the firm attempts to weasel its way out of its WARN obligations; we could use some counsel for wage claims/accrued vacation – we have calls out and are close to hammering out a deal on representation.
And I know you’ve been waiting for this bit of entertainment from The Boomtown Rats over on the Aloha Deck. Actually, the piano intro just absolutely slays me everytime. ”I Don’t Like Mondays.”
Your Cruise Director is officially washed up today. Wiped. En toto. Wrung out.
Read, re-read, and carefully read the previous posts. Talk to your loved ones. Call up co-workers and friends. Discuss, compare and contrast. Talk among yourselves.
More importantly – take care of yourself and do what you think is best for you. If you don’t agree with some of the previous posts, all is good. If you have a different opinion, feel free to let it fly via our comments section. You can even post anonymously, goddess knows I do.
My plans: talk to counsel, attorneys, and my panel of experts. But also take care of me. Hot tub time, red wine, chocolate, certain migraine. Watch old movies. Think. Plan. Try not to obsess about Monday. Know that I have friends. Know that I have great co-workers, even great shareholders. Tell those shareholders who aren’t happy with the current arrangement that they have more power than they think.
Be safe. Tell someone you love them. Call your mother, she worries.
And, for on-board entertainment, I bet you thought I was going to go with The Boomtown Rats and I Hate Mondays? Heller Drone cannot be predicted in his ways – they are many, they are varied, and they are sometimes bizarre. It is Howard Jones appearing on the Fiesta Deck singing Things Can Only Get Better. Ain’t that the truth.
We worry when it is so quiet. This is when, as Frida so aptly put it in that great 80s song, “I Know There’s Something Going On,” stuff happens.
It has been confirmed that one or more Chiefs have resigned including Robert Meadows, Chief Information Officer and Steve Balcomb, Chief Administrative Officer. It appears they had offered their resignations earlier during the storm as a way of lowering costs but they were rebuffed. The fact that Heller management has now accepted their resignations worries us: is the cash flow situation a bit more dire than we’ve been told?
And if you don’t know it, both of these guys are straight-up in terms of their concern for staff, at least in my experience. I truly believe they, and perhaps other chiefs, generals and majors, made the same offer. They may realise that they are better positioned than most right now, in terms of economics and job prospects, and want to look out for their own people. This is what we as Heller support staff know to be part of the “family spirit” that we often mention. If this is the case, we say, “Bravo!” and thanks for holding the lifeboats steady as we get in.
Also, it has been confirmed that recent support staff who have departed the S.S. Heller Ehrman did receive their vacation accrual. In fact, there are two people, at least, who were eligible for their sabbatical and received payment for that accrued benefit as well. We hope the payment of vacation accrual is still the case when the last support staff person closes the door and turns off the light.
And so another day ends. We are off to watch the Vice Presidential debates – we have printed up our bingo cards, and we are all set. It also sounds like Frida is set to take the stage over on the Riviera Deck to sing her hit song as well. Enjoy.
Remember the words of Rev. Frank Scott (Gene Hackman in The Poseidon Adventure):
". . . sitting on our butts is not going to help us either. Maybe by climbing out of here, we can save ourselves. If you've got any sense, you'll come along with us."
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- a place to keep up on the latest news as to how Heller Ehrman management intends to treat its support staff as it winds down its operations - will it be every woman for herself? or will it be "let me hold the door for you and is there anything else I can do for you"?
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Note: in no way, shape or form is Heller Highwater sanctioned, supported or even recognized, (but it is very likely monitored) by the management of Heller Erhman, LLP. The opinions represented here and on each and every page of Heller Highwater do not constitute the opinions of Heller Ehrman, LLP or its shareholders or its management. In addition, the comments left by visitors do not reflect the opinions of Heller Highwater.
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