I wrote a blog but it got ixnayed by legal. (That should be funny because I am “legal.” At this time I shall choose to remain cryptic, but as God is my witness, I’ll publish that blog someday after X, Y, and Z happens). Now, where was I – ah, yes, a new and different blog.

Today, boys and girls, we shall talk about the art of the apology. Since we were little, we’ve been taught to say “sorry.” (Well, most of us, but maybe not he whose names starts with J and ends in O-N-E-S, but I digress again). “Little Johnny, say sorry to your sister for bonking her on the head.” And Little Johnny will usually say sorry to avoid your wrath, rather than actually being sorry for the head bonking. This is the first lesson in the art of the apology – make sure it is sincere and that you mean it. Otherwise, it is really better if you say nothing at all. Maybe wait until it can become sincere, and if it can never become sincere, go back to step one and don’t say anything at all. The Boy often gets in trouble for head bonkings and other various and sundry misdeeds committed upon The Girl. He gets sent to time-out and then is supposed to apologize to The Girl. More often than not The Boy gets extremely defiant and grunts out a “sor-ry” as belligerently as he can. This only serves to piss The Mommy off and gets The Boy in even more trouble. (Can I use that word?) The takeaway on this is that The Boy needs to say sorry like he means it, or not bother getting out of time-out until he can do so. Another example of an apology that is better left unsaid is the disingenuous-apology-that-is-really-not-an-apology apology. Example: “I’m sorry you are an idiot, but….” Go back to time-out!!

Often a simple, sincere heart-felt apology can go a long way towards diffusing a situation that might otherwise result in hurt feelings, anger, and bitterness or, in my world, lawsuits. Maybe a manager loses his/her cool with an employee in one of the many stressful situations we face on a daily basis. When the manager calms down, an apology may be the cure to a situation that might later spiral out of control and explode. Maybe you have two feuding employees – an apology by one or both parties may be all it takes to turn a situation that may have resulted in a termination or two into one in which the working relationship is restored. This might involve a situation with your co-worker, your friend, your spouse or a client. Many times what happens is that we want to be right, rather than do what’s right. A meaningful apology to a client might save a $30,000/month account, but dad gummit, you are right and the client is wrong and they are an idiot and you are not. All of that may be true, but is it worth it? Is it really, really worth it? Is it worth that account? Is it worth that friendship? Is it worth your job? Is it worth that marriage?

Here, let me practice: “Mike, I am sorry you are mean and that I implied your upbringing was nothing less than stellar…..” Alright, alright – I’ll keep practicing.

*Note: This blog was inspired by the esteemed labor and employment lawyer Michael Maslanka and one of his recent blogs at http://texaslawyer.typepad.com/work_matters/2009/10/rudeness-and-resulting-resentment-can-foster-cheating.html, which I forwarded to our managers for their digestion.

I deeply and sincerely apologize in advance for any copyright infringement or any other legal no-no’s in my blog.

Some of you know that it is now “back to school” time. Those of you who don’t know are the ones who are still probably able to attend happy hours. (Our esteemed CFO may not know, but only because he’s had lots of birthdays. I’m not saying he’s addled. I’m just saying.) Nearly everyone has heard of, if not read, the book “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum. This blog is kind of a take on that, but since The Boy just started First Grade, these are things of relevance we’ve learned about the rules and such for First Grade and that can be applied to things here at the ‘Layer.

So The Boy has tickets in First Grade, and if he’s bad – he’s got to pull a ticket and put it in a jar. Sounds like, the fewer tickets, the better. Kind of like here at SoftLayer, from our standpoint you don’t want to have to have a bunch of tickets to plow through. From a client standpoint, you certainly don’t want to have a bunch of tickets, especially from abuse, or you might get your server pulled. The lesson to be learned is to do what you can to keep those tickets at a minimum.

This year in First Grade, there are a bunch of boys, including The Boy. At the parent meeting after the second day of school, the two first grade teachers were explaining that because of the more than 2:1 ratio of boys to girls, the restroom breaks could be a potential nightmare. The uniforms have belts and shorts with buttons and zippers. The teachers said it takes forever for them to go, and they wanted the parents to tell their Boy that he needs to be able to, ah, how do we say it? Well, he needs to be able to whip it out, put it away and go. No smacking other bottoms and goofing off and giggling. Here at SoftLayer, we often have crazy deadlines, for example in development, which requires us to whip out some new technology on an expeditious basis. Just like First Grade, whip it out, put it away, and go on to the next project. (Unlike First Grade, there is lots of goofing off here at SoftLayer, such as with 10,000 bouncy balls and such. Since I’m in legal, if there is any smacking of bottoms, neither I nor HR want to hear about it. Lalalalala, Lalalala…)

One of the guys wrote a blog earlier this summer pondering if the things you learned in college are applicable to the “real world.” His conclusion was yes. My blog further confirms that the things you learn in First Grade are applicable to the “real world.” Here’s hoping The Boy can go 15 days without getting his ticket pulled, because if he does he gets some Krispy Kreme “football” donuts. And if The Boy gets some “football” donuts, that means The Mommy gets some, too.

I’ve been feeling rather irrelevant lately……yeah, yeah, I know . Watch out, because when lawyers feel irrelevant we sue!

Anyway, just thinking about the things going on in the rest of the world, like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have men and women over there who are still dying and losing their sanity on a daily basis, but for those of us who don’t have anyone close to us involved in the wars, it’s become a low hum…car bomb, soldier killed, hum, hum. But then I think of the daily terror that those who have loved ones go through – did she have to go out on patrol today? Did she get hurt? Did she get killed? Every day, every hour spent wondering if that person is safe and will come home again. That soldier is not irrelevant – he is making the greatest sacrifice so we can go on with our safe, secure lives over here.

My thoughts also turn to the people of Iran, and I find myself thinking: “If I lived in a repressive regime, would I be out on the streets in defiance of the government and particularly with the threat of being beaten, jailed or disappearing from the face of the earth?” I like to think I would, but I don’t know the answer, and that feeds my irrelevance. And come on Iran; give your people some credit. Make it at least look like the election wasn’t predetermined. You declare a landslide victory for Ahmadinejad (cut and paste, baby, cut and paste!) mere minutes after the polls close, yet the ballots are supposed to be hand counted. How can that work? I mean, wait an hour or so – pretend you counted. Please! Are the people of Iran irrelevant? No, they are making the greatest sacrifice in a battle for freedom, and in an uprising that may very well change the course of their history. The world is watching.

So how do I become relevant? (Assuming, that is, that a lawyer can ever be relevant). How do SLayers and SLackers become relevant? We go that extra mile. We’ve been dealing with cranky clients all day – keep the smile on the face and in the voice and treat them like they’ve just put in an order for 300+ servers a month. We don’t remain satisfied with the status quo – figure out how to make our system and services better, stronger, faster. We don’t rest on our laurels because we just had a major release, i.e., Cloudlayer instances. We look ahead and figure out or invent the next new thing our customers need or want. We scan the forums to keep a pulse on our clients (and it’s usually good for an eye-roll or two). We keep Lance and Mike out of trouble.

So am I like a U.S. soldier or the Iranian people? Not so much, but I can do things to stay relevant in my own little world.

Other than following our CFO around with the metaphorical shovel (just kidding, Mr. Jones, just kidding), some of you may wonder what your legal counsel does in her office all day. (Actually, I often wonder that myself). Well, here’s a little matter that has been sucking an inordinate amount of time out of my day – SoftLayer received a letter from a solicitor in England accusing us of defamation related to a consumer protection website hosted by one of our U.S. clients. Apparently, some posters were indicating something to the effect that a certain company in England was made up of a bunch of con artists, blah, blah, blah.

In the U.S., we as the host are not liable for defamatory postings by third parties pursuant to the Communications Decency Act (the CDA, if you will, since we know lawyers and techies love their acronyms). But in the U.K., they have their own laws and they have no CDA immunity law. There, it is claimed, service providers may be liable if they are provided with notice of the alleged defamatory statement and fail to take it down or remove it. Arrrgh, what to do? U.K. company wants to sue us, client does not want to take it down (understandably so), because it is not violating any U.S. laws or regulations or our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). “Free speech, free speech,” the client cries. What is SL going to do? Throw another Boston tea party. We are going to let the British company either sue us or not in England and then dare them to try and enforce a judgment here in the U.S. A nice attorney, Mr. Paul Levy, at Public Citizen Litigation Group (www.citizen.org/litigation) has agreed to represent us here pro bono if that happens. Here’s his letter to the English solicitor on our behalf: http://www.citizen.org/documents/SoftLayerLetter.pdf

It turns out that the U.K. company’s strategy of trying to snag and sue us there has a name – “libel tourism.” This term refers to a plaintiff who “tours” or shops around for the most convenient forum to bring a libel or defamation claim. As you can see above, the U.K. is much more defamation friendly and free speech unfriendly than the U.S. So rather than bring an action in the U.S. where we and our client are located, let’s just sue in Britain.

To combat this unfairness New York State has passed a law called the “Libel Terrorism Protection Act” (not sure if the term “tourism” got lost in that bill somewhere, or if because it was based on an action brought by a Saudi businessman that it turned into “terrorism”). Basically this Act says that a foreign judgment related to defamation won’t be honored unless a New York court first determines that that country’s freedom of speech and press rights are at least as expansive as those allowed by the U.S. and NY state constitutions. Get it – New York would never allow a defamation action brought in the U.K. to be enforced. Victory for the service provider, victory for free speech and the American way of life!!!!

So why a road trip to Austin and/or D.C.? My students are so sharp today! Let’s get some state and national legislation that protects us from the harshness of other countries’ laws related to defamation which expose us to litigation or at least protects us from that proverbial rock and the hard place. Everyone asleep yet?

No. of times acronyms used: 19
No. of attorneys referenced: 3

‘Twas the month of Halloween, and all thru the halls,
Tech support and sales took all of the calls.
The servers were sitting safe in their racks,
Knowing that Hardware had their backs.

The developers were all snug at their desks,
Struggling with code that was behaving like pesks.
The workers were all decked out in SL black,
Just daring competitors to give them some flack.

When all of a sudden, there was a great THUD!
And everyone thought, “Uh-oh, we landed a dud.”
But alas, it was only another attorney,
To help and to aid in Softlayer’s journey.

      “Now Trademark! And Patents!
      And Copyrights, too!
      Don’t worry, I’ll let you know
      Just what to do!
      Let’s litigate and obfuscate,
      And watch Jonesie count beans!
      Just kidding! I’m kidding-that’s not what I mean!”

With the economy diving, sputtering and tanking
She’ll help figure how to give competitors a spanking.
With caffeine in the morning, she’s happy as can be,
Ask her about “Dance, Dance Revolution” on the Wii.

As with all good things, this poem must end.
“Thank God!” you say, “It’s setting a bad trend.
So off to my contracts I will git.
But I’ll leave you with this last little bit:

      “Happy hosting to all and to all a good day!”