Racial and National origin Discrimination at Xamplify?
May 14, 2003: Oakland. Honorable Judge G. H. Tomlin at the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board made it clear from start that in order to collect unemployment benefits, the claimant-appellant, [name], will have to prove that he left Xamplify Inc because of racial and national origin discrimination and not "voluntarily" as Xamplify has claimed. Therefore, the burden of proof rested on Kamal [name].
Jeffrey Klein testifies
[name] was representing himself and his inexperience showed. However, he cross-examined two witnesses - Jeffrey Klein and another, let's call him/her X. Jeffrey Klein, as was to be expected, seemed well-prepared and tried to obfuscate the truth and lie outright in many ways. He tried to shift the blame to Sumer Johal, his "Bhangra soul-mate" CTO of Xamplify at the time the claimant worked there. Nancy Friedberg was the company's representative.
Thomas Emerson - Genius or Incompetent slacker?
The company (Xamplify) tried to present the picture that [name]'s colleague/supervisor, Thomas Emerson ("Doctor" Emerson) was a well-qualified person with a PhD in mathematics and the job required mathematics. However, as witness X correctly pointed out that his PhD was in theoretical mathematics and had not much relevance to the job at Xamplify. Secondly, Xamplify tried to explain away Emerson's frequent absences from work as being the result of his being sick. [name] forgot to ask witness X about this but Emerson was not sick, unless you count not wanting to work as a sickness. However, X testified that Emerson used to come very late to work and frequently didn't show up at all without any prior warning. When asked by Honarable Judge Tomlin whether Emerson had even been reprimanded, Jeffrey Klein answered no. In costrast, [name] was reprimanded in an email and an ad hoc meeting called because he was away from his desk for a few hours to take 2 job-related courses at UC Berkeley. He made up (and more) for those absences by working during lunch, evening and nights, and weekends.
Moreover, X testified that [name]'s undergraduate institution (IIT) is well-respected ([name] has graduate degrees in computer and business from the USA and about a dozen mathematics and statistics courses from UC Berkeley) and his professional qualifications like the actuarial associateship and the CFA exams passing are difficult to achieve. In contrast, X testified that in his/her view Emerson's work was sub-standard.
Jeffrey Klein and Xamplify Collapse - Fast
More importantly, Jeffrey Klein was digging a hole for himself fast. It seems to have started when [name] showed him copy of a letter to editor in Salon.com where a reader had commented that during while he was an intern there, and Klein's reigned as the editor in chief, staff were not showing up for work or sleeping in. Jeffrey Klein seemed to have lost his composure and the judge instructed him not to answer that question, which he seemed glad to follow.
Any matter which was not put on this website or the company could not guess [name] knew about, seemed to put Jeffrey Klein in a big surprise. After confirming that [name]'s resignation letter written late night on a Friday was unexpected to him, he was asked whether it was true that one of the very things Xamplify did on Mar 4th, the Monday after that, was to fire Tom Emerson and Julian Brookes. Jeffrey Klein feigned loss of memory again. Will be difficult to put such acts in a Federal court in front of a jury and while being examined by an experienced attorney, though. More surprises will be awaiting him. ;)
Fair Wage
The question of monetary compensation too came up for questioning. In spite of being paid a lowly salary of $1000/week without any standard benefits in Berkeley, where fresh CS graduates from a nearby university earned median salary of $75,000 plus medical, dental, pension, 401k et cetera, [name] was asked him how he knows he was discriminated in terms of salary when he didn't know Tom Emerson's salary (or for that matter, anyone else's salary at Xamplify. The judge later gathered information on salaries of a few other employees of the company and it seems like [name]'s salary was really low in comparison.
Jeffrey Klein seemed defensive and in one place where he seemed to have prepared beforehand (perhaps with the help of company lawyer), mentioned that Xamplify was not paying minimum wages. Right!
Ghost employees at Xamplify
However, he was showed an employee list which [name] obtained during his tenure at Xamplify. Date was not present on that document but the presence of name like Sanjay Dayal indicated it was sometime after August 2001 since [name]'s guess is that Dayal joined Xamplify around that time. Y's name was missing which meant that it was probably during or after October of 2001 when Y left the company. [name] had started working during the last week of June 2001. The list contained a name - Joe McCannon. Klein was asked about Joe McCannon. Klein went on about McCannon working very hard ("perhaps the hardest working employee") and so on. [name] responded that he had never seen McCannon at work during the eight months he worked there. Moreover, X also testified to that effect.
Jeffrey Klein was asked about another management team member whose name was posted on Xamplify's website. Klein again went on stating how great a work that person did as a manager. He was reminded of a correspondence to [name] from that person stating that he/she never worked for Xamplify.
In short, it seems like Jeffrey Klein is losing his grip to get out of situations by misrepresenting. Before leaving the venue he asked the judge whether he should retain a lawyer and I think the judge said yes.
Ghost advisors
He was not asked about all those 'advisors.' [name] thought these were beyond the unemployment benefits claims matter and would be covered in much details later.
Second Chance Program
If you were ever associated with this operation called Xamplify Inc and want to come clean, Second Chance program will let you do so in an honorable manner. I will post more details in a couple of weeks. If in a hurry, contact me soon. I have no desire to 'punish' anyone. Thanks.