Why Most of Us are Children of a Lesser God
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Children of a Lesser God is a Tony award-winning play by Mark Medoffs. The plot is about a deaf girl who chooses
to remain in the safe ecosystem of the hearing impaired, until a dedicated teacher coaxes her out of her shell.
I thought I was acquiring almost the same communication tools which until then had been a privilege of a restricted group of individuals. I no longer felt a child of a lesser god: the child of Epaphus (the son of Io who was turned into a calf) thought he was on the same footing with the child of the all-powerful Zeus. The initial hopes raised by internet have largely faded away: most of the interesting sites have a restricted access, junk makes the opening of the e-mail box a nuisance, chatting may lead you into trouble. Notwithstanding these drawbacks I continued to think internet was a great step forward in improving communication among the members of the global village. A few days ago however I learnt that the child of all-powerful Zeus would rather restore the former deafness and more important muteness of the child of Epaphus. In June 2001, two months after having resigned from ExxonMobil (*) I added four pages to a web site I had started in 1997 with Geo Cities and which was dedicated to the coats of arms of the Popes. In these pages I voiced my views about EM management style after the merger. These pages were in a section providing some information about myself and on average they had two visitors per day. I did not ask any of the many web sites campaigning against ExxonMobil to put a link to my pages. The comments were of a very generic nature, with the exception of a remark about the fact that the official portrait of Mr. Lee R. Raymond shown in the EM official web site was edited.
On March 3, 2002 I received the following e-mail from Yahoo! Geo Cities: "Dear Community Member, We appreciate your support of and participation in Yahoo! GeoCities; however, your use of a Yahoo! service appears to be inconsistent with the Yahoo! or Yahoo! GeoCities Terms of Service. Consequently, your web site has been removed from Yahoo! GeoCities." All my attempts to know where my web site had "appeared to be inconsistent" with their Terms of Service were answered by a standardized message saying that "Yahoo! may in its sole discretion and at any time discontinue providing the Service, or any part thereof, with or without notice." I rebuilt my pages in two other web sites I had developed in the meantime; the personal section, which included the pages dealing with EM, was moved to Rome in the footsteps of an XVIIIth century traveller. I have no statistics about the number of visitors of this web site. I can only assume the pages dealing with EM did not have many visitors, because I received just one e-mail from a student asking information about the personal leadership style of Mr. Raymond. On October 19, 2002 I received a five-page letter from my provider's lawyer: the letter was addressed to Esso Italiana Srl, an Italian subsidiary of ExxonMobil Corporation and it rejected a request to discontinue my pages on EM, because Esso Italiana Srl was requiring an unlawful action. Because Esso Italiana Srl threatened to sue the provider, their lawyer gave me 48 hours to directly settle the matter with EI, otherwise they would have sent me a notice to dissolve the agreement I have with them. The behaviour of the provider is contradictory from a legal point of view, as their lawyer is convinced they have no responsibility for what I say in my domain, but it is understandable from an economic point of view. From one side they risk to lose a customer who pays a 50 USD fee per annum, from the other side they risk to incur heavy legal costs in a litigation against the largest corporation of the world. Esso Italiana Srl acted behind my back. I had never received any complaints from them or any other EM organization. To avoid the closure of Rome in the footsteps of an XVIIIth century traveller I temporarily suspended my pages on EM (they are now posted in a separate website; have a look at them and judge by yourself!) and I wrote to the EM Law Manager for Italy protesting their vile behaviour. I also asked a certain number of sympathetic visitors to my web site to support me by writing to the EM Italian Country Manager. After a week the EM Country Manager for Italy wrote me a wishy-washy e-mail, admitting that EM was behind the closure of my Yahoo! Geo Cities web site and telling me that it was not their intention to have my web sites knocked down. These crocodile tears reminded me of the explanations given by military authorities after a "friendly fire" incident. I reacted sending the attached e-mail to Mr Lee R. Raymond and to the EM European Downstream Controller who has responsibility for reporting ethical deviations. 
In a community where each member is respectful of the rights of the other members, quarrels against another member are first of all dealt with by direct communication. EM did not follow this rule. In a community where each member is respectful of the rights of the other members, another acceptable option for settling disputes is asking the opinion of a third party (arbitrator, judge, etc..). EM did not follow this route. I do not believe EM is the only member of the community who levers on his size to silence another member's views. Big Corporations take advantage of the "wash my hands" policy of the providers, and the lesser members of the community are struck by lightnings, without even knowing why.
(*) The words ExxonMobil, Exxon and Mobil are used in a generic sense. I actually worked since January 1, 1966 for Esso Standard Italiana Spa, subsequently renamed Esso Italiana Spa and Esso Italiana Srl. On April 5, 2001 I was notified that my contract had been sold on January 1, 2001 to another company named ExxonMobil Mediterranea Srl (previously a subsidiary of Mobil). Four days after this notification I left the company. Therefore I never had any direct legally binding agreement with Exxon Corporation or ExxonMobil Corporation. The image of Mr Raymond is the same shown at ExxonMobil website. I deliberately chose to post this page with Yahoo! Geo Cities on the assumption that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. Addendum December 2003: I often meet with former colleagues of EM Italian affiliates: I understand their jobs are at risk and that a dramatic downsizing of the companies is planned in the near future. These decisions are taken by managers living abroad and who seem to be unaware of the huge profits made by EM in Italy. Maybe all-powerful Zeus now wants human sacrifices. 
This site is maintained by Roberto Piperno. Write to romapip@quipo.it |
