We're from Yahoo, and we're here to help
Please welcome back the ConFonz, our secret correspondent from the world of conferences. — Ed.
CONFONZ — One of the nicest parts about being the Conference Fonzerelli is overhearing the amazing stories told in-between roundtables and plenary sessions. They're rarely newsworthy, but such tales often portend just how utterly fucked a company or entity really is. Take this doozy about Yahoo and its attempts to do something good for the world.
Just a scant week ago, a cavalcade of Yahoo — make that Yahooligans, given how they behaved — went over to Berkeley to volunteer at the Alameda County Computer Resource Center. Ostensibly, they were there to build PCs and install Ubuntu Linux on some recycled hardware.
In theory, these budding young bags of sperm and PHP should have spent about three hours checking RAM, formatting hard drives, stacking monitors and testing keyboards. Instead, the wily "volunteers" just made a big stinking mess, completed only a single Ubuntu install and then complained when they didn't get free food. Oh, and they were constantly running over to the free computer lab so they could check out how their stocks were doing.
Far be it from the ConFonz to pass judgment on these wayward, purportedly helpful souls. But it certainly looks like Scientology's favorite search engine is staffed with white-boy slackabouts who are afraid of a decent day's work. Perhaps the ConFonz should apply there. It's been three months now, right? Just enough time for Jerry Yang to realize that filling Semel's shoes is like stepping into a small pond of hair conditioner.