Charity Begins at Work

There's a chill in the air here in the City That Works, and if you work at the Chicago Tribune, you know what that means: United Way is coming to steal your money! That's right, any day now your bosses will begin the annual ritual of strong-arming you into giving money to United Way, irrespective of how much of your income you may have already given to other charities or your feelings about donating money to a massive bureaucracy with a history of corruption and misfeasance. But don't worry--it feels so much better to give under a veiled threat of subtle workplace retaliation. Remember, Ann Marie keeps a list!

I mention this only to point out, by way of a tipster, Tribune Co.'s rather inconsistent policies when it comes to helping those in need. The Tribune's Southern Connecticut Newspapers Inc. division, which runs the Stamford Advocate and the Greenwich Time, is upgrading its computer systems. The papers naturally wanted to give the old computers away to, I don't know, maybe children? Poor people? How about a library? But Chicago has passed down an edict mandating that all the old computers be destroyed. No charity, no taking them home, no Salvation Army. They are to be "properly" disposed of. I guess the hard drives could have trade secrets lurking around--TribCo's triple-secret strategy for winning its tax case, maybe--that could be disastrous for the company if they fell into the hands of under-priveleged students.

I think they're secretly chopping them up and selling the parts on Ebay. Keep it up Dennis--you'll have that billion dollars in no time!