Yet another Ubuntu anecdote

Some posts on planet made me remember of a little Canonical-related story of mine.

Many years ago I shortly contracted for Canonical. It was interesting and fun.

At the time I didn't have any experience of being temporarily hired by a foreign company, so I rang my labour union to get an appointment, to make sure with them that everything was allright.

The phone call went more or less like this:

Me:

Hello. I have received this contract for temporary employment by a foreign company and I wondered if I could book an appointment to come show it to you to see if it's all ok.

Their answer rather cut me short:

Hi. Be careful! People get temporary employment from obscure companies with the headquarters, like, in the Isle of Man, they do the job, the company disappears and they never get paid. There's bad stuff out there!

I looked at the contract, the heading said something like "Canonical ltd, Douglas, Isle of Man".

I was certain that the union people would have never understood what was going on. I politely thanked them for their time and hung up. However, to this day I still regret that I didn't insist:

Uh, yes, the company is indeed in the Isle of Man. But what if I told you that it's owned by an astronaut?

I just signed the contract and had a good time.