Legal?

[malicious-pengy.livejournal.com]

Okay, this is edited to say sorry for raining all over everything.

Soooo...this is one of those "Is it legal to make this project?" questions.

The plan right now is to take a logo of a local company, and replace the text with the word "Bitches".

Is it a problem to use someone else's logo with different words when you're only making four shirts for your friends, not selling them or anything?

It's technically not libel, because for it to be libel, it needs to be false, and I believe I could prove in court that they are, in fact, bitches.

Would it be a problem for people from this company to witness us wearing those shirts?

If anything here is illegal, is it illegal in the "see you in court" way, or in the "downloading music and 99.999999% of the time, no one cares" way?

So, there's this company that I and four of my friends worked at. Last night, near the end of a 15 hour shift, my boss walked out, cheerfully saying "Bye!" My friend Tiffany said, "Oh, she told me not to tell you anything, but she was going to lay you off Monday. It's really weird that she hasn't said anything about it to you yet."

I got home at 5:00 AM, but everyone had Sunday off, so it was cool. I got a call at noon, not from my boss (in accounting), but from the warehouse floor manager, indicating that my boss considers me more of a line worker than an office worker. Less than 24 hours before my next shift, less than 14 hours after my boss cheerfully said "Goodbye" to me on the previous shift, but a week since she decided to lay me off and told my good friend, I lost my job. I was expecting it, but tried to explain to the floor manager that I wasn't really being laid off, because Tiffany was quitting, and they needed at least one of us to actually run for the next three weeks. Lupe informed me that both Tiffany and I were laid off, along with two of our testing people and good friends, Delmy and Alex. Tiffany and I had the same job; we weren't redundant because there were two shifts. (Alex and Delmy were in the same situation.) Night shift was ending this week, however, leaving two jobs and four people. They intended to keep Tiffany; Tiffany intended not to be kept; I would keep my job. And, for some reason we are not aware of, they let all four of us go. I called back half an hour later, asking if they would mail my check or if I should drive out and pick it up; she said I could drive out and pick it up on Wednesday, which meant my boss indicated to her I worked in the warehouse, not accounting, because accounting is paid Mondays. (If you haven't guessed this: there is an enormous status difference between the two.)

Tiffany, Alex and I were somewhat agitators. When we saw something incredibly stupid happening, as it tends to in bureaucracies, we asked the logic behind it, and asked if we could keep doing what we were doing, when the logic failed, as it always did. Tiffany, Alex and I were all allowed on the bridge; we were informed Delmy is not, because she "is in the way." We all watched very carefully what was going on, to see if maybe she did something that could be considered rude, or she stood there for longer than we did while checking the screens, and the only thing Delmy did differently on the bridge than the rest of us did was failing to be white and middle class. The funny thing? Delmy needed to be on the bridge to do her job. Since she wasn't allowed there, each time she needed information from the bridge, she called me on her personal cell phone, and I walked over from my office. It would take 30 seconds for Delmy to check it herself. It takes me half an hour to make sure I'm over there at the right time and make sure everything is going smoothly, and because I clock out when work is done, not at any particular time of day, the company was paying me 1-2 hours of overtime each day to do part of Delmy's job that she could do easily and wasn't allowed to. Hurray logic.

Delmy and Kay were not agitators. They both played along, at least when managers were near. Delmy was fired; Kay wasn't. Guessing by the bridge controversy

So, we were sick of this place, but this season only ran until the end of the month. We just wouldn't return next year. I really, really needed the money. Everyone else gets financial aid for their college tuition; I don't. The government assumes my parents pay for all of my college just because they can pay for all of my college; they don't. I am brokeass poor, and needed three more weeks at $500, $600 a week before I go back to school.

So, tomorrow, we are going into the office to pick up my check and the things I left there. Because I had no idea I was no longer working there, I left my magnetic organizer, my giant bag of M&Ms, my headphones, and a bunch of stickynotes with things written on them that I needed. We are going to dress very professionally, with nice khakis and button-down shirts. We are going to talk calmly and reasonably with our (former) boss and find out exactly what is going on. (And possibly how they plan to operate, since they have no one trained to do any of our jobs.) And if she blows us off and makes it clear that they especially don't give a fuck about us, we are taking off our button-down shirts and walking out in our "Bitches" shirts. It stops us from dumping acid in the lines, or attacking her and cutting off all of her hair, or spreading the rumor among the line workers that the INS is coming, which were other thoughts expressed this morning.

Okay, so sorry for venting so much. As you can tell, I'm a little mad at this company. So, can we do what we plan on doing?

I hope that wasn't too much ranting and too little question. I really do want to know if I can legally put that on a tshirt, and I can't think of a better way to do it. I thought about finding my camera cord and making this not text-only, but I just don't want to mentally associate one of my pretty things with the amount of negativity here.

If this needs to come down, I will understand