A nasty virus has found its way onto HP's corporate servers, and employees have been warned that the payload is far too damaging for their fragile eyes. The virus, you see, is really a document chock full of criticisms for HP's CEO Carly Fiorina.

The Fiorina-A bug arrives in an innocent package. It's a file with the tag "Document.pdf." When opened, the document appears to be a memo sent from Carly Fiorina to all employees, but it's actually something far more vile. The paper is riddled with attacks on Fiorina's pay package, performance and new found love for DRM (digital rights management) technology.

Ouch.

"The dozens of magazine covers with my picture on them has certainly caused my stock to rise significantly during my time with HP. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Hewlett-Packard's stock."

The PDF contains a few more jabs at Fiorina along with a chart tracking HP's stock price versus the S&P 500 since Fiorina took over as CEO.

HP corporate did not take kindly to the critical memo, giving it an almost virus-like billing. One manager in the personal systems group warned employees not to look at the disparaging doc at any cost.

"Please make note that you have probably received an email from what looks like Carly Fiorina in your inbox (arrived at 11:08am CT). I have confirmed with Carly's office that this was not sent from her. Please do not open the email or attachment… just delete it completely from your outlook."

It should not come as a shock to see an HP employee circulating a critical note about Fiorina given the events of the last week. All hell broke loose after HP's concern about falling off a prestigious Fortune magazine corporate culture poll became public knowledge.

Morale appears to be at an all-time low, and the Fiorina-A virus is not helping. Close your eyes, everyone. ®

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