Actually just went through this exact situation last week. Temporary gig seeing if I made a good fit, didn't like the contract they wanted me to sign. I just s

Actually just went through this exact situation last week. Temporary gig seeing if I made a good fit, didn't like the contract they wanted me to sign. I just set up bitlbee to do XMPP in irssi. Hipchat is accessible via XMPP. Lots of little annoying quirks but it was better than nothing.