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Unethical requests from supervisors

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A recent TechRepublic poll found that a majority of members had been asked to do something unethical by their supervisor. What about you? If you have been asked to do something you thought was unethical, tell us about it. What was the request, and what did you do about it? What CAN you do? Are you darned if you do, and darned if you don't?

59 replies

by lordinfidel

There is a grey area in the realm of the unethical. Each person will need to define what that grey area is.

When I know that something is unethical, I will always state my case as to why it is so. Depending on the severity will depend on if I will do it or not.

If your supervisor is asking you to do something that is clearly a violation of corporate policy or the law, you do not have to do it.

If it is a grey area, then you will need to figure out what will happen if the chips go down. Can you state that you were just following orders or can you be severly implicated in improper conduct.

Whenever I have been asked before to do unethical things(not by my supervisor), like hack into netwks, read e-mails, give access, etc, I will state that it is a security violation and I will not do it.

by james r linn

I'll admit that when I started my career fresh out of university, I learned of an accounting practise at my first employer which was not GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) which was done to show a more stable revenue growth. I did play a part in gathering information, but didn't committ the deed - though the senior management up to the president were well aware of it. As a privately held company the people being fooled were the owners.

What was happening had to do with consistency in revenue recognition. In other words, when it was a good month, some sales were not recognised to boost the next month, whereas if it was a poor month, some sales were brought forward, even though technically they shouldn't have been.

Since then I have worked for "better" companies and never had the issue come up. Having worked with auditors, both internal and external, and quite closely with senior management in large companies, I would be much more careful about doing it, as I better understand the consequences.

james

by admin

You can't trust someone that is willing to do the unethical, and in our business trust is a HUGE part of why people keep us there in the long run. Once a network admin breaks trust, even for their company, they are always suspect even if they're notreading the companies e-mail. Someone may praise you in the short term, but in the long term you will be known as not trustworthy and therefore not suitable for top networking positions.

by littledragon

The most unethical company I worked for was in violation of banking regulations regarding staffing levels in a mainframe data center. The operators were scheduled to work 12 hours shifts alone, and then told that it was corporate policy that we hadto take a 30 minute lunch break AWAY from the computer room. Since we couldn't eat in the computer room, and to meet corporate policy, we had to leave the computer room unattended for 30 mintues every day, in direct violation of the banking rules.

So when faced with such a choice, break banking regulations or corporate policy, what can you do? I wanted very much to report the management to the auditors, but also desparately needed the job. My compromise was to get an email from my manager saying that operators would not be held accountable for anything that happened in the computer room during lunch break, but I don't think that would have held up in court. What would you have done?

by admin

To me it sounds like you handled it well. You brought it to the attention of your supervisor and got it in writing. I don't really know much about banking law, but generally I would try to effect change within. You have done this step by making people aware. It also sounds like you also found a new job whare I assume you are more comfortable. This would be my other suggestion, especially if you know your company is choosing to be unethical. They probably won't be treating their employees ethically as well in time.

by mjitconsulting

Our superior's job security is as important to them as it is to us, ergo- damned if you damned if you don't. So we do. There appears to be no loyalty at any level of the IT world. Very dog eat dog. I know I was victimized once and I will never let it happen again. If my boss wants me to get intelligence on my colleagues he can do it himself. It sucked to be used!

by usaatca2001

I had a new job several years ago where the Exec. VP (my boss's boss) asked me to look into the relationship between my boss & a vendor he was using that happened to be a friend of his. At first, I didn't think anything funny was going on, but as time went on I did. Of course, since my boss knew what I was doing, it strained our relationship. When I brought my concerns to the VP, he said that only he could fire me since he had hired me. Can you guess the ending? A few weeks later I was fired bymy boss. You're so right. Let them do their own spying.

by james r linn

and it cost you, but doing the wrong thing would have cost you your integrity, which is more valuable than any job.

James

by nonsequitr

I am an attorney and was once asked by my CEO to figure out a way to make an illegal termination legal.

by recoverer

My boss asked me to 'watch for noncompliant behavior' of one of my team members. Since she was an excellent programmer who consistently did good work, this puzzled me - until he explained that 'those people' cause trouble. It turned out that 'those people' can be identified by skin color.
I went straight to HR and said I refused to be a party to harrassment. Both the team member & I were transferred. And the boss got moved to a 'consulting' role.

by oldefar

Each of us is responsible for our own actions. When we compromise our personal values for any reason, we set the environment for others to act in an unethical fashion.

The recent events at Enron, Worldcom, and other major corporations is a case in point. Long before senior management got caught cooking the books, employees at all levels were guilty of acting or allowing peers to act unethically. Small things like innaccurate time sheets, padded expense reports, unreported overtime, and sugar coated outage reports. Things like work place bias, improper hiring or firing practices, or favortism within a work group were tolerated. What the senior management did was not indicative of significantly different ethical behavior, just a different sphere of influence.

Acting according to a high ethical standard carries some individual risk, but having a consistent high standard of action reduces that. If your reporting is consistently accurate and your work is good, it is difficult for management to fire you without facing a wrongful termination suit. The advantages a high ethical standard provides include sleeping nights, no fear of being "caught" at something, and a general raising of the ethical standard of the group.

by prytech

I agree with you completely. There are times when a person is faced with a workplace situation that may be legal, in line with corporate standards, and yet still contrary to one's own set of personal ethical standards. Those are the situations where character - or lack of it - is in high relief.

Managers are responsible for communicating a corporate mission and culture, but so many seem to believe that the rules and guidelines apply only to others.

Personal integrity is worth far greater than job security. Personal integrity has power, too; most managers who direct a subordinate to an unethical task wilt when confronted by a resolute personal integrity.

by mark

that is what you have when you consistently live by an ethical standard. I agree with you 100%. I have always said that to be a liar you have to have a really, really good memory.
Lying became the way out of many situations in my previous employer. So much so that it got to the point you wouldn't know the truth from the fiction if it smacked you in the face.
I stood up for my ethics (being a new Christian helped a great deal) and would up unemployed!

by ken

Acting in an unethical manner can also carry individual risk. I work as Director IT for a small missionary organization - Look in any bible - unethical actions carry a penalty - and forever is an awfully long time. Two evenings a week and on Sundays I work as a volunteer chaplain at the local penitentiary - most of the businessmen I meet in there started out by simply "padding a little" on the old expense report.

by mike-r

In 1988, my responsibilities included renovating a large corporation test site. The site had antiquated data-acquisition equipment and analysis systems. Software was outdated and unsupported. As network engineer, I submitted a ROI study justifying the need and an AFE—my second for this corporation. The work resulted in a $1.6 million dollar approval. I could not conceive that the director of engineering would co-opt money from a project this large.

An earlier project should have made clear the lack of character this person possessed. This situation involved relocating a piece of equipment, justified by the cost savings provided at a proposed location, to a location of his convenience. Tensions ensued, forcing my immediate supervisor into early retirement—after a courageous effort to follow the corporation’s intensions for that project. No supervisor existed during the second AFE.

On receiving a $1.6 million dollar approval, the director siphoned one-third of the funds for a pet CAD station project—for which he had no approval. This seriously jeopardized any hope for completing the renovation. Replacing the antiquated data-acquisition equipment, adding power backup, and a test room to engineering section LAN provided for a productive use of both technicians and engineer’s time. Due to the siphoning, no funds remained for server, software, or workstations. Tensions grew, as the director of engineering made semi-daily rage-filled visits to myoffice (similar to the situation witnessed in the ex-supervisor’s case) regarding project completion. A new supervisor was hired. Although the supervisor was well intention—he had no desire to jeopardize his position with the company. I had distinct feedback regarding his respect for my position—and my courage and calmness maintained under violent verbal assaults. Eventually asked to resign for failing to com

by mike-r

(Note: The above submission truncated at 1596 characters--not 1930!)

...continued...

Eventually asked to resign for failing to complete the project, I left in this corporation 1990. I currently work for the state's top police agency.

I havemaintained contacts at this corporation—including the new supervisor. It is my understanding that the director is now relieved of his duties, isolated, and a new director—the once-new supervisor—is director.

by tyrant admin

I had a supervisor that believed it was ok to do anything if
you don't get caught. Of course when it came to the actual
doing he always tasked someone else.

He thought this tactic would work on me. Knowing he had only
100 licenses for twodifferent software applications he
ordered, not asked, me to load it on 300 machines. I explained
to him this is not only unethical but illegal as well and I
could wind up in jail for that many violations. He said he
would cover for me. OK, that's fine. You know how bad my memory
is, send this to me in an e-mail. Tell me exactly what it is
you want me to do and what you will do if there is a problem.
He never sent the e-mail and I pretended to forget what he
wanted me to do. After that every time he wanted me to do
something unethical or illegal I asked him to send me a
reminder by e-mail. Needless to say he didn't want a written
record of anything and I always pretended to forget. By the
way, I would not have done it had he sent the e-mail. I was
simply going to forward it to the ethics comittee. When a
company has billions in gov't contracts they tend to take such
offenses seriously, especially when it is gov't computers he
wanted me to load the software on.

Worked for me.

by always looking

For the last 3 months I have been on probation at the company I work for. I was put on probation for NOT breaking the law...
I work in a help desk as a lowly level 1 technician and we were using prepackaged help desk software. We were all gettingused to it and were entering our calls pretty much at the same rate until one day when I was signing on to the system and discovered that the license had expired and the software was disabled. We were all under the impression that we would not be using this again until the license was renewed. WRONG. Managment had a way around it. This particular software also had a web based side that apparently was not disabled when the license expired. We were told to keep using the software and that the license would not be renewed. When I went against this and did not utilize the software, I was reprimanded and put on probation because my "performance was not up to par with everyone elses". I could not even get anything more specific out of them than this and they have basically refused to talk about it any further. I was to have reveiws every week but have not and according to the letter I was given when this started, the probation enede on the 3rd but I have still not heard anything from anyone concerning it. Basically, I got bent over for 3 months for no good reason...

by cti-man

I worked for a company that was prone to do this same thing with licenses. I let my manager know ahead of time that I would request someone else to install any software that was not licensed. I am sure that it affected how I was treated but would have refused as you did. I now feel that the best way around this situation is to go ahead and do what is demanded. Next is to make a report to the "license police". I would give them my name and demand that it be kept confidential. This is to protect you later if they audit your company. USERS of unlicensed software at a company can also be made accountable for license misuse. This way you can show that you objected, if it comes to that point in any judicial matters. Failure to do this could jepordize your future to be hired by other companies and certainly any government or law enforcement job. Your integrity is more important than any job but I realize that it is a difficult situation. If most "straight arrows" would report misuse, then those who abuse licenses would be less likely to take a chance. Luckily, I now work at a company that strickly prohibits unlicensed software on their computers, whether company owned or personally owned. Good luck to all of you "Good Guys" (includes Gals too).

by mark

that is what I was told on the day I was let go from my previous emplorer. It had become very apparent that we did not see eye to eye when I started to question the integrity and ethics of actions within the company.
I was also told that "my attitude sucked" and they would never admit saying that to me in any court of law!
I am a better person for it, even though I am entering my 7th month of unemployment.

by ken

You may not have a job, but you can get up and look at yourself in a mirror. Do you think your previous boss could??

by marabella

You are not only a better person for being ethical, think about the company you worked for - is that really where you want to spend your time? Could you really be comfortable with that? A similar situation happened to me more than 20 years ago, andwhen I refused to be unethical, I was fired on the spot. It turned out to be a real blessing. Keep the faith, the market is beginning to open up - I've been out since the beginning of February - and have had more interviews these two weeks than I had in 6 months!

by jmorris

I started at a small company as a Network Admin to get my foot in the door. After about six months I started to realize that this company had not paid for one single Microsoft license. When I brought it to management's attention that the former administrators had installed the entire network without buying any licenses, they simply shrugged their shoulders and told me to keep installing workstations and servers without paying for software. Thankfully, Microsoft started sticking their noses in everybody's business. The CFO paniced and decided we should buy the appropriate licenses. $40,000 later, we were legal. The repercussions from that were our budgets for ever department were shot. I am still with this company today, but I can say that I am looking for greener pastures.

by cowen80194

Sounds familiar to me.

I worked somewhere that lt go of admins for their sexual position (Bi-Lesbian-Gay for example) even if it was just rumor started by the office managers and admins because a person would keep to their own morales and not take part in office romances. Most of the people working there were family of some sort. I was hired in based on my past record (small problem in my legal record that I have gotten corrected) because I would be a candidate that would not squeal about legal issues. WRONG! I called 1800 R U LEGIT and gave them the information and all the locations and names of servers with the illegal WINNT 4.0 Server software. That has protected me in this case and my record is still sqeaky clean.

Personal note:
Just because you have or dont have a smudge of some legal issue on your record do'nt let that be a ring and leash on your future and and your integrity.

by clwyattjr

I have my own shop, where we repair, upgrade, build and such. I can't begin to tell you the number of jobs I have lost because I refuse to do certain types of work because people do not have proper licenses'. People want you to load software they did not pay for such as brining in a system that has crashed and giving you a copy of a program with no certificate and saying.."you can use your numbers, right?" This kinda makes you understand where some software companies come from.

by amehi

I was an instructor at ASA Institute in Brooklyn where I taught computer courses.

Now, a had a student who did not once show up for class throughout the semester. I only had his name on my Computer Architecture class. At the end of the semester I naturally gave him an F grade.

On the first day of the following semester, I was totally surprised when the Chair of my department approached me asking that I change the F grade to a passing grade. I refused. He then suggested that I give the student an exam which, if the student passed, would then serve as grounds to change his grade. To this I replied that, that would not satisfy the requirements of the course, given that I gave several exams and projects during the semester.

I took the matter to the Vice President of Academic Affairs who said to me "Do you want to make a stink?". If so, I was advised to put it in writing. I did. In the end, I was fired.

Although I hold the A+ and MCSE certifications, plus an MBA, I am still looking for a job.

by bschaettle

Actually, this one was downright illegal (billing fraud): I was told to falsify timesheets to show a client that I had been working on their project as promised, when in fact I had been put on another project several weeks prior. Not wanting to face the client in court and risk losing my financial ass(ets), I grabbed my coffee cup and ran for the door.........

by marathoner

because...

it would have been MY ass in the toaster if we had been caught and you know it, but more importantly, the thing I was asked to do was blatantly illegal and unethical.

I was asked to break copy protection at hardware level. I was young and it was fun so I did it. That night I got to thinking about what my boss might have in mind for it. I found out they were planning to distribute cracked copies of proprietary software. This was not
in the USA, BTW. So the next morning I reset the copy protection and told them that I was unable to break it. I also destroyed all my notes.
One co-worker didn't get the hint and said, "but it worked yesterday, I saw it." They said is this true, I said yes but I am not going
to show you what I did or how I did it. I think I'd best be going now. I left and never went back.

by mccannk

Early in my career as a programmer for one of our largest financial institutions I was asked to remove transactions from a customer account. The net effect was that the 20 data entry mistakes made by the account manager were cleaned up and the bottom line did not change. The goal was to clean up customer reports. I refused to do this without a signed memo from my boss's boss. He agreed with a sigh but acknowledged that I was doing the right thing.

Stick to your guns.

by mark

I worked for a small manufacturing company as the Engineering Manager and the IT Director. I actually wore many hats. We had a quality problem with one of our largest customers and a part we were supplying them. We always bragged that even though we were not ISO9000 qualified all of our processes followed ISO standards.
The Vice-President of the company had set up a meeting with this customer to discuss the problem and the corrective actions that would not allow it ot happen again. In order to do so I was instructed to falsify documentation on the product showing a previous history of changes that would fix the problem.
That was the last time I did something like this and my future challenges were a contributing factor to my current unemployment status.

by mark

The same company I mentioned in my "can you make up those documents" post believed it to be ethical to buy one copy of a software package and load it anywhere it was needed.
I stopped doing this and starting putting in purchase requisitions for the software that was so desperately needed on other systems. Most of the time they were rejected and someone else loaded the software.
This also lead to my now unemployed status.

by jmorris

Next time call the BSA. Business Software Alliance. They can audit a company with US Marshalls and fine each piece of illegal software for a crazy ammount of money. That will fix their wagons.

by cti-man

Why wait, call the BSA now. They didn't have any concern for you, AND they deserve it.

by mark

The same company I mentioned in my "can you make up those documents" post believed it to be ethical to buy one copy of a software package and load it anywhere it was needed.
I stopped doing this and starting putting in purchase requisitions for the software that was so desperately needed on other systems. Most of the time they were rejected and someone else loaded the software.
This also lead to my now unemployed status.

by mark

The same company I mentioned in my "can you make up those documents" post believed it to be ethical to buy one copy of a software package and load it anywhere it was needed.
I stopped doing this and starting putting in purchase requisitions for the software that was so desperately needed on other systems. Most of the time they were rejected and someone else loaded the software.
This also lead to my now unemployed status.

by cowen80194

I worked for the largest mobile telecommunications prepaid calling cell phone company who also supported phones when they are out of the calling area.

I was moved from my job in the warehouse which I enjoyed the change of pace. To the NOCC, which I was also, quite a bit more qualified for.

While there I was to give detailed reporting of outages and to maintain systems.

I am a very detail oriented person and after reporting every detail about a MCI outage in my log showing that we weredown for 12 hours my whole shift and have picked up the outage from the previous shift (they showed only 1 hour and the call at MCI was already 6 hours long) I was told by my managers they don?t need all the details and only to report when the lineswent down and they would fix the reports in the morning.

We had a backup modem called dial back and as long as we were on that "LONG DISTANCE" call we were up.... WRONG!

We were supposed to be on a T1 back and the dial back was for a brief down time only per corporate rules.

Well after a month of following direction and maintaining my normal ways of reporting they moved me to the Technical room to build Servers to be sent out to our prepaid cellular partners such as National Roaming Networks or prepaid cellular companies.

I was given a Windows NT 4.0 disk and told to make a system and install all of out in-house software with PCAnywhere. That sounds good I have boxes for both off the shelf soft wares.

Well after I built the system I was then told to copy (GHOST) the software onto over 1000 systems for a large Cell carrier that was expanding into a new region.

That I did and asked about license and was told that they are taking care of it.

to be continued

by cowen80194

After loading the machines I was reprimanded because none of the systems had the MS authorization number loaded and I had not loaded PCAnywhere on any of the systems.

The supervisor was pissed that loaded NT from an off the shelf disk that I was given as the copy of NT to load by the previous shifts tech. But the OEM serial number would not work with the off the shelf software, the SR. tech that took over my shift spent 8 hours trying to make it work and could not so I was called into the office to help fix my screw up or get fired for it.

When I got there what took place follows
I was asked if I understood what I was to do I told them yes and explained it.

I was asked if I loaded PCAnywhere. Truth is they changed my project before I could but I told the supervisor.

"I had not had the numbers to unlock NT so I could not load PCAnywhere."
(That was my first defense.)

Then after thinking about it I asked
"And besides all that where is the site license?" (That got me fired when I asked).

by cowen80194

I called and made my report with evidence submited to them and tehy have kept me confidential and I have not heard anymore from that company.

I think they have bigger things to deal with.

This was before Microsoft published their "Get Legal" campain and anyone beng investigated before teh campain was ineligible to get lisensed with out being fined.

by gkk

After having read all these threads, I see that so many of you are unemployed, one being out of work for 7 months now. Someone asked if you and your corrupt ex-boss can look yourselves in the mirror. Well, when you look at yourself, you probably look pretty gaunt and pale from not being able to eat three meals a day. And your ex-boss can still make his car and mortgage payments. All this over software licenses. Months and months of each of your personal lives ruined. You are starving so that Microsoft can continue to eat high off the hog. I am not advocating software piracy nor defending your ex-employers. I am only feeling sorry for the present state of your personal lives. You have sacrificed for the greater good of Microsoft andwill get no reward in the end.
Was it really, really worth it? 5 years from now, what will you think when you look back on this?

by james r linn

I dislike Microsoft. I tolerate people who have computers at home with illegal software - as long as they don't ask me for help in stealing - or in fixing their computer because they can't get vendor support.

But a company should be held to a higher standard. How can a company which makes items that are copyright and their own intellectual property blatantly steal other people's intellectual property.

When I started a job as a manager, an employee showed me that we had network installs ofsoftware that should have been licensed. I immediately had a quick census done which showed we had hundreds of copies of software illegally. I immediately blocked any further installations, set up a process for anyone who needed it to buy a legit copy, and set about clawing back enough copies and buying some copies to put us in a legal position. Not the kind of work my boss wanted me to do, but what I did was for my personal integrity, and to shield the company from legal liability.

I think we forget when we join a firm we have an obligation not only to our immediate supervisor but also to the company as a whole. Protect the firm at the cost of your relationship with your boss? It may be hell in the short term, but good in the long term.

James

by marabella

Integrity is always worth it; 20+ years ago, I was asked to do something unethical, and when I refused, was fired. It took months to find a new job; I changed careers and today am very grateful for having refused to compromise my ethics. They didn't sacrifice for the greater good of Microsoft, but for their own character. What did Bill Clinton sacrifice his ethics for? He will go down in history as the unethical President!

by ken

I do not believe that you will starve because you made an ethical stand. It is not Microsoft that you have to worry about. I read a small passage that talked about the consequences of unethical behavior - this book called it sin. It would appear that a few months of being unemployed are an easy trade-off against an eternity of much more drastic consequences.

by mrafrohead

That is IF you believe in that type of stuff...

Personally, I can say this. I would worry about your personal ethics. That would be most important. You are the one who has to live with it.

When I first started my job at the company I am currently with. I helped to break into a stolen laptop from another business. I was never told what was going on, but I "knew". It was a challenge and it was fun to do and I did it well. For me I thought of it as my first "legal" attempt at hacking. I thought that by doing it it would make my boss proud and help to secure my future with the company.

Well... They now know a partial bit of my potential. I think that the company is afraid of what I "could" do, and I believe that it is negatively affecting me here. Which is ironic due to the fact that they asked me if I could help.

Moral of the story. If you do what they ask of you, it could be a test and no one even knows it yet. You could screw yourself with the place you are at,and then on top of that, have to live with it. I don't believe in stealing peoples property and I helped to contribute to it and it really bothers me.

But then again, I guess it's a learning experience. Next time, I will know to say no and not take a juvenile approach to it as I did the last time.

Guess the person that said you learn something new everyday was right...

Mrafrohead

by mark

I sacrificed for the greater good of me in the eyes of the only one that matters - GOD. Attitudes like the one you express are the root cause of why our society is the way it is. We, as humans, can do nothing for ourselves but destroy ourselves. GOD is in control and the more who do not believe that the uglier this world is going to be. By the way, it is going to get worse. God's plan is revealed through prophecy and I am glad I will not be here for the Tribulation.

by cowen80194

Well I still fine for turning in American Roaming Networks Inc (ARNI) / National Telecom for piracy.

I don't think we all have done this for a reward (even though that would have been great). I think we have all done this and will still do this because it is the "RIGHT" thing and since morales are a hard thing to find we want to stick to ours.

Actually if I could get a company off the ground I have found several good canadates that I would hire off this thread alone.

What would was say in 5 years I think it would be something like at least we were not in a 5x5x8 room for 30 and some change. I would rather have a hunger in my belly then a Class "A" feloney for software piracy on my history making me "UN HIRABLE".

Mosy companies use criminal back ground check as the only method to allow you to proceed to the next level in the hiring phase.

by firstaborean

On my first day on one job, I refused to turn anything on, because the only fire extinguisher in the place was a soda-acid one, utterly unsafe around electrical things, which, there, ran on 240 VAC. I held my stance until they replaced the extinguisher.
I worked for two years at that place, until I chose to quit. Never compromise principles!

by david1957160

Years ago my girlfriend worked for a supermarket selling food etc. One of her work collegues stole food etc. from the store. I told her to get another job. This meant she got a good reference from her old employer, and was not tarnished by the criminal activities of others. My advice is to immediately look for another job, even if you just joined them. This should cut down your period of unemployment. It looks better to resign rather than be sacked. You should secretly, tell no one, get photocopies, tape record conversations and write down what was said and done, for evidence, and go to see a lawyer, get him to send you a letter of advice. Do not report your employer to the authorities. Do not tell your prospective new employer any of this. I am afraid that most employers, even honest ones, do not like people who report illegal activities to the authorities or to senior people in the company, even if the criminal activity harms the company, like theft of goods, rather than lack of software licencing, which does not harm your employer. They fear that you would blow the whistle on them to their boss or the authorities, even if they are innocent!!

by whstrain

Where can I find out what typically happens to a company when they are found have illegal software?
What about what happens to the people involved in the illegal installations whether they helped or not?

by jennylo19

My previous boss (who is also small partner of the company) asked me to open a letter address to a manager marked "Confidential" by the corporate office (his partner) and reissue another letter. I darned if I do, I darned if I don't since my boss is a partner also. I always get caught in the middle, always wrong, no matter what... Thanks goodness I no longer work for them.

I always like to maintain the independent view or objective view. With my current employer and as a data analyst, from time to time, I am asked by CIO, COO, CFO and some senior management to produce reports. Reports are generated based on facts - data collected. When ever numbers are generated, there will be winners as well as loosers. It is up to the interpretation of the reader of particular report to look deeper into the numbers. I however always put remarks at the bottom of the report (just in case of unethical request) For example, the management may want me to leave out certain departments stats toskew the #. They will be in the remarks (at least from the reports that I produced).

It is pretty sad. I see what they (the excutives) trying to do but many people just take their words for it.

Whenever I can, information will not go to one executive only rather several. From that, there will more likely to have corporation power balance among the senior people. They can attack each other without my involvement. All of them may not like me or give me the raise that I deserve since I have no loyalty toward any one of them but I preserve the right to tell the truth, generating reports. I say this to people all the time: numbers don't lie but people do. Whenever a report is presented, don't take it for the face value but look at who is presenting it. Also definately look at the remarks/fine prints. They may be the most important information in the report.

jlo

by techinfoman

Two of my employees were asked to develop a piece of software by a department manager and with the company president's approval. I was not informed of the transaction until it came time for the guys to get paid and the unethical manager couldn't get the funds. I expressed my thoughts to the president on the matter and had to fight for three months to get these guys paid. This president has since been fired. The point that I made to him is that if your going hire people to do work for the company with company funds and those people are employees, why go under the table with it. They were trying to get around the fact that if they had gone through me it would have to have been scheduled, and they didn't want to wait. All they needed todo was let me know that it was a top priority and I would have gotten it done and the guys would have been paid on time. Comments?

by ken

I work as a volunteer prison chaplain and the people I meet in prison are one of two possible types:

You have the person who made a mistake (most of them under the influence of some chemical or other) and

You have the scammers. Scammers spend almost all of their waking moments trying to "get it over" on somebody or something. If just a fraction of that time and effort was spent on simply living life honestly, we could reduce the prison population drastically.

by nc-batman

I must be very lucky and am apparently in the extreme minority.
I work for a small company (35 employees) that provides network and system support for many large national and local companies. I have NEVER been asked or pressured to do anything unethical by my boss. In fact, my boss will bear additional expense to ensure that everything that we do is legal and above board.
It is very comforting to work for an employer that believes in doing it right even if it lowers our margin. This company has been around and profitable for 21 years..... THANKS BOSS!

by ken

I too work in an ethical environment - we are a Christian missionary organization. Our boss has some very long term and very undesirable consequences in store for those who are unethical.

by urras

I managed a small network for a design shop several years ago. When I started the job, the network would crash at least once a day, and many hours of work were lost. The previous "system administrators" would reset the server to "fix" the problem. Our office manager though they did a great job because they were constantly putting out fires.

Well, after several months in the job, I managed to bring everything under control, and would go weeks without problems, this is because I was being proactive, and fixed potential problems before they had any effect on the network. My manager thought that all I did was to sit at my terminal all day and read technical manuals. In other words, I wasn't doing anything.

Well, next thing I know, my supervisor comes up to me and asks me what is the state of the network, and how long it would be before it crashed if I didn't do any preventive work. I told him it would take two weeks of not doing anything before a problem might occur.

He told me not to do anything on the network for the next two weeks, look busy, and be ready to pounce on the problem when it occurred.

Guess what?

The network crashed two weeks later, and my manager labeled me a hero for bringing the network up in less than 15 minutes.

by james r linn

In most organizations, the downtime is measured on a monthly basis, and if its not decreasing or low and stable, there is hell to pay.

That manager needed his head read.

James

by ghstinshll

The idiots in questio should have known (esp in IT) an d legal risk management, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure... (or however ti goes)

by ken

Neet job if you can get it - just be sure to schedule the network failures around your vacation.

by ghstinshll

What a refreshing change to refer to you guys with a non-licensing "unethical request" story. Here's the scenario...

1. An employee took a leave of absence. A temp was hired and used the employee's account for network, email, etc... The temp was let go for end of contract, and a termination ticket is in to terminate the "leave employee" since she gave a termination status to the company.

2. Enter new temp to start on Monday. No ID to use any more since "leave employee" is gone from thesystem. HR wants a fee to add access for a non-employee, office manager won't pay for it.

3. A "Hurt Employee" is off for 4 weeks since last week's car-rolling incident on a gravel road. Office manager wants to just hand over the "hurt employee's" ID to the temp for the temp-to-hire duration while "hurt employee" is out.

I said, "That's not the right thing to do, you don't just hand over a trusting employee's ID to a temp for 30 days and inform them later that it was done." Thankfully I'm respected as an industry professional, although I'm new at confrontations. My experience with former Operations Managers has given me a lot of knowledge of their responsibilities as a whole, and I've had good models to mold my "Ops Ideals" after...

We found a way to keep the fee out of it, by not requesting network wide access, but just giving this employee local office access by my domain.

Lesson: Don't just jump to say Yes in this industry. The first instinctive answer is "let me get back to you on that after I have some time to think about it". Thinking prevailed in this incident and always tends to be the strong-arm.

This Ops Mgr is not unethical, but wanted to do an unethical thing because she hasn't had to worry much about ethics in this midwestern office. She's a new Ops mgr as well.

by mlayton

I once worked as a Network Admin and database admin for a non-profit and was once told to generate receipts for "donations" that did not exist or were generously gifted back, making the full donation not tax-deductible. Bad bad bad and I was told "I don't care if it is illegal, just do it." I left the job, the "supervisor" ended up shortly after having a nervous breakdown and going for a "vacation".

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