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A Corporate Code of Ethics? 67

Posted by Cliff from the and-this-changes-things-how dept.
Ethically Challenged asks: "Under the guise of recent legislation everyone at the publicly traded software company I work for is being asked to sign a 'Code of Business Conduct and Ethics'. In part, we have to swear to the following: we should not use company resources for any non-business purposes (I probably can't even write this); we must disclose to the CFO any relative that works for a customer, competitor or vendor; and, we are required to narc on coworkers who we suspect violate the code in any way. Are developers at other companies being asked to do this? Does it bother anyone that lowly workers like me are being asked to sign these things because executives are too immoral to behave themselves? Isn't all of this a colossal waste of time since most of it is common sense and it's pretty clear that the bad guys will ignore it anyway?" Most of this stuff sounds like the boilerplate protections most companies put in their employee agreements in the first place. Since you generally have to sign such agreements before you get your first paycheck, this new initiative seems rather redundant to me. Can someone more clued-in explain the justification behind this one?
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A Corporate Code of Ethics? More

A Corporate Code of Ethics?

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  • This is so that they can still . . . (Score:4, Interesting)

    by user no. 590291 ( 590291 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @12:48PM (#5047991)
    . . . order employees to do things that are dishonorable, illegal, and/or unethical, then leave them holding the bag.

    "He didn't have to steal those plans like he was asked--in fact, it violates our code of ethics, and he would have promptly been helped, and his supervisor relieved." Yeah, and donkeys fly.

    • The help don't need a code of ethics. Most of us are completely ethical. Our bosses, and all the executive types are the crooks. The thing the above poster was asked to sign is absurd. It sounds like another way to give management an excuse to fire help at whim. Phony baloney codes of conduct won't prevent Enrons, Worldcoms, et all because money talks and bullshit walks. Deregulation has given businessmen licence to rob and loot, and they have used this licence. If Ken Lay, Berie Ebbers, Scott Sullivan et al faced hard time in prison, and not just fines they can pass down to the help through pay cuts and layoffs, that might motivate them to stop being robbers and looters. And by prizon, I mean the kind of dungeon a kid caught with drugs is sent to, not the kind of country club with a fence that white collor criminals and celebrities are sent to on the rare occasion that one of them does time. Will that ever happen? Probably not. Our congress is a bunch of whores, and corporate lobbyists are their Johns, and their pimps.

  • Tightening the rules (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BornInASmallTown ( 235371 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:04PM (#5048123)
    Sometimes you see companies doing this in order to make the rules more strict or to communicate to the employees that you are about to enforce them.

    For example, we once had to sign a similar agreement about patents we held or had been granted at a previous job--even though we had already signed something similar when we came to work in the first place. (We were not granted any stock options unless we signed the new agreement.) The idea was that my current company wanted to ensure that their list was valid so that they would be justified in defending their own patents, or going after any that employees were granted during employment there.

    It's just a lot easier to enforce an existing rule after you remind everyone that the rule is in place. That's why you hear around the holidays that the highway patrol will be cracking down on [insert your favorite violation, most often seat belt wearing where I'm from]. The law is already in place, and it is probably *possible* to enforce, but it is *easier* to enforce and subsequently prosecute if no one has an excuse of being ignorant of the law.
    • Having previously worked as executive managment at a small start up I have talked with enough lawers in this area to understand two things. (You should consult your own lawyer before acting, as I'm not one and only want to make you aware of what you should ask an actual lawyer! I also don't know if this varies by state.)

      The company pretty much has to either get you to sign this BEFORE you start work; or give you aditional compensation for signing away more rights. So normally these things will come before a raise, bonus, or stock options. The reason for this is that the contract is much less likely to stand up in court if they don't.

      So if you are being asked to sign without being offered a carrot, you have a few options:

      1. Don't sign and see what happens.

      2. Ask for the carrot.

      3. Sign it and ignore it. When they try to enforce it get a lawyer to argue that you signed under fear of losing your job, and did not sign of your own free will. According to lawyers I have talked to the judge's seem to take this as "they put a gun to my head and said sign it" and hence through the contract out of court, basiclly making it "null and void." (What ever that means....)

      At my current company (a fortune 500 where I'm low on the totem pole) I was asked to agree to an ethics policy (via e-mail) that boiled down to "don't do anything you wouldn't want to see in the headlines of your hometown paper." Thats pretty easy to live with, so I agreed no problem.

      A real lawyer want to way in?
  • What are the consequences of not signing? If you had not been hired, they could make your hiring conditional on signing. Once you are an employee, what are they going to do? I think that firing you would be a collossal stupidity on their part, and could bring a lawsuit. What law do they claim triggered this?

  • The Rationale (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You're being asked to do this so your company can say that they adhere to a code of ethics. They think that having one means they're following one, and, in the eyes of many, that's true. It's form over substance. Companies with ethics policies appear to be ethical.

    If you sign it, keep a copy of it for yourself.
  • isn't the corporate world funny? I mean, they steal the baby, and then they blame the dog for the dirty diapers/smell......
  • Most of this stuff sounds like the boilerplate protections most companies put in their employee agreements in the first place. Since you generally have to sign such agreements before you get your first paycheck, this new initiative seems rather redundant to me.

    ...then what is the problem with signing it again?
    • You should have to sign it.

      I'm a good, mainly law abiding person, but one day I might accidentally break a law, opps... You see most people trust that if I accidentally broke the law then I'm not really all that bad a person and my own guilt will be punishment enough.

      Things like:
      You get home,
      Unpack the shopping,
      How the Fcsk did that get in there, opps, I don't think I payed for it either...
      That's accidently breaking the law.
      You shouldn't have to sign somthing to say that you won't take good from the shop that you havn't payed for.

  • a better model... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zogger ( 617870 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:13PM (#5048193) Homepage Journal
    ... a better model and more universally ethical would be for the US government to scrap the laws that made corporations "persons". All that did was obfuscate human responsibility. "Corporations" are allowed to pay "humans" profits-they get the fruits of their labors, but when it comes time to dispute some manner in court it becomes a "corporate" problem and it's extremely hard to pin down which exact "humans" are at fault or liable. Extremely hard. Magnify this by daisy chaining,especially offshore/internationally- where corporations are created on the fly on paper using yet again another front corporation of "lawyers" ad absurdum, so they can lease stuff to themselves, use one corporation to "lose" money at to avoid taxes, use another corporation to pay for "expenses" that regular old single individuals can't deduct as expenses, etc etc it becomes -enron and worldcom.

    What they are doing now is a pre-CYA effort with these ethics agreements. It's already theoretically illegal to break the law. This contract agreement is duplicating what already exists in yet another fashion. It might have a marginal effect. It's "feel good" legislation and effort, a facade move.

    What would be interesting is if employee "guilds" (can't use the U word, that is considered swearing in IT land for some weird reason) would band together and force employers to sign personal accountability statements with serious fines held in third party escrow accounts for violations of breach of contract with their employees, for instance for issuing orders that are illegal, insuring open honesty in accounting, promotions, business models, etc, but that ain't happening any time soon, the PHBs and cartel lobbyists (the PHB unions) and polytickshuns would through a hissy fit.
    • The whole personification of corporations is something which is required for a number of things in business like contracts as only a "person" can make a contract. When you agree to sell 5,000 widgets to company X's procurement guy, he hasn't agreed to buy them, he is acting as an agent for his company in order that the company can buy them from your company. After all, he probably doesn't have the money himself and you probably don't have the 5,000 widgets. By making the company a "person" which can "agree" to contracts (actually the employees agree as agents of the company), you enable business to take place.

      Yes, there are ways to abuse this notion of a corporate "person", especially in limited companies, but that's the price paid for allowing business to take place. Should something be done about it? *shrug* I'm not up to date on the legal stuff enough to make comments.

    • Problem is liability. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Unknown Poltroon ( 31628 ) <unknown_poltroon1sp@myahoo.com> on Thursday January 09, 2003 @02:00PM (#5048507)
      Would anyone EVER start any kind of busisness, if when it failed, or had an accident, they could be sued barefoot and out of thier own house? With corporations, there is less personal risk involved. If they did away with corporations, something else identical with a different name would pop up, or the entire worlds economy would die in about a day.
      • If they did away with corporations, something else identical with a different name would pop up, or the entire worlds economy would die in about a day.


        Then how do you think this country functioned in the decades before corporations were granted the majority of the immunities they currently enjoy?

        • Then how do you think this country functioned in the decades before corporations were granted the majority of the immunities they currently enjoy?

          Well, if someone had something you wanted, you shot them and took it. It's how the West was won, John Wayne. I'll take the present convention of lawyers being rude to one another in court, less messy.

      • Re:Problem is liability. (Score:4, Informative)

        by rickwood ( 450707 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @04:37PM (#5049661)
        Corporations per se are not the issue.

        The issue is that in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific R. Co., 118 U. S. 394 (1886) [findlaw.com], the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations were persons entitled to protection under the 14th Ammendment to the U.S. Constitution, a decsion regarding which Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas later said, "There was no history, logic, or reason given to support that view."

        Before this decsion things were decidedly different. An excerpt from Kalle Lasn's excellent article on the subject USA(TM) [adbusters.org] proves informative:


        Early American charters were created literally by the people, for the people as a legal convenience. Corporations were "artificial, invisible, intangible," mere financial tools. They were chartered by individual states, not the federal government, which meant they could be kept under close local scrutiny. They were automatically dissolved if they engaged in activities that violated their charter. Limits were placed on how big and powerful companies could become. Even railroad magnate J. P. Morgan, the consummate capitalist, understood that corporations must never become so big that they "inhibit freedom to the point where efficiency [is] endangered."

        The two hundred or so corporations operating in the US by the year 1800 were each kept on fairly short leashes. They weren't allowed to participate in the political process. They couldn't buy stock in other corporations. And if one of them acted improperly, the consequences were severe. In 1832, President Andrew Jackson vetoed a motion to extend the charter of the corrupt and tyrannical Second Bank of the United States, and was widely applauded for doing so. That same year the state of Pennsylvania revoked the charters of ten banks for operating contrary to the public interest. Even the enormous industry trusts, formed to protect member corporations from external competitors and provide barriers to entry, eventually proved no match for the state. By the mid-1800s, antitrust legislation was widely in place.


        Furthermore, consider the information given on They Rule [theyrule.net] and Open Secrets [opensecrets.org]. This information clearly points to a unhealthy shift towards plutocracy.

        The original purpose of corporations was exactly as you describe, to spread the risk of an enterprise among multiple investors such that a failure wouldn't ruin them. Since Santa Clara, corporations have grown to the point where they are almost completely unaccountable to the people. A corporation is not a human person, so it is not subject to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs [valdosta.edu]. Yet, alarmingly, as corporate power has grown in the last century so has their collective control over the necessities of Maslow's Hierarchy for the rest of us.

        In conclusion, while I agree that a legal and financial fiction very much like what we call a corporation is necessary for the continued economic health of the United States, I dispute that what we call a corporation today was the intent of the framers or is defensible by any measure other than the economic benefit to the corporate "person" itself.
        • Thanks! What you said. I was in a rush this morning and didn't have time to do such a good job as you did with the corporations and their history. A lot of folks seem to think corporations have always been as they are now, which you have shown is simply not the case.

          Now, if people would take the personal time to research the actual history of the origins of the "federal reserve act" and how that has lead to the longest running largest concerted ripoff in US history we could sort some economic *things* out better. Too bad it's not taught in public schools, guess it would conflict with "diversity awareness" training or some such.

          Here's another one most folks don't get. Ask some adult how much "tax" the US people pay. You'll get rough answers like 50% etc. I doubt one in 10,000 has thought it through to the logical conclusion that 100% of the money is taxed back into "government" hands in well under 10 commercial transactions, yet the government persists in the "debt" fiction for generations.

          I hope your post gets modded up to a more appropriate level. It deserves getting maxed out +
        • " ... I dispute that what we call a corporation today was the intent of the framers or is defensible by any measure other than the economic benefit to the corporate "person" itself."

          Benefit which is, of course, emminently taxable.

          Or, at least, it used to be.

          The corporate problem can't be solved unless the tax problem is solved *first*.

          One of these junkies has to stop before the other.

          {Excellent post, btw. I actually felt like I *should* be reading /. for a change...}
      • They did for centuries. The corporation is a 19th century invention.

  • Make sure you ask... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jpsst34 ( 582349 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:27PM (#5048278) Journal
    Go ahead and sign it. From then on, with every decision you make, ask yourself, "Is this good for the company?"

  • Recently signed a contract with the above mentioned company for a month long project...copy pasting from contractor guidelines found on NDA/Confidential Agreement:

    You will not personally solicit $$$ or other employees for gifts, flowers, social occasions, etc. on $$$ premises.

    Cannot even fall in love on the $$$ premises!

  • Yes, redundant... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by damu ( 575189 )
    The only reason they are doing this is to "show" the world or the investors, "we are commited to integrity, and will not tolerate blah blah blah" This will more than likely be a marketing ploy, or if something big does happen maybe they can place the blame on everyone and not just the top honchos.

  • Suspicion (Score:4, Funny)

    by Lionel Hutts ( 65507 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:35PM (#5048340) Journal
    I suspect literally every person I work with of, at least, taking the occasional personal phone call or surfing the web. Thus, I would have to report everyone who works for my firm, presumably every day.

    I wonder how many days it would take before they let me stop.
    • I suspect literally every person I work with of, at least, taking the occasional personal phone call or surfing the web. Thus, I would have to report everyone who works for my firm, presumably every day.

      Of course everyone does. I have a similar agreement in place -- heck, I have to click "OK" on some such agreement when I log in to my workstation -- and here I am posting to Slashdot. The higher-ups know that people do this, and are generally pretty easy-going about it. As long as you don't go overboard, no-one really minds.

      It's when you get people who surf the web for hours at a time or take 40 minute personal phone calls that you have more of a problem, and this is fair enough. The other point is that they're covering themselves; usually the rule is, be fair by us, and we'll be fair by you, but remember that, should anything dubious come up, you've signed this agreement, so you can't come back and complain when you get fired for the pr0n surfing.

      Nobody here gets fired when they have a picture of the wife and kids as their desktop background, even though it's technically a violation of the agreement. OTOH, I suspect they'd have a problem if they put up one of those...you know...adult pictures.

      It comes down to this: letter of the law versus spirit of the law. And most people can recognize the difference. (Apparently, "most people" doesn't include the majority of posters who've commented on this story thus far.)

  • This seems oddly familiar (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is anyone else reminded of a recent "Andy Richter Controls The Universe" episode? Ok, whatever you do, if you see duct tape in the hands of any management types, just cover your genitals and RUN!
    • yeah, for those who didn't see it...Conan O'Brien guest starred as Andy's new boss...Conan's character (Fred) was, to say the least, a little nutty...in any case, his first action, was that he wanted co-workers to narc on each other if another employee was misappropriating office supplies, or things like that...

      in any case, i love that show...it's hilarious, and damn, wendy & jessica are good looking...

  • Get some dirt on the guy who thought this up... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ivan256 ( 17499 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:53PM (#5048455)
    Walk by his office frequently until you catch him on a personal phone call. You'll be obligated to show him how stupid the new policy is. Better yet, if he fires you for pointing it out you'll probably have grounds for a lawsuit.
  • This part stinks.

    we must disclose to the CFO any relative that works for a customer, competitor or vendor;

    For starters, it's none of the companies business whom your relatives work for. Second, it is vague as almost *any* company could be considered to potentially have *some* business relationship with your company, especially if you are bug (for example Microsoft). Third, are you personally supposed to keep track of your relatives and their job changes?

    Finally, in this effort to prevent kickbacks and other shenanigans, the CFO is the person to be informed? Why the CFO, why not HR? And who is watching the CFO?

    • Re:Relative BS (Score:3, Informative)

      by Gurwadd ( 202790 )
      The reason one must disclose this information is probably due to SEC/NASD Compliance issues. It is more than likely going to be used to control what is known as "material inside information". In short, to control insider trading. You can be an insider without working for a company just being related to someone inside a company (or being friends with for that matter) can put you in this class.

      As an example, say that your spouse is working for company X and your company Y is going to come to market with a breakthrough product. If company X buys stock in company Y based upon a tip from your wife, this is Illegal and should this be investigated by the SEC the company can provide this information to the SEC and protect it's self and the sec gets it's man (or woman) who leaked "material inside information".

      Just a company protecting it's self from possible legal hassles.

      How do I know this?

      NASD Series 7 and 63 Licenses
    • Fun solution - give them a list of every employee at every competitor. Tell them that you consider Adam & Eve your original ancestors.
    • For starters, it's none of the companies business whom your relatives work for. Second, it is vague as almost *any* company could be considered to potentially have *some* business relationship with your company, especially if you are bug (for example Microsoft). Third, are you personally supposed to keep track of your relatives and their job changes?

      Actually, I'm pretty certain that company directors are already bound by such rules to prevent insider trading.

      Remember, it doesn't prohibit you from doing business with your brother. It merely forces you to ensure that you don't favour your brother over a better vendor. Everyone wins, apart from nepotists. Worried that your boss will hire his idiot son? Rules like this protect you too.
  • Corporate?!?!

    Ethics?!?!

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

    P.S. I feel the need to burn karma. ;-)
  • This is just like the episode of Dilbert TV called Ethics.

    -- From episode (roughly)

    Boss: Due to some ethical problems, management has decided to send all you engineers for ethics training
    Dilbert: is this because we are working with the mafia?
    (And a few other reasons that slip my mind right now)
    Boss: Yes... So, your training begins on Saturday.
    Dilbert: Will management be there
    Boss: No..
    Dilbert: But management is guilty of the most ethical offenses.
    Boss: I know, but we're all too important to go to ethical training...
    Dilbert: But...
    Boss: no buts...

    --

    Man, this form is hilarious, Dilbert come true, S2S(so to speak). I betcha management doesn't even have to sign it, even though they are the ones that are "ethically challenged" in the companies in the news.

    • Re:Dilbert is true again... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      i actually worked for a company that did work for the mafia. the "goons" with 9mm's in their usual shoulder holsters showed up, signed a contract, paid on time and were pretty happy with the work we did.
      evidentally the mafia pays better and more timely than some legit companies we did work for.
  • Its a waste of time. I have heard of things like you are not supposed to disclose technology, but that is usually pretty obvious. I have also heard that many companies do not want you leaving them to work for a competitor and / or client and making you sign stuff stating you wont.

    I know where I work we are not supposed to use the business stuff for personal use, that is in the employee handbook. That includes, phone, internet, mail, servers, computer, etc, but people do it anyway. My cars in the shop so I need to call them. As long as it is not long distance it is not an issue around here, but if someone started making lots of long distance calls then it could become an issue.

    I should not be surfing slashdot during work hours, but since they cut my pay by I say f****'em! I'm taking it out in bandwidth.

    • This is why. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by FreeLinux ( 555387 )
      This post is exactly why these companies are making people sign agreements that seem to simply restate common sense stuff that "everybody" knows.

      The fact is that, what is common sense to you may not be common sense to the goober in the next cube. All too often this is the case, people seem clueless at the most common sense matters, as I stare at them in amazement. How could anyone be so stupid to not know that already? I frequently ask.

      But, then there is the next level, where they do know the common sense ethic and they have even been formally informed of the policy and the punishment for breaking that policy, yet they justify their illicit actions with some form of glib nonsense that they feel makes it perfectly acceptable. As is so eloquently stated in the poster's final comment: I should not be surfing slashdot during work hours, but since they cut my pay by I say f****'em! I'm taking it out in bandwidth.

      The agreement won't be regarded as a waste of time to them, when they fire you for breaking the company's policy, which you explicitly agreed to and signed.
      • These things are not 'common' sense they are in the employee handbooks at many companies.

        The fact that I am taking up their bandwidth is not in the employee handbook. It says not supposed to use 'their email' not their network. Yes this is exactly why companies are doing this, but at the same time employees are doing these things because many of us feel like the companies we are working for are screwing us over big time! Cutting peoples pay and keeping people who are utterly useless, when their pay could be used to keep good employes paid well. There is only so much 'good employee' being that one can take after the whole company has recieved 2 paycuts and no raises in 2 years. Yet we keep dead weight. People who work remotely and you do not see what they do. Or when you do see what they do you end up having to go in after them and fixing it so that it actually works correctly.

        So how much is one supposed to give to 'the company' and get little back? Not even a pat on the back from upper management even though everyone knows how awesome job this employee has done?

        When you feel as shafted as many tech employees do by the companies that they work for then you can say that they should sign these things.

        One more paycut and I'll go to starbucks because I'll be making more and have all the coffee and tea I want and maybe even free wireless internet access and get paid better.

    • My boss knows I read slashdot, and doesn't care. I have convinced him that in this ever growing and changing world, Slashdot is a good source to keep myself updated on issues that affect my field, and proposed it as a cheap source of training. How's that for a snow-job?

  • We are going through this now... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We just got a new document to sign here are Bank of America...here are some highlights in quptes. My comments none quoted...

    "Work conflicts and outside activities
    If you decide to pursue additional employment, engage in an independent business venture or perform services for another business organization, you must disclose such activities to your manager and obtain his or her preapproval to avoid any potential conflicts. You must not pursue such activities during Bank of America business hours or allow any outside business, civic or charitable activities to interfere with your job performance."

    They should have told this to everyone when they were pushing United Way on us for THREE months non-stop!

    "Duty of loyalty
    You owe a duty of loyalty to the Corporation. You must not deprive the Corporation of an opportunity or take for your own advantage an opportunity that belongs to the Corporation. Further, you must not help others do so if they are in a position to divert a corporate opportunity for their own benefit."

    I have a duty of loyalty to a company that thinks of me as a number and is willing to fire employees note based on how they perform but by luck of the draw?

    "If you wish to serve as a director of any profit-making organization, you must first obtain the approval of the Finance Committee (or any successor committee). The terms of any approval will determine whether you may keep the compensation earned from a directorship. You may contact the Office of the Corporate Secretary to determine the meeting schedule of the Finance Committee and the process for submitting your request. "

    bah! I don't need to tell anyone that I plan to incorporate my own business and become a diretory of it.

    "Bank of America information
    Nonpublic information regarding Bank of America is to be conveyed to others only on a reasonable need-to-know basis that furthers a legitimate business purpose of Bank of America."

    whoops...

    "Borrowing
    You may not personally borrow money from or lend to suppliers, customers or other associates unless such loan is to or from a family member or from an institution normally in the business of lending, and there is no conflict of interest. You may make an occasional loan of nominal value (such as for lunch) to another associate as long as no interest is charged. "

    Now they are telling me that I can't borrow a hundred bucks from a co-worker until pay day? (not that I need to that is :)

    "Investigations
    You must cooperate fully with any investigation, internal audit, external audit or regulatory examination."

    Guess my boss should read that one..he always tells me to be uncooperative to the auditors....

    Wow I don't think I'm going to sign this thing....
  • 1) If it isn't nailed down, steal it.
    2) If it is nailed down, pry up the nails and steal it.
    3) If someone points out you are stealing, sue them.
    4) After the lawsuits are over, steal from the defendant(s).
    5) Buy politicians.
    6) Demand politicians pass laws making corporate theft legal.
    7) Demand politicians pass laws redefining "exercising Constitutional rights" as stealing.
    8) Never tell lies, except when you feel like it or it is convenient for your goals.
    9) Donate to charities only as a marketing tactic.
    10) If 2 sq inches of contiguous flat surface are available, plaster an advertisement on it.
    11) If they are unavailable, pay someone else to plaster the advertisement on it.
    12) If it's smaller than 2 sq inches, plaster an advertisement on it.
    13) Profit!
    14) Appoint minions to Ethics Task Force.
    15) Promise unending pain and humiliation to any appointees that draft any policies that remotely resemble ethics.
    16) Disregard ethics policies.
    17) Go steal something.
    18) Profit!
    19) Search for something beautiful, a landscape, art, or anything that gives people solace and feelings of peace. Plaster an advertisement on it.
    20) If it is impossible to plaster an advertisement on the beatiful thing, destroy it an erect an advertisement in its place. Preferably with a bulldozer.
    21) Profit!
    22) Profit!
    23) Profit!
    24) When projected profits are equal, always choose the method that inflicts the most inconvenience and privacy violations on your customers.
    25) If former customers refuse to buy your merchandise, have them arrested.
    26) Buy judges.
    27) Profit!
    28) Demand that judges convict non-buying customers.
    29) Profit!

    Ok, I've ran out of ideas. still, this is a pretty decent outline, but please feel free to add more rules, as you see fit.
    • I've copied your partial list of corporate ethics. Another good way to list corporate ethics is to take the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule and reverse them for profit. You know... DO UNTO OTHERS, THEN SPLIT!

  • Huge time sink (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    My experience with these types of "contracts" is that when they're sprung on an entire company all at once (as opposed to individually during hiring), there is a staggering loss of productivity due to employees discussing the "contract" and what it means and whether they should sign it or what will happen if they don't sign it, etc, etc.

    It usually lasts only a couple of weeks after the deadline for signing passes, but the bitter taste left in peoples mouths can linger quite a while after that.

  • Has anyone ever refused to sign? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What happened? Did they fire you? I've always just signed the damned things and tried as best I could to live up to the agreement.
    • I didn't refuse to sign, but I did delete some passages of one with a black marker and then signed. I don't have the document in front of me at the moment, but a number of the things mentioned by other people in these threads pretty much summed it up (read the guy who talked about the Bank of America thread.) Nothing happened, but it my guess that the document was never proofed by management.

  • Duress(?) and a personal story (Score:3, Interesting)

    by macemoneta ( 154740 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @05:32PM (#5050287) Homepage
    If you have to sign it after you've been employed by the company, to keep earning a paycheck, isn't that duress? (obviously, IANAL)

    I had a personal experience with this at a previous employer... We signed this and were specifically informed all levels of management had to sign and agree to the same thing (by the CEO).

    Not a couple of weeks later, I was contacted by a VP that wanted me to setup a Mac for his daughter's birthday -- on company time and with company resources. I refused, obviously, and was nearly fired... until I pointed out the violation of the code of ethics.

    Of course, even though that violation was grounds for termination of employment, nothing ever happened to the VP. Big duh.
  • Was told to sign one of these, another thing on the list was

    "I do not own property within 1/4 mile of a company facility, or proposed facility"

    Well I called to find out why, turns out if you know where they are going to put a new facility it might be profitable to buy the land next to it because people will want to put in apartments, resturants, etc. Well I told them that the company had bought land close to my house years after I bought the house, I didn't know if it was within 1/4 mile or not, and I wasn't about to pay for a survey to find out. Their response was to cross out all statements that you didn't like, sign it and send it in...

    So I crossed out all the lines, signed it and sent it in... No one bothered me about it and the problem went away

    You Think this is bad, you should look at insider trading. Talk about guilty until proven innocent, was looking at buying 100 shares in a publicly traded beaten down stock, turns out company decided to buy the whole damned thing 2 days later... Wow, I would have made over 50% in two days, bad because I found out my manager was on the Due Dilligence team - We would have both been liable for the gains I made because I couldn't have proven that we didn't talk and have him whisper 4 letters into my ear... Scary but this is how insider trading works

  • Google (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cafebabe ( 151509 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @06:24PM (#5050760)
    I still think Google put it best: Don't be evil [google.com].
  • Not knowing anything about your company, I can only speculate on the reasons for having to sign this type of agreement. As for my own company, this comes in to play in several areas of the business.

    1) Investors. When investors are doing their due dilligence on my company they want to make sure that the IP of the company stays with the company. So the question comes up, "Have all your employees signed [insert policy here]?"

    2) Aquisition. Almost the same thing. If you are looking at a potential buy-out for the business, the company doing the aquiring wants to make sure that there are no sticky issues out there anywhere.

    Those are the two biggies. The thing you need to realize from the business perspective (and that any good manager should communicate to you) is that exectives are held liable for fudiciary responsibility. What that means is, if I don't get an employee to sign that type of agreement, and some IP ends up in the wrong hands, investors have the right to sue on the basis that I have not upheld fudiciary responsibilities.

    Hope that helps a little.
  • A Code of Ethics is only as effective as:

    employee (in this case) willingness to act in accordance with the code

    the fair and consistent enforcement of the code with punishment for behavior deviating from the code.

    A Code of Ethics is really only a way to make a statement. Something that says "We are an ethical company. It is okay to give us your money and to trust us." On the planet "Perfect" a Code of Ethics is not needed, as everyone is ethical in their behavior. If you don't have employees that you can trust to behave appropriately, then you shouldn't have hired those employees in the first place and need to let them go.

    Obviously, if you are nabbing MP3s from the internet or looking up pornography while using corporate bandwidth (both items not considered ethical in the eyes of businesses that don't sell porn or MP3s) then you are mis-behaving. Should you be fired? Should you get demoted? The punishments vary from company to company. The enforcement of the code needs to be consistently applied (to be fair) and punishments sufficient enough to act as a deterrent. Here is an example that we all are familiar with which substitutes the law for a code of ethics. [ We all know that a Code of Ethics is not a set of Laws (for the legal folks who read this). However, they are sufficiently similar in scope and meaning to make for an analogy.] You know you are breaking the law when you speed. Why do you speed if it will break the law? The mental math in your head tells you that for speeding 10-15 miles over the limit (which is a guess on the average) you probably can get away by paying only $250-300 for the ticket. Consider your mindset if you were fined $1000 dollars for your first infraction and then forced to surrender your vehicle for the following offense. As draconic as it sounds, it would probably serve as an efficient deterrent to speeding. You would, at least, give more than a fleeting thought to the act of speeding.

    Ethics are the same way. You either don't need to post a code because you don't have a problem, or else you need to post a code with real enforcement. Otherwise, your code is simply icing and not cake.

    • You know you are breaking the law when you speed. Why do you speed if it will break the law? The mental math in your head tells you that for speeding 10-15 miles over the limit (which is a guess on the average) you probably can get away by paying only $250-300 for the ticket.

      The thing is that you don't necessarily know when you're speeding. In CA there's a thing called the California Basic Speed Law, which basically states that the speed limit is whatever is safe for the conditions. Allow me to illustrate this with a funny, but true, story from my brother-in-law, who is a California Highway Patrol Officer.

      He's driving down a freeway in LA when he notices a car that's weaving erratically, like it would if the driver was drunk. Naturally he pulls the car over, and realizes as soon as he looks in the car that the guy isn't drunk; the problem is that he has this gigantic bowl, like a serving bowl you'd use for pasta, full of soup which he is holding and trying to eat out of while driving.

      He was going 65, which is the posted limit on that road, and the weather was clear, but my brother-in-law wrote the guy a ticket for 65mph over the limit, since any speed was unsafe for what he was trying to do.

      My point is that the law is flexible, and you don't necessarily know when you are breaking it. I'm sure this guy thought he was in the clear since he was driving the speed limit, but now he's been slapped with a felony speeding ticket. The really funny thing is that if he hadn't been eating the soup which caused him to weave, he could have been going 75 and no officer would have batted an eye (CHP policy is to give 10mph of leeway in most cases).

      Laws (and Codes) need to take circumstances into consideration. About a year and a half ago my wife fell and hurt her leg bad enough that she couldn't walk, or even stand, and she was certainly in no condition to watch over our 1 year old daughter, so she dragged herself (literally) to the phone and called me at work. Was that a personal phone call which I recieved on Company time on a Company phone? Absolutely, but there's something seriously wrong with a Code of Ethics that can't accomodate that, and I certainly shouldn't be punished to the same extent as the guy who calls up his girlfriend just to chat, consistency be damned.

  • From a description on Ebay:

    1. "Foreword by CEO Ken Lay Sections include: Principles of Human Rights; Securities Trades by Company Personnel; Business Ethics; Confidential Information and Trade Secrets; Governmental Affairs and Political Contributions; Consulting Fees, Commissions and Other Payments; Conflicts of Interest, Investments and Outside Business Interests of Officers and Employees, Responsibility for Reporting, Compliance; Administration"

    People and management matter well beyond a code of ethics.

    As any experienced contractor knows, the contract is important but means nothing if there aren't good and properly motivated people -- contractor and client -- on both sides willing to fight to live up to the spirit of the thing.

    That said, the code of ethics you are being asked to sign is a CYA for upper management. They want to point a finger at someone if something goes wrong.

    If you do sign it, keep a paper trail of your activities. These kind of things also can be used in office politics by those who will blissfully ignore the whole concept of ethics.

    I'd avoid signing anything unless the alternative is job loss.

  • ... I work in the European branch of an American company. I think everyone signs this and... ignores it.
    I actually imagine the company could not care less either provided the work is done and no BIG mistake is done.
    I suppose getting you to sign this is a way of making it easier to get rid of you when and if they want to as I am sure that everyone has done at least once something against the ethic guideline (after all, ringing home to say you'll be late is personnal usage!!)

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