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LOL, you can only laugh when you see this kind of story while the average joe struggles with life at just the slightest mistake. When I was a student (but unde

LOL, you can only laugh when you see this kind of story while the average joe struggles with life at just the slightest mistake. When I was a student (but under a contract nonetheless) I was once threatened with termination because I took off my shoes while at my desk on a Friday at around 6pm (everyone left at 4pm, but I wanted to finish something that bugged me the whole week). Another guy next to me noticed it (trust me, there was no foul smell ;)) and it filed a report on misbehavior. What ensued was one of the most bizarre episodes I ever experienced with regards to "corporate life" (although I was in academy but w/e). I got several emails from people that were somehow involved in that chain of command condemning the action; plus I had to go through two serious conversations regarding the incident, one with my direct supervisor and another one with the director of the whole faculty (!), where he took his time to explain to me how no one would like to employ somebody who displays such unprofessional behavior, etcetera ... Turns out that, for some people, it is a big deal if you take off your shoes, while sitting at your desk, on your office, on a Friday night. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Fast forward to today and (quoting the great Mark Levine): "The CEO of the company gave a potential investor a fake email address for a big customer, and then the COO digitally altered his voice to impersonate that customer on a call with the investor [...]" but "[...] the board decided not to investigate because ... they were satisfied that this was just a one-time thing, a little oopsie, everything else that the company does is completely aboveboard, and anyway no harm no foul" Whew! We all play the same game, right? Just not under the same rules.

ForHackernews 5y ago
I used to work as a cashier, and I once got written up because I was $20 short when I counted down my drawer at the end of a busy 8 hour shift. They told me I'd be fired if I was more than $10 off a second time.
- PakG1 5y ago
  This type of management, but taken to the extreme. https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/23/22399721/uk-post-office-software-bug-criminal-convictions-overturned https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/23/22399721/uk-post-office-s... People need to stop jumping to negative conclusions.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  I thought this sort of arrangement was pretty common for cashiers? If punishment weren't draconian business would cease. People I've known who've worked in retail and didn't seem to care at all about shoplifting have been very attentive to the receipts matching the till. Of course this arrangement seems unfair; this may be a good argument for going cashless.
- jasonladuke0311 5y ago
  Similar situation: cashier at work (now my wife) gives me cash back when I buy something; turns out two new $20s got stuck together. I didn't notice until later that night. I texted her to tell her she may have given me an extra $20 and if her drawer is short, I'll bring it back. Well she doesn't text me and gets written up for being $20 short. I bring the $20 the next day and explain the situation. The closing manager writes her up for being $20 over.
ashtonkem 5y ago
My takeaway is that the facility director clearly has nothing useful to do if they’re having meetings over a shoeless person at 6pm, and probably should’ve been let go.
- moralestapia 5y ago
  Most higher-ups in academia don't do much. But ssh, don't tell anybody ;).
sillysaurusx 5y ago
When working at Scottrade, I got yelled at for downloading the source code to `touch`. (https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/touch.c https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/touch...) Apparently it was a security violation, and I was warned never to do something so dangerous again.
- effingwewt 5y ago
  It's painfully hilarious to me how many glaring security holes are all throughout companies, but they will have the most asinine and pointless rules. They pretend to follow PCI[1] in a few ways while breaking it in orders of magnitude more ways. Explaining this to them is a nightmare. I've seen so many post-its with login/pw just everywhere, unlocked machines, hints that were the password, one-word obvious dictionary passwords- but if you bring in a personal cell phone/book that's a serious and terminable offense! Side-note: the worst offenders kf post-its woth sensitive info are people with offices, like someone doesn't clean their offices every night (see further down). I once proved a point I could easily remember a complete CC# with all PII, walk out and write it down in the bathroom, yet still have rules saying you cant even bring so much as a book in with you. Which makes sense for following laws but not when you let random people walk in (HR, random favorite employees, whatever) with them even straight up notepads and pens. Someone could also easily walk in with a voice recorder on and just record all day and go home. So the rules did nothing practically, was probably more of a way to get rid of undesirables. All while the company is recording with ceiling-mounted cameras which went against their contracts (was to be visual only per compliance but wasn't), with public-facing IP without even a password(for the sole reason of wanting to make it easier to view the feeds from their cellphone), and hosted on a windows PC with Norton 360(PCI compliance after all!). Once someone high enough up is making stupid decisions they are defended mindlessly and to the death. Pointing out the reasoning behind the decisions and ways to reach those goals without just pretending to will always fall on deaf ears. Also many businesses seem to purposefully turn a blind eye to this[2], they do only enough KYC to CYA, etc. I've seen businesses follow PCI and recommended FTC best practices only to contract out their janitorial services, who then subcontracted to someone else. [1] https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pci_security/maintaining_payment_security https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pci_security/maintainin... [2] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/start-security-guide-business https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/sta... edited to add stuff
game_the0ry 5y ago
I appreciate that you have a sense of humor and positive attitude about this, but I do not. It pisses me off, and people in positions of high responsibility should reap the downside of high accountability.
freewilly1040 5y ago
It's a bit early to say nothing will come of this. Google certainly has deep pockets and an incentive to push for prosecution, and indeed they have alerted the FBI.
- mattnewton 5y ago
  If anyone sues, I would think it would be Goldman as they were the firm they attempted to defraud here, and they must know how to prosecute fraud like this very well. But, if they are holding a lot of equity in this company, they are also incentivized to brush it under the rug until they can offload their position. It wasn't clear to me if they had invested yet and were looking to invest more, or if they have no stake yet. If they don't have a stake they probably just won't take one after this due diligence revealed even more than they bargained about the company.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > If anyone sues, I would think it would be Goldman as they were the firm they attempted to defraud here, and they must know how to prosecute fraud like this very well The Board not only brushed off brazen fraud by the co-founders, its members went to the press to defend them. Minority investors, including employees with share awards, would have a case for damages.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    Goldman doesn't have much of an interest here; they'll surely keep their money away from this company, but without the deal going through, their damages are minimal (in fact, it might even saved them by showing how bad of an investment this would've been for them). Google, on the other hand, had one of their higher-ups impersonated to lie about platform statistics. I don't think they'll let this slide, if only to prevent other people from doing the same.
- madengr 5y ago
  Why not youtube? I thought Google and YouTube were separate, at least they claim to be.
OJFord 5y ago
> Fast forward to today and (quoting the great Mark [sic] Levine) A better (more apt) Matt Levine quote might've been about the recent story of a Softbank exec taking his shoes off and resting his feet on the lap of some speechless Fifa exec on a private plane. (I think it was repeated the next day or so in column on Monzo founder's similar anecdote about the same exec's toenail-picking, if you want to find it.)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ForHackernews 5y ago

I used to work as a cashier, and I once got written up because I was $20 short when I counted down my drawer at the end of a busy 8 hour shift. They told me I'd be fired if I was more than $10 off a second time.

PakG1 5y ago
This type of management, but taken to the extreme. https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/23/22399721/uk-post-office-software-bug-criminal-convictions-overturned https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/23/22399721/uk-post-office-s... People need to stop jumping to negative conclusions.
jessaustin 5y ago
I thought this sort of arrangement was pretty common for cashiers? If punishment weren't draconian business would cease. People I've known who've worked in retail and didn't seem to care at all about shoplifting have been very attentive to the receipts matching the till. Of course this arrangement seems unfair; this may be a good argument for going cashless.
jasonladuke0311 5y ago
Similar situation: cashier at work (now my wife) gives me cash back when I buy something; turns out two new $20s got stuck together. I didn't notice until later that night. I texted her to tell her she may have given me an extra $20 and if her drawer is short, I'll bring it back. Well she doesn't text me and gets written up for being $20 short. I bring the $20 the next day and explain the situation. The closing manager writes her up for being $20 over.

ashtonkem 5y ago

My takeaway is that the facility director clearly has nothing useful to do if they’re having meetings over a shoeless person at 6pm, and probably should’ve been let go.

moralestapia 5y ago
Most higher-ups in academia don't do much. But ssh, don't tell anybody ;).

sillysaurusx 5y ago

When working at Scottrade, I got yelled at for downloading the source code to `touch`. (https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/touch.c https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/touch...) Apparently it was a security violation, and I was warned never to do something so dangerous again.

effingwewt 5y ago
It's painfully hilarious to me how many glaring security holes are all throughout companies, but they will have the most asinine and pointless rules. They pretend to follow PCI[1] in a few ways while breaking it in orders of magnitude more ways. Explaining this to them is a nightmare. I've seen so many post-its with login/pw just everywhere, unlocked machines, hints that were the password, one-word obvious dictionary passwords- but if you bring in a personal cell phone/book that's a serious and terminable offense! Side-note: the worst offenders kf post-its woth sensitive info are people with offices, like someone doesn't clean their offices every night (see further down). I once proved a point I could easily remember a complete CC# with all PII, walk out and write it down in the bathroom, yet still have rules saying you cant even bring so much as a book in with you. Which makes sense for following laws but not when you let random people walk in (HR, random favorite employees, whatever) with them even straight up notepads and pens. Someone could also easily walk in with a voice recorder on and just record all day and go home. So the rules did nothing practically, was probably more of a way to get rid of undesirables. All while the company is recording with ceiling-mounted cameras which went against their contracts (was to be visual only per compliance but wasn't), with public-facing IP without even a password(for the sole reason of wanting to make it easier to view the feeds from their cellphone), and hosted on a windows PC with Norton 360(PCI compliance after all!). Once someone high enough up is making stupid decisions they are defended mindlessly and to the death. Pointing out the reasoning behind the decisions and ways to reach those goals without just pretending to will always fall on deaf ears. Also many businesses seem to purposefully turn a blind eye to this[2], they do only enough KYC to CYA, etc. I've seen businesses follow PCI and recommended FTC best practices only to contract out their janitorial services, who then subcontracted to someone else. [1] https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pci_security/maintaining_payment_security https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pci_security/maintainin... [2] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/start-security-guide-business https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/sta... edited to add stuff

game_the0ry 5y ago

I appreciate that you have a sense of humor and positive attitude about this, but I do not. It pisses me off, and people in positions of high responsibility should reap the downside of high accountability.

freewilly1040 5y ago

It's a bit early to say nothing will come of this. Google certainly has deep pockets and an incentive to push for prosecution, and indeed they have alerted the FBI.

mattnewton 5y ago
If anyone sues, I would think it would be Goldman as they were the firm they attempted to defraud here, and they must know how to prosecute fraud like this very well. But, if they are holding a lot of equity in this company, they are also incentivized to brush it under the rug until they can offload their position. It wasn't clear to me if they had invested yet and were looking to invest more, or if they have no stake yet. If they don't have a stake they probably just won't take one after this due diligence revealed even more than they bargained about the company.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > If anyone sues, I would think it would be Goldman as they were the firm they attempted to defraud here, and they must know how to prosecute fraud like this very well The Board not only brushed off brazen fraud by the co-founders, its members went to the press to defend them. Minority investors, including employees with share awards, would have a case for damages.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  Goldman doesn't have much of an interest here; they'll surely keep their money away from this company, but without the deal going through, their damages are minimal (in fact, it might even saved them by showing how bad of an investment this would've been for them). Google, on the other hand, had one of their higher-ups impersonated to lie about platform statistics. I don't think they'll let this slide, if only to prevent other people from doing the same.
madengr 5y ago
Why not youtube? I thought Google and YouTube were separate, at least they claim to be.

OJFord 5y ago

> Fast forward to today and (quoting the great Mark [sic] Levine) A better (more apt) Matt Levine quote might've been about the recent story of a Softbank exec taking his shoes off and resting his feet on the lap of some speechless Fifa exec on a private plane. (I think it was repeated the next day or so in column on Monzo founder's similar anecdote about the same exec's toenail-picking, if you want to find it.)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]