5 ms·

Who gets in trouble if it turns out you are actually held to the literal rule?

• tsunamifury 4mo ago
  If you think rules are literal than you aren’t aware how the world works. There’s a reason it’s called “judgement”
  • jayd16 4mo ago
    ...And that judgement could take them literally. So what is your point? My point was simply that it's easy to scoff at someone else being careful if it's their neck and not yours.
    • parineum 4mo ago
      They could but they don't. That's pretty much the whole job. You can also appeal decisions to a more reasonable party if you draw RobotJudge3000 for your trial
  • deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  • rectang 4mo ago
    In your world, do subordinates ever get scapegoated for bending the rules at a boss's behest?
• scott_w 4mo ago
  That's why you work with your Legal/Compliance Team to make sure you stay in line. They can explain when a rule applies and when it doesn't. This needs the engineering side to be able to explain what's happening, and translate it into the business process as closely as possible, and the legal side to be able to apply the law to the case.
• PeterStuer 4mo ago
  Contrary to what you indicate rules are not declared in a vacuum, for people to read and then algorithmically 'implement'. There are many ways to interpret regulation, and there will be both accompanying clarifications, as well as compliance departments negotiating with regulators on what is an acceptable and sufficient compliance action. Then there furthermore is a risk that will be calculated vs the cost and opportunity costs etc. As an enterprise architect, these are all part of the meetings you have with compliance when you are working on major projects. I have had the privilege of working with some excellent compliance officers, and they are the opposite of the nay-saying caricature that is often painted of them. I found these people to be extremely creative and helpful, working together towards solutions rather than stalling or nixing viable progress.
  • jayd16 4mo ago
    The point was about who is on the hook and why they might be less permissive. I'm not implying anything else. I used your own "literal" wording to refer to the "more strict than yours" interpretation. I suppose I should have used scare quotes around "literal".
    • PeterStuer 4mo ago
      'The company' would be on the hook. Inside, it might be the compliance team that signed off on the solution, but it usually is not the sort of blame game at that point. I'm not saying these scapegoat trails do not exist, but they are far less common than you would imagine if you only read about them in the press. Company politics, feudal wars, fiefdom protections, backstabbing and outright sabotaging, now there's a daily occurrence and many minions are cannon fodder in those skirmishes, but they usually stay clear of regulatory issues minefields.
      • rectang 4mo ago
        I am skeptical that developers who implement a non-compliant solution that gets a company in trouble get off scot-free. If the company you work for actually had such a no-fault culture, I doubt you'd be criticizing programmers so aggressively for being sticklers, but would instead be trying to understand and account for the systemic factors (including human factors) behind their behavior.