12 ms·

I commend the team for the entrepreneur spirit but personally find the idea of showing off the ability to secretly do things which are against the policies of y

by placebo 12y ago

I commend the team for the entrepreneur spirit but personally find the idea of showing off the ability to secretly do things which are against the policies of your workplace and presenting that as some sort of feature quite distasteful. From a visionary or marketing point of view I think it is petty and short sighted, and from a personal point of view my recommendation for anyone frustrated with the policies of their workplace is to invest their time on finding a better workplace rather than wasting it finding ways to be sneaky in the current one. As for the product, I can see some use cases that would make it marketable without resorting to advertising sneaky and morally questionable scenarios.

esamek 12y ago
Same, although excusable since they are new.
thiagoc 12y ago
I thought the same thing.
dyeje 12y ago
Yeah, I felt it was pretty tone deaf.
gglitch 12y ago
I had the same first response, but then, purely in the interest of stimulating conversation, wondered why I'd viewed the situation in moral terms at all. Shouldn't a rational agent in a free market be doing everything possible to extract value from this relationship? ...With that said, undoubtedly, if he's free and able to do so, yes, this character is better off finding a relationship that requires less risk to extract similar value from.
MrDom 12y ago
If you've never worked outside of Tech, I can understand why you would think that. If you have, then I apologize for the miscategorization, but I find this attitude prevalent in Tech in general. Most BigCos have two fundamental rules: you can't use any non-approved software[0] and you're to be at your desk at all times, even when you have no work to do. Given those restrictions, this makes perfect sense (although, a stealth switch works better[1]). Believe it or not, most companies outside of tech are very controlling of what their employees can and cannot do with their computers. As an example, my first job out of college was with a NY branch of a multinational swedish-owned corporation that made airplane engines. One day, a top ranking employee walked out of the office with all of their blueprints on a usb drive and gave it to their biggest competitor[2]. Ever since then, they've forbidden any kind of physical data transfer, going so far as to pull all the cd and dvd burners from all desktops and disabling the USB drives (as much as possible). anyone frustrated with the policies of their workplace is to invest their time on finding a better workplace That's not an option for some. Not everybody works as a programmer. Aeronautical engineers, for example, have a limited number of employers. If you're not willing to relocate away from friends and family or you're not built for the city life, same thing. [0]: Some even do network scans to check for unauthorized software programs on your hard drive [1]: http://stealthswitch.com/ http://stealthswitch.com/ [2]: Yes, it's illegal, but I imagine he was paid enough ttraino risk it and even if he wasn't, it doesn't matter: once the blueprints are compromised, they can never be uncompromised.
- placebo 12y ago
  Regarding working outside of Tech, In my pre-HiTech days I worked in a very large organisation where the all the practices you mentioned were strictly enforced. As your example has shown, these policies are in place for good reason. Having said that, I do think of them as taking the easiest solution instead of the best solution and find it morally analogous to using collective punishment on an entire population in order to deter a few bad apples. I do realise this is the reality in many organisations (and, mind you, also inside the Tech industry) as it is much cheaper to implement. My own reaction was to stop working in a company that operates according to a philosophy I don't agree with and instead create an environment that operates from a philosophy I can relate to (basically one where people are trusted and do what is best for the company because that's what they love doing rather than out of fear of what will happen if they don't). You say this is not an option for some, and you are right (though I think many people sell themselves short in terms of what they think they can do to start changing the situation) and I can imagine situations where you could argue that the "indecency" of breaking workplace policies is far less than the "indecency" of the policies that caused them in the first place. However, all the above is a bit beside the point, as my main objection was from a marketing perspective. To take it to the extreme, if I manufacture freezers, I think you'll agree that mentioning in the advertising campaign that you can use them to make icicles which are the perfect murder weapon would not be very helpful to the public image of the company or product. If that is the major thing that product is suitable for, and there's a large target market then it becomes a moral discussion, but I don't think circumventing office policies is the main selling point of the device and therefore don't think mentioning it as the first feature is helpful. Then again, I could be mistaken :)

by placebo 12y ago

esamek 12y ago

Same, although excusable since they are new.

thiagoc 12y ago

I thought the same thing.

dyeje 12y ago

Yeah, I felt it was pretty tone deaf.

gglitch 12y ago

I had the same first response, but then, purely in the interest of stimulating conversation, wondered why I'd viewed the situation in moral terms at all. Shouldn't a rational agent in a free market be doing everything possible to extract value from this relationship? ...With that said, undoubtedly, if he's free and able to do so, yes, this character is better off finding a relationship that requires less risk to extract similar value from.

MrDom 12y ago

If you've never worked outside of Tech, I can understand why you would think that. If you have, then I apologize for the miscategorization, but I find this attitude prevalent in Tech in general. Most BigCos have two fundamental rules: you can't use any non-approved software[0] and you're to be at your desk at all times, even when you have no work to do. Given those restrictions, this makes perfect sense (although, a stealth switch works better[1]). Believe it or not, most companies outside of tech are very controlling of what their employees can and cannot do with their computers. As an example, my first job out of college was with a NY branch of a multinational swedish-owned corporation that made airplane engines. One day, a top ranking employee walked out of the office with all of their blueprints on a usb drive and gave it to their biggest competitor[2]. Ever since then, they've forbidden any kind of physical data transfer, going so far as to pull all the cd and dvd burners from all desktops and disabling the USB drives (as much as possible). anyone frustrated with the policies of their workplace is to invest their time on finding a better workplace That's not an option for some. Not everybody works as a programmer. Aeronautical engineers, for example, have a limited number of employers. If you're not willing to relocate away from friends and family or you're not built for the city life, same thing. [0]: Some even do network scans to check for unauthorized software programs on your hard drive [1]: http://stealthswitch.com/ http://stealthswitch.com/ [2]: Yes, it's illegal, but I imagine he was paid enough ttraino risk it and even if he wasn't, it doesn't matter: once the blueprints are compromised, they can never be uncompromised.

placebo 12y ago
Regarding working outside of Tech, In my pre-HiTech days I worked in a very large organisation where the all the practices you mentioned were strictly enforced. As your example has shown, these policies are in place for good reason. Having said that, I do think of them as taking the easiest solution instead of the best solution and find it morally analogous to using collective punishment on an entire population in order to deter a few bad apples. I do realise this is the reality in many organisations (and, mind you, also inside the Tech industry) as it is much cheaper to implement. My own reaction was to stop working in a company that operates according to a philosophy I don't agree with and instead create an environment that operates from a philosophy I can relate to (basically one where people are trusted and do what is best for the company because that's what they love doing rather than out of fear of what will happen if they don't). You say this is not an option for some, and you are right (though I think many people sell themselves short in terms of what they think they can do to start changing the situation) and I can imagine situations where you could argue that the "indecency" of breaking workplace policies is far less than the "indecency" of the policies that caused them in the first place. However, all the above is a bit beside the point, as my main objection was from a marketing perspective. To take it to the extreme, if I manufacture freezers, I think you'll agree that mentioning in the advertising campaign that you can use them to make icicles which are the perfect murder weapon would not be very helpful to the public image of the company or product. If that is the major thing that product is suitable for, and there's a large target market then it becomes a moral discussion, but I don't think circumventing office policies is the main selling point of the device and therefore don't think mentioning it as the first feature is helpful. Then again, I could be mistaken :)