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System Adminstration and Corporate Ethics?

Posted by Cliff on from the have-you-been-in-this-hot-seat-yet dept.

Not-a-BOFH asks: "About seven years ago while SysAdmin'ing for a (then) small software company, I was approached by the CEO regarding a technical issue. He explained to me that he got a bit hot headed at another employee and sent said person an email that he now wished he hadn't sent. His request to me was to dig through this person's email and delete it before he came in that morning. As the SysAdmin, this was certainly possible for me to do, but I've always tried to remain ethical when having such access to sensitive documents. In the case of email, I explained to the CEO that to me it was like tampering with the U.S. Mail, and I wasn't comfortable doing it. Long story short, my boss had no issue with it, and wound up doing it anyway. Looking back now, I'm not really all that surprised that that decision of mine led to my getting fired, but I've always wondered how many other people have had similar situations happen to them, where personal ethics and CEO heavyhanding came into play, and their job security suffered from the clash."

2 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Re:excuse me? by p7 · · Score: 5, Informative

    As long as the employer has notified the employee that they monitor email, it is completely legal under the Human Rights Act.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/957460.stm
    http://www.itsecurity.com/papers/morgancole1.htm

    Seems it's about the same in the UK, as is here. In other words tell them that you monitor the e-mail and you can read all of it.

  2. "Technically speaking, it can't be done" by Bazzargh · · Score: 5, Informative

    This phrase is your friend. I've used it to put off bosses who've asked for things that seemed dubious, like tracking web surfing habits of individuals from our proxy logs.

    Bottom line is if you say "I won't", the boss might fire you but, if you say "I can't, because..."[1] - and can be convincing[2] - you can get away with not doing unethical things.

    -Baz

    [1] eg 'editing the mail spool by hand would invalidate the CRC's on the mail files, and might bring the server down. I could try it, but we could lose everybody's email back to the last backup - its a big risk'
    [2] warning - dont try this crap on a CEO who is also a techie ;)