Apple Fires Five Employees for Downloading Leopard

BuzzardsBay writes "The good folks at VARBusiness are quoting a ThinkSecret report that claims five Apple employees got canned over the unauthorized downloading of the Leopard OS. According to the article: one of the employees says: "Because we had the character to tell the truth and to face the consequences of our actions, we were terminated. If we all lied and denied it would we still be working at Apple today? Even more so, is that the kind of person that Apple wants working for them?""

Comments

The consequences were that you got fired..

[QuantumG]

congratulations, you faced em.

Re:The consequences were that you got fired..

[Alfred, Lord Tennyso]

The term "accepting responsibility" has taken something of a beating lately. The new definition is "admitting guilt but denying any repercussions". Please update your dictionaries.

Re:The consequences were that you got fired..

[Scudsucker]

More like if you use the same penalty for those who tell the truth as those who lie and get caught, you remove all the incentive to tell the truth in the first place.

Re:The consequences were that you got fired..

[yardbird]

The incentive to tell the truth in the first place is being able to look at yourself in the mirror.

The point is that "accepting responsibility for one's actions" is being used to mean "looking for an optimal outcome given one's actions".

Re:The consequences were that you got fired..

[squiggleslash]

Oh c'mon! WTF is wrong with you all? Is the world so black and white in Slashdot that if someone protests about being punished too hard, they can only be advocating no punishment at all?

The (ex)Apple employees are protesting that they came clean and yet endured the same punishment they'd have endured if they had not come forward but been caught anyway. The complaint is not that they were punished at all, it's that the punishment was excessive and gives nobody any incentive to be honest.

And they have a point. And this not about murder, where arguably the action is so severe that the appropriate punishment should always be dealt, it's about a case of copyright infringement. Yes, there's room for Apple to take a more lenient line with truth tellers than with those who lie. Especially when given the case is ultimately about whether an employee can be trusted with the company's proprietary inside information, the issue of whether they lied or not in an investigation is actually relevent.

Apple has arguably over-reacted. And whether it did or not, it has most certainly cut off its own nose to spite the face of others. Firing is an expensive act. Apple can expect to lose the productivity the fired employee would have given to the company during the time it recruits and trains the replacement, and recruiting is hardly cheap either. Further, it has made its own future investigations harder because it will not get the cooperation of employees who see themselves as ultimately loyal.

Apple can hire and fire whoever they want, for whatever (legal) reason. But that doesn't make this anything other than, at face value, assuming there's not more to it than TFA, a dumb decision. And certainly, the logic Slashdotters promote of "IF THEY HATE THERE PUNISHMANT, TEHY MUST FINK BEENG PUNICHED IS RONG!!1" is utterly irrelevent and idiotic.

Re:The consequences were that you got fired..

[Haeleth]

It is this inability to read and comprehend what someone else has actually written, instead insisting on merely glancing at their words and assuming they say what you expect, that makes me despair for the future of society.

Let's do some reading.

What you claim: "You act as if they have a God-given-right to work at Apple."
What he really said: "Apple can hire and fire whoever they want, for whatever (legal) reason."

What you claim: "What we have now is the whining of somebody who doesn't like that he is being held accountable for his own actions."
What he really said: "The complaint is not that they were punished at all, it's that the punishment was excessive and gives nobody any incentive to be honest."

Welcome to the wonderful world of the straw man argument, where answering people's points is too hard, so you just pretend they said something stupid instead and tell them how stupid they were to say it. You've got a bright future ahead of you in politics.

Re:The consequences were that you got fired..

[GeckoX]

True, all very true.

And yes, Apple has every right to handle these things however they like.

I do have to argue though that Apple creates these circumstances themselves. Think about it:

Apple's working on this new release of their OS. Everyone that works there knows it. No one has seen it. No one there can use it, even though they are building it. It's all very hush hush and secretive, very typical Apple style. A build gets leaked onto the internet...a couple employees find it...Hey! I'm working on that! I'd sure like to see it, sheesh, what's the harm if any script kiddie out there can play with it, why can't I play with the darned thing that the company I work for built?

Apple is NOT the DOD. They can, but maybe shouldn't treat their employees like they are.

Is that the kind of person apple wants?

[Neil Blender]

Is that the type who steals or the type who thinks being honest about their crimes absolves them of punishment?

On the other hand...

[davmoo]

"All of us know that we violated our NDA and ethics policy. Therefore, because we had the character to tell the truth and to face the consequences of our actions, we were terminated,"

How about the lack of character you showed by violating the NDA in the first place. If you had any character (or ethics) you would have obeyed the obligations of the contract you signed.

On your next job application where it asks "Why did you leave your most recent job?", now you can write "I was fired because I was fucking stupid."

Re:On the other hand...

[Descalzo]

Well, I think they gained some of their character back by coming clean. Then they immediately lost it again by whining about getting canned.

Character is a precious thing. I hear at school all the time, when someone comes clean and they still get the consequences, "So this is what I get for telling the truth?" No, that's what you get for (insert broken rule here). What you get for telling the truth is trust and respect.

Oh puhleez...

[mellon]

From an ethical perspective, you have two things:

1. Employee does something that runs counter to the company's stated policy in an important way. Bad employee - no biscuit.

2. Employee tells the truth when lying might have saved their job. Good person - refused to lie even when lying seemed to be of benefit.

There's no reason to mix these two - they're separate actions. One's a mistake, one's a sign of character. So of the mistake, you say "oh shit, that was really stupid, I wish I hadn't done that." And of the truth-telling, you say "yay, I'm glad I did that."

When you try to mix the two, it wrecks the good taste of telling the truth. Don't regret doing the right thing. Just take this lesson forward and try to avoid doing the wrong thing in the future.

--Speaking as one who was burned by exactly this kind of thinking in high school, and wasted a lot of emotional energy on it.

Re:Random Thoughst Having Just Recently Awoken

[rahrens]

First - ethics,

Exactly, they got fired because they talked. As a retail employee, you are supposed to keep your mouth shut. If they had been exercising that particularly (to Apple) valuable skill, they'd still have a job.

Second - the NDA.

WHERE they got it doesn't matter. Leopard is a product that is restricted. Not just unreleased. Apple has what is known as a stovepipe organization. Some would term it as a firewalled org., too. What that means is that, depending on WHERE you work will determine what products you have access to. The NDAs the employees sign most likely have a clause that prevents them from getting access to information in other parts of the org., to prevent leaks. So where they got Leopard isn't at issue, simply the fact that they had it is enough. They work in the retail stores, so thay would have NO access to it at all.

Third - cutting off of the nose

Not an issue. Public reaction is not something they worry about here. The NDA these people violated spells out the consequences of the violation. If Apple doesn't fire these people, the next time Apple tried to do that, THOSE employees could go to court and use these cases as examples of how Apple had 'constructively changed' the terms of the NDA by this action. In the business world, the firings are normal and expected.