Slashdot Mirror
Employees Would Steal Data When Leaving a Job
An anonymous reader writes "Employees openly admit they would take company data, including customer data and product plans, when leaving a job. In response to a recent survey, 49% of US workers and 52% of British workers admitted they would take some form of company property with them when leaving a position: 29% (US) and 23% (UK) would take customer data, including contact information; 23% (US) and 22% (UK) would take electronic files; 15% (US) and 17% (UK) would take product information, including designs and plans; and 13% (US) and 22% (UK) would take small office supplies."
The obvious, interesting follow-up question is, how many of them would sell, share, or otherwise exploit that data? Would they take measures to protect it, or simply misplace it? I figure at least some of that's got to be people who don't see the point in deleting that sly backup they made so they could work on their reports at home, or whatever, and those are people who don't represent a threat to company security. "Stealing" data itself causes the company no harm. Using the customer list to set up one's own business, losing that data on the bus, or selling on some trade secrets, is where the concern lies.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
This is what happens when companies are disloyal to their employees. The employees become disloyal to the company. If the executives would stop being greedy, arrogant shithead; stop fattening their pockets at the expense of the company, the shareholders, and the employees; and treating employees like expendable resources instead of people, this would not be a problem. But, they are psychopathic assholes, so it is going to continue.
I would have hoped that people were more honest and trustworthy than that:(
Well, at least they were honest with the survey taker...
Why should people be trustworthy to a company they can't trust and would fire them with no notice for trumped up reasons all so some manager can get better office furniture or an executive can get a bigger bonus?
So working for a company that treats you like shit, cuts your pay, bullies you to work long hours, and then fires you is fine, but walking with a couple of boxes of pens is sacrilege?
I don't put myself in that sort of position: I don't usually have much trouble finding work, so I walk before I get stressed to that point. But I can certainly understand why a basically honest person might feel entitled to rip off a dishonest employer.
Honesty is a two way street.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
It's because companies frequently let their normal employees treat IT staff in ways that are fireable offenses if done to the rest of the company. Call them up, foaming at the mouth screaming because the email server is down, for example. Or God forbid that an in-house developer has a few bugs in their app.
My wife is an in-house developer at a large company. I can't even begin to count the number of times she and her group have been savagely attacked by users who are so fucking stupid that they literally freeze up if a single new button appears in the UI.
The dirty little trend I've noticed is that 9 times out of 10, the people who attack her are non-technical female employees. Most men don't dare attack a female developer at that level, especially not one who is competent (the second worst fury, aside from a scorned woman, is HR coming to the aid of a woman like that against a bombastic man). Male developers also often don't hesitate to humiliate users who treat them like that.
Because stealing is wrong?
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette
Indeed. I care about my work. If I give 2 weeks notice them I'm available for 2 weeks to help them get their shit together so that someone else can take care of what I was doing and I can wrap up any lose ends. If the treatment though is basically to lock me out of everything though, then I'm not even going to bother.
What's the sense in it anyways? If you do that dance every time someone decided to leave then anyone who actually wants to sneak out information is going to do it the day BEFORE they turn in their 2 week notice anyways.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
*laugh* My last job basically gave me 6 weeks until my last day, and a rather generous severance package, for which I was grateful. They did, however, get rid of my co-workers almost immediately and left me in a caretaker position to wind down operations of the product. (The ones who were gone right away got essentially the same package as me, but had no further obligations.)
The problem was, as we got closer to the date I was to be done, they were having some issues related to some new business -- a pretty big dollar customer and some deficiencies in the software. The sales people were getting increasingly shrill that we needed to implement certain features which they sold (but didn't exist) or we'd lose the business. There was no way in hell to implement the features in the time line with the remaining resources.
Eventually, I had to tell them that I care 50% less with each passing day, and if this business was so damned critical, why had they let go of the entire development team?
At some point, it becomes something of an abuse of my good will to tell me how vital the product is to quarterly revenues while at the same time telling me they don't need me to do it any more. I don't care if the salesmen/executives aren't getting their bonus any more, that's not my problem.
Sometimes, companies just develop a very screwed up sense of what they should be expecting from the employees they're in the middle of laying off.
Your morals =! other's morals. I'm sure folks out there who work 80 hours a week for months on end and then get shitcanned see it a tad bit differently (although I'm not defending stealing in any form, just the perspective)
Your post is a glowing example as to why you never give two weeks notice. Simply wait until Friday at 4:30pm and let your employer know this will be your last day, and start your next gig on Monday.
You should also keep a copy of your email when exiting if possible.
True story time: A friend of mine was fired from a small cash-strapped company in Arizona. They had promised him bonus money for working nights and weekends for several months strait (amounting to nearly 50k). Instead of coming up with the money, the owner of the company decided it would be more advantageous to fire him (without true cause) and not pay up so the balance sheet of the company would look better for his board of directors meeting. The owner even tried to block my friends unemployment claim and invented reasons for dismissing him (lied in court).
Fortunately for my friend, he backed up his work email before leaving. With the email record, he was able to show in court that his boss was a lying scumbag by producing contradicting documentation to his boss's sworn statements and get unemployment. Using the court record from the unemployment hearing showing that his employer fired hims without just cause, he was then able to sue his former employer and get recompensed for the promised bonus money (again producing the email record where his boss stated how he would be compensated and how they needed him to work like a dog for several months).
Had he not backed up his work email it would have been his word against his former employer. He most likely would not have been able to get unemployment and definitely would have never seen a dime of the money that was promised to him.
The moral of the story is that you need to weigh your employers security policy that's there to protect them, against what is required to protect yourself.