Well then I need to go to jail, because every place I have ever worked for they have asked me to sign something agreeing not to discuss my compensation, and I signed it.
You don't need to go to jail, you need a dunce cap. You were a sucker, you signed a contract with illegal unenforceable terms in it. You probably were a sucker in a dozen other ways, too. Employers know full well whether their contracts are legal and enforceable, their lawyers wrote them. You fell into the trap, you didn't notice you were signing an unenforceable contract. You probably agreed to a whole bunch of illegal, immoral, and unethical stuff.
You're right. I should have taken a job at every other company in the world, where I would have been presented with essentially the same terms.
The Inflation Calculator doesn't take into account the fact that the inflation indicator is a lie. How else does stuff cost twice as much as it did 5 years ago when inflation has only gone up maybe 20%? Inflation says a box of cookies only costs 20% more now than it did 5 years ago, but it doesn't take into account that the box of cookies weighs only 60% of what it did 5 years ago. Cases of soda still cost the same amount, but wait, cases of soda only have 20 cans in them now instead of 24.
Wages growing at 0.4% may beat the inflation numbers, but it doesn't beat how much stuff actually increases in price every year. And there are still hug numbers of employers that consistently give 0% for raise or Cost of Living Adjustment every single year, and there is no arguing that you as an employee have made yourself more valuable to them during that year and should be paid more than a COLA. It is an insult that they don't give you a raise, and a slap in the face that they don't give you a COLA.
The judge on the previous ruling said that there was "no evidence" that Uber was operating a Taxi broker service. So all they have to do is supply the evidence. They clearly are. The information can be gleaned from phones or Uber's own records.
Also, you don't just get to claim that your business model is distinct from traditional taxi services. That is up to the government to decide. Beck Taxi has an app which allows you to hail cab in the same manner as Uber, and yet they have a valid license. because they have an app, are they now entitled to operate without commercial insurance, proper licensing and bonding?
While interviewing for jobs last year, I ran into a former coworker who was still working at the same company and making slightly more money than I did when we worked together nine years ago. He stayed in the same position and accepted 2% pay raises over those nine years. I did short-term contract work — anywhere from a day to a year — for various Fortune 500 companies in Silicon Valley, making 80% more money because I have much broader range of experiences in assignment and corporate cultures. Go figure.
Businesses are stupid. They won't pay you raises even if you ask for them. They would rather you quit and then they will have to hire somebody else and train them, losing months of productivity and probably having to pay 120% or more of your salary to attract the talent, rather than just give you a lousy 10% raise.
Where most people get into trouble is thinking that they deserve finer things in life when they make more money. Hence, bigger houses, bigger cars and bigger TVs. It isn't long before they find themselves in the same predicament they were in before, still thinking that more money would solve all their problems.
Inflation IS a problem, because people think they at least deserve the same things they could afford last year, but because companies are too cheap to give COLA, you are effectively getting paid less every year and can't afford the things you could last year.
However, as far as getting more money goes, I agree that an extra 10 or 20% isn't going to mean much for very long, but I used to make more than 4 times (adjusted for inflation) what I make right now, and I can tell you that that money DID solve all my problems. I could save up for a couple months and buy a car for cash if I wanted to. I was putting $3k to $4k into mutual funds every month. I had no credit card debt. Now, I am underpaid and have eaten through all that I saved up in that period and more, and I have credit card debt again because I had to take out money to live on. I have sold the cars and the stocks, and moved into a cheaper house. But I know I could comfortably live with breathing room on about 40% of what I used to make back in 1998 (adjusted for inflation).
I've given up discussing salary and just joined a union to negotiate for me.
I believe I perform better than other people, so I can't see allowing a union to negotiate for me because they would put me at the same level as everybody else with my years of experience. If I performed average or worse than average at my job, I would consider letting the union negotiate for me.
I remember when companies used to offer jobs with salary bands. At least with that information you had a bracket to work with.
I hated the salary bands, too. "We'd like to give you a raise, but you are at the top of the salary band for your position." Wait, what? I make less than industry average and I outperform my coworkers. How can I be at the top of the band? What about Tom over there? He makes more than me, and I perform comparably with him and do the same job. "Oh, well, we had to make him a manager, so he could make more money." Who does he manage? "No one."
My understanding is that US law prohibits employees signing away their right to share the compensation information.
Well then I need to go to jail, because every place I have ever worked for they have asked me to sign something agreeing not to discuss my compensation, and I signed it.
Does that also apply to Separation Agreements? I have one that says I can't discuss the terms of the separation agreement with anyone other than for legal purposes. Oops. Well, I guess this is technically a legal purpose.
Large out-of-cycle compensation changes probably blow up their budget which gives management a big headache from a cash flow planning point of view. I suspect that's a reason not to like that.
Well, they can't have it both ways. The last place I was at I was a Director, but I didn't have a budget. Their reasoning was that if I had a budget, i would feel the need to spend all of it. Secondly, they wanted to be able to give me extra money if I needed it for a special project, and if I had a budget, that might have blown the budget and they would be unable to supply the money.
That's probably part of the AGILE methodology or something. They liked to grab onto the latest management buzzwords and run with them.
It is always a pain when they don't list the salary range.
I have gone over to being very up front and straight forward. If they want me to interview I ask "What salary range are you looking to pay?" If they give me some BS about how it is dependent on experience or "At this time it is open." I normally reply with "Sorry, I know how business works. A salary rage was selected before the listing was made. I am only asking what that range is so I can decide if it is worth my time to pursue the position. If it is to low then I am waisting my time and yours by even accepting an interview."
It doesn't surprise me that the company is willing to waste MY time, after all they aren't paying me yet. But it never ceases to amaze me that they will bring me in to talk to four or 5 of their guys, collectively costing the company probably $3,000, and refuse to reveal a salary range which could have saved them the $3,000.
There should definitely be ranges with a "based on experience" in there. I, too, have been sitting in interviews where the person was excited to welcome me to the team only to find out that their allotted budget wouldn't even cover my rent. On the flipside, I do also enjoy sitting in an interview with someone that realizes that I'm Batman and they would do well to pay me $20-$40K more than the guy that I'm replacing, because I'm going to save/make their company an extra million dollars in my first 6 months working there.
An extra million dollars in 6 months is not worth $20k more amortized over a year for most businesses. They'd rather lose money in 6 months and pay $20k less than average for a candidate that actually costs them money in the long run.
Are there people that DONT do this?
This is pretty much the first thing I ask... If I can't pay my bills it would be a pretty pointless job application.
How much time do you waste going to interviews??
Usually they same "competitive" or "salary commensurate with experience". This is slight of hand for "we aren't going to tell you what the position pays until after we have decided to make you an offer." The naive applicant's idea of competitive or commensurate is probably 30-40% higher than the company's.
Keep it up, keep ripping off advertisers, drive the value of advertising on our phones down to zero. Eventually nobody will be making money and we can relive the golden age of computers on our smartphones, an age dominated by passionate hobbyists and shareware authors.
I keep thinking that we are going to see Google collapse in on itself when people realize that every dollar spent on internet ads leads to less than a dollar worth of increased sales. But Google is smart enough to not be dependent upon ad revenue, but acts as "the house" where they play odds on both the ad buyers and the ad sellers and make sure the house always gets its percentage. In order for Google to go under, a large number of online businesses would have to realize that online advertising is worthless, and lucky for Google a sucker is born every minute.
I guess I haven't been presented one of these ads, because I don't use 2 GB in a year. But then if they presented an invisible ad to me I might be more likely to buy their product than if they presented a visible ad at me, because that would likely make me not want to do business with that company.
I only indirectly stick it to advertisers because websites throw so many ads in my face it bogs down the site, which all but forces me to use Adblock.
I don't blame the advertisers, without them all sites would be Pay to Enter, unless you're a Wikipedia and can get people to give you money every year. I prefer the internet stay free, and I'm willing to deal with ads if they aren't force fed down my throat.
That is untrue. Before advertisement on the internet, there were still millions of sites. At some point, somebody decided we needed to "monetize" all these sites, and that is when advertising started happening. Without advertising most of the information on the internet would still be available, because most of it is available adfree somewhere on the internet already, it is just harder to find it now because of all the sites that basically are just link farms with ads and have no actual useful content of their own.
I have never had my phone make an unintentional call as a result of putting the phone in my pocket or sitting on it. Occasionally my phone (Note 3) will call someone with absolutely no input from me when I am viewing their text message history. I do not have "OK Google" or Voicedialing enabled. It usually happens when I put the phone down on a table or just changing the orientation of the phone. I will see the phone flash and then all of a sudden it is dialing whoever's text message history I was viewing. Very annoying and definitely not something that is "my fault" as the judge says. What"precautions" would he have me take? Rewrite the OS?
Once again, the headline and summary are misleading. The judgement is not that pocket-dialed calls have no expectation of privacy at all, but rather that if you pocket-dial someone who goes on to overhear you talking talking as a result of the call then it's your fault and not that of the person you called, and thus you have no cause to accuse the person you called of "wiretapping". This is not a case of a judge declaring actual wiretapping to be OK.
I don't see how it could be the fault of the person you called. But I don't see how it is your own fault either. You did not command the phone to call anyone, it just did it by itself because the UI is too dumb to understand the difference between pressing a button to make a call and 100 pounds of fat pressing down on the entire face of the phone.
These calls had a very apt descriptive term. Now they are calling pocket dialed calls? Is pocket the new euphemism for butt?
Well, probably because butt dialed doesn't make much sense when 11% of people who keep their phone in their pocket keep it in one of their back pockets. Then there are all the people who wear their phone on a holster.
That example is pretty clearly lawful self-defense (armed robbers shot during commission of a felony in which your life is threatened). You may get dragged in to the court system if an overzealous DA decides to press charges, but you will have an excellent case for your defense.
Well, we do have an overzealous DA here (Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater), and he also made it into a racial thing to help his career at the cost of an innocent man's freedom.
Also, the police took statements from the victim, without telling him that they intended to make him a suspect, and without advising him that he should consult a lawyer. Then they used that statement in court, which should be illegal since they hadn't read him his rights.
Unfortunately, he did shoot at a fleeing robber, which he should not have done, and he did kill the other robber, and either fired more bullets into his corpse, or ensure that he was no longer a threat. The video camera was not able to observe that angle.
Of course, the family came out and talked about what a good and kind young man the armed robber was, and apparently he was just on his way back from singing alleluia in the Church choir and rescuing baby seals from clubbing when he just decided to stop off and rob the convenience store.
Anyway, the judge and jury decided that the clerk overreacted, because every armchair quarterback after the fact knows that they would have been calm, cool and levelheaded in a situation where somebody was pointing a gun in your face, and they would have used only the exact amount of force necessary to resolve the situation.
Unfortunately, in Oklahoma, even if you 100% comply with the armed robber, you often still wind up dead, so you might as well fight back, and then spend the rest of your life in prison, because David Prater wants to make sure that the streets are safe for thugs, thieves and murderers, and they can go about their chosen profession without fear of retaliation or resistance from the public, and if the public does fight back against crime, Prater will make sure they spend life in jail.
regular citizens can never know if they're breaking the law, there are so many of them after all, but therein lies an interesting thing. the law is rarely applied based on who is breaking the law, but rather who the person is.
anyone can be singled out and have their life turned upside down by law enforcement, it's all a matter of application. application of the law occurs on people who already have their feet wet and lower socio economic classes.
keep your nose clean and you won't run afoul of the law. I'd say that especially goes for "do no harm to anyone else" areas, that's how you first get in trouble, is if you assault or cause a harm to someone else. that raises your profile initially and from then on the system is inadvertently designed to focus on you and drive you into the ground.
most people get away with all kinds of minor crimes, so long as they don't actually physically or monetarily harm someone else (or be black) you won't get dragged into the undertow of the criminal justice system.
That holds true for most people, but sometimes you are dragged into something you don't want to. For example, if you are minding your own business running a convenience store and some guys come in with guns demanding money, and out of fear for your life, you shoot first and kill one of them. Now you have to spend the rest of your life in jail for something that you never premeditated or wanted to have happen.
It bothers me when I hear of regulatory organizations "investigating" to determine if a law has been broken. If the agency directly responsible for the enforcement of a law cannot immediately decide if an action is illegal how can anyone reasonably expect a regular citizen to know if they are breaking the law?
If they are investigating, then they will find a law that he has broken. Perhaps he was wearing a hat on a Tuesday, or tied his mule to a horse hitching post or something, but there is no doubt he has broken some law. They will find one.
All he was in trouble for was playing the lottery as an employee. Then it comes out that he monkeyed with the program. Did he give them that, or did they find evidence and confront him?
Also, didn't this all happen like a year ago? I seem to remember hearing about it a long time ago. Is slashdot just hearing about it now?
Why would they let a computer choose the numbers? That is subject to fraud. Why not have a random drawing like anybody with a shred of common sense would do?
Would a lottery worker suddenly in possession of $7m he didn't earn that was transferred from some guy he knew who won the lottery ever be under suspicion?
Gee, I don't know.
How would anybody know he had this money? He would probably quit his job and stop hanging out with his work friends. Cutting ties with them probably insures his safety right there. If he did ever run into anybody, he could tell them he won a bunch of money in Vegas.
Better yet, he could take the easy road and lead a successful upper middle class life without having to work and just not get too extravagant, and almost certainly nobody would suspect a thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Well then I need to go to jail, because every place I have ever worked for they have asked me to sign something agreeing not to discuss my compensation, and I signed it.
You don't need to go to jail, you need a dunce cap. You were a sucker, you signed a contract with illegal unenforceable terms in it. You probably were a sucker in a dozen other ways, too. Employers know full well whether their contracts are legal and enforceable, their lawyers wrote them. You fell into the trap, you didn't notice you were signing an unenforceable contract. You probably agreed to a whole bunch of illegal, immoral, and unethical stuff.
You're right. I should have taken a job at every other company in the world, where I would have been presented with essentially the same terms.
Businesses are stupid. They won't pay you raises even if you ask for them.
Sounds like your boss has you well trained. You won't ever ask for a raise because you won't expect to get it.
No, I asked for raises several times a year, and was always told lies and delay tactics.
The Inflation Calculator doesn't take into account the fact that the inflation indicator is a lie. How else does stuff cost twice as much as it did 5 years ago when inflation has only gone up maybe 20%? Inflation says a box of cookies only costs 20% more now than it did 5 years ago, but it doesn't take into account that the box of cookies weighs only 60% of what it did 5 years ago. Cases of soda still cost the same amount, but wait, cases of soda only have 20 cans in them now instead of 24.
Wages growing at 0.4% may beat the inflation numbers, but it doesn't beat how much stuff actually increases in price every year. And there are still hug numbers of employers that consistently give 0% for raise or Cost of Living Adjustment every single year, and there is no arguing that you as an employee have made yourself more valuable to them during that year and should be paid more than a COLA. It is an insult that they don't give you a raise, and a slap in the face that they don't give you a COLA.
The judge on the previous ruling said that there was "no evidence" that Uber was operating a Taxi broker service. So all they have to do is supply the evidence. They clearly are. The information can be gleaned from phones or Uber's own records.
Also, you don't just get to claim that your business model is distinct from traditional taxi services. That is up to the government to decide.
Beck Taxi has an app which allows you to hail cab in the same manner as Uber, and yet they have a valid license. because they have an app, are they now entitled to operate without commercial insurance, proper licensing and bonding?
While interviewing for jobs last year, I ran into a former coworker who was still working at the same company and making slightly more money than I did when we worked together nine years ago. He stayed in the same position and accepted 2% pay raises over those nine years. I did short-term contract work — anywhere from a day to a year — for various Fortune 500 companies in Silicon Valley, making 80% more money because I have much broader range of experiences in assignment and corporate cultures. Go figure.
Businesses are stupid. They won't pay you raises even if you ask for them. They would rather you quit and then they will have to hire somebody else and train them, losing months of productivity and probably having to pay 120% or more of your salary to attract the talent, rather than just give you a lousy 10% raise.
Where most people get into trouble is thinking that they deserve finer things in life when they make more money. Hence, bigger houses, bigger cars and bigger TVs. It isn't long before they find themselves in the same predicament they were in before, still thinking that more money would solve all their problems.
Inflation IS a problem, because people think they at least deserve the same things they could afford last year, but because companies are too cheap to give COLA, you are effectively getting paid less every year and can't afford the things you could last year.
However, as far as getting more money goes, I agree that an extra 10 or 20% isn't going to mean much for very long, but I used to make more than 4 times (adjusted for inflation) what I make right now, and I can tell you that that money DID solve all my problems. I could save up for a couple months and buy a car for cash if I wanted to. I was putting $3k to $4k into mutual funds every month. I had no credit card debt. Now, I am underpaid and have eaten through all that I saved up in that period and more, and I have credit card debt again because I had to take out money to live on. I have sold the cars and the stocks, and moved into a cheaper house. But I know I could comfortably live with breathing room on about 40% of what I used to make back in 1998 (adjusted for inflation).
I've given up discussing salary and just joined a union to negotiate for me.
I believe I perform better than other people, so I can't see allowing a union to negotiate for me because they would put me at the same level as everybody else with my years of experience. If I performed average or worse than average at my job, I would consider letting the union negotiate for me.
I remember when companies used to offer jobs with salary bands. At least with that information you had a bracket to work with.
I hated the salary bands, too. "We'd like to give you a raise, but you are at the top of the salary band for your position." Wait, what? I make less than industry average and I outperform my coworkers. How can I be at the top of the band? What about Tom over there? He makes more than me, and I perform comparably with him and do the same job. "Oh, well, we had to make him a manager, so he could make more money." Who does he manage? "No one."
My understanding is that US law prohibits employees signing away their right to share the compensation information.
Well then I need to go to jail, because every place I have ever worked for they have asked me to sign something agreeing not to discuss my compensation, and I signed it.
Does that also apply to Separation Agreements? I have one that says I can't discuss the terms of the separation agreement with anyone other than for legal purposes. Oops. Well, I guess this is technically a legal purpose.
Large out-of-cycle compensation changes probably blow up their budget which gives management a big headache from a cash flow planning point of view. I suspect that's a reason not to like that.
Well, they can't have it both ways. The last place I was at I was a Director, but I didn't have a budget. Their reasoning was that if I had a budget, i would feel the need to spend all of it. Secondly, they wanted to be able to give me extra money if I needed it for a special project, and if I had a budget, that might have blown the budget and they would be unable to supply the money.
That's probably part of the AGILE methodology or something. They liked to grab onto the latest management buzzwords and run with them.
It is always a pain when they don't list the salary range.
I have gone over to being very up front and straight forward. If they want me to interview I ask "What salary range are you looking to pay?" If they give me some BS about how it is dependent on experience or "At this time it is open." I normally reply with "Sorry, I know how business works. A salary rage was selected before the listing was made. I am only asking what that range is so I can decide if it is worth my time to pursue the position. If it is to low then I am waisting my time and yours by even accepting an interview."
It doesn't surprise me that the company is willing to waste MY time, after all they aren't paying me yet. But it never ceases to amaze me that they will bring me in to talk to four or 5 of their guys, collectively costing the company probably $3,000, and refuse to reveal a salary range which could have saved them the $3,000.
There should definitely be ranges with a "based on experience" in there. I, too, have been sitting in interviews where the person was excited to welcome me to the team only to find out that their allotted budget wouldn't even cover my rent. On the flipside, I do also enjoy sitting in an interview with someone that realizes that I'm Batman and they would do well to pay me $20-$40K more than the guy that I'm replacing, because I'm going to save/make their company an extra million dollars in my first 6 months working there.
An extra million dollars in 6 months is not worth $20k more amortized over a year for most businesses. They'd rather lose money in 6 months and pay $20k less than average for a candidate that actually costs them money in the long run.
Are there people that DONT do this? This is pretty much the first thing I ask... If I can't pay my bills it would be a pretty pointless job application. How much time do you waste going to interviews??
Usually they same "competitive" or "salary commensurate with experience". This is slight of hand for "we aren't going to tell you what the position pays until after we have decided to make you an offer." The naive applicant's idea of competitive or commensurate is probably 30-40% higher than the company's.
Keep it up, keep ripping off advertisers, drive the value of advertising on our phones down to zero. Eventually nobody will be making money and we can relive the golden age of computers on our smartphones, an age dominated by passionate hobbyists and shareware authors.
I keep thinking that we are going to see Google collapse in on itself when people realize that every dollar spent on internet ads leads to less than a dollar worth of increased sales. But Google is smart enough to not be dependent upon ad revenue, but acts as "the house" where they play odds on both the ad buyers and the ad sellers and make sure the house always gets its percentage. In order for Google to go under, a large number of online businesses would have to realize that online advertising is worthless, and lucky for Google a sucker is born every minute.
I guess I haven't been presented one of these ads, because I don't use 2 GB in a year. But then if they presented an invisible ad to me I might be more likely to buy their product than if they presented a visible ad at me, because that would likely make me not want to do business with that company.
I only indirectly stick it to advertisers because websites throw so many ads in my face it bogs down the site, which all but forces me to use Adblock.
I don't blame the advertisers, without them all sites would be Pay to Enter, unless you're a Wikipedia and can get people to give you money every year. I prefer the internet stay free, and I'm willing to deal with ads if they aren't force fed down my throat.
That is untrue. Before advertisement on the internet, there were still millions of sites. At some point, somebody decided we needed to "monetize" all these sites, and that is when advertising started happening. Without advertising most of the information on the internet would still be available, because most of it is available adfree somewhere on the internet already, it is just harder to find it now because of all the sites that basically are just link farms with ads and have no actual useful content of their own.
I have never had my phone make an unintentional call as a result of putting the phone in my pocket or sitting on it. Occasionally my phone (Note 3) will call someone with absolutely no input from me when I am viewing their text message history. I do not have "OK Google" or Voicedialing enabled. It usually happens when I put the phone down on a table or just changing the orientation of the phone. I will see the phone flash and then all of a sudden it is dialing whoever's text message history I was viewing. Very annoying and definitely not something that is "my fault" as the judge says. What"precautions" would he have me take? Rewrite the OS?
Once again, the headline and summary are misleading. The judgement is not that pocket-dialed calls have no expectation of privacy at all, but rather that if you pocket-dial someone who goes on to overhear you talking talking as a result of the call then it's your fault and not that of the person you called, and thus you have no cause to accuse the person you called of "wiretapping". This is not a case of a judge declaring actual wiretapping to be OK.
I don't see how it could be the fault of the person you called. But I don't see how it is your own fault either. You did not command the phone to call anyone, it just did it by itself because the UI is too dumb to understand the difference between pressing a button to make a call and 100 pounds of fat pressing down on the entire face of the phone.
These calls had a very apt descriptive term. Now they are calling pocket dialed calls? Is pocket the new euphemism for butt?
Well, probably because butt dialed doesn't make much sense when 11% of people who keep their phone in their pocket keep it in one of their back pockets. Then there are all the people who wear their phone on a holster.
That example is pretty clearly lawful self-defense (armed robbers shot during commission of a felony in which your life is threatened). You may get dragged in to the court system if an overzealous DA decides to press charges, but you will have an excellent case for your defense.
Well, we do have an overzealous DA here (Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater), and he also made it into a racial thing to help his career at the cost of an innocent man's freedom.
Also, the police took statements from the victim, without telling him that they intended to make him a suspect, and without advising him that he should consult a lawyer. Then they used that statement in court, which should be illegal since they hadn't read him his rights.
Unfortunately, he did shoot at a fleeing robber, which he should not have done, and he did kill the other robber, and either fired more bullets into his corpse, or ensure that he was no longer a threat. The video camera was not able to observe that angle.
Of course, the family came out and talked about what a good and kind young man the armed robber was, and apparently he was just on his way back from singing alleluia in the Church choir and rescuing baby seals from clubbing when he just decided to stop off and rob the convenience store.
Anyway, the judge and jury decided that the clerk overreacted, because every armchair quarterback after the fact knows that they would have been calm, cool and levelheaded in a situation where somebody was pointing a gun in your face, and they would have used only the exact amount of force necessary to resolve the situation.
Unfortunately, in Oklahoma, even if you 100% comply with the armed robber, you often still wind up dead, so you might as well fight back, and then spend the rest of your life in prison, because David Prater wants to make sure that the streets are safe for thugs, thieves and murderers, and they can go about their chosen profession without fear of retaliation or resistance from the public, and if the public does fight back against crime, Prater will make sure they spend life in jail.
regular citizens can never know if they're breaking the law, there are so many of them after all, but therein lies an interesting thing. the law is rarely applied based on who is breaking the law, but rather who the person is.
anyone can be singled out and have their life turned upside down by law enforcement, it's all a matter of application. application of the law occurs on people who already have their feet wet and lower socio economic classes.
keep your nose clean and you won't run afoul of the law. I'd say that especially goes for "do no harm to anyone else" areas, that's how you first get in trouble, is if you assault or cause a harm to someone else. that raises your profile initially and from then on the system is inadvertently designed to focus on you and drive you into the ground.
most people get away with all kinds of minor crimes, so long as they don't actually physically or monetarily harm someone else (or be black) you won't get dragged into the undertow of the criminal justice system.
That holds true for most people, but sometimes you are dragged into something you don't want to. For example, if you are minding your own business running a convenience store and some guys come in with guns demanding money, and out of fear for your life, you shoot first and kill one of them. Now you have to spend the rest of your life in jail for something that you never premeditated or wanted to have happen.
It bothers me when I hear of regulatory organizations "investigating" to determine if a law has been broken. If the agency directly responsible for the enforcement of a law cannot immediately decide if an action is illegal how can anyone reasonably expect a regular citizen to know if they are breaking the law?
If they are investigating, then they will find a law that he has broken. Perhaps he was wearing a hat on a Tuesday, or tied his mule to a horse hitching post or something, but there is no doubt he has broken some law. They will find one.
All he was in trouble for was playing the lottery as an employee. Then it comes out that he monkeyed with the program. Did he give them that, or did they find evidence and confront him?
Also, didn't this all happen like a year ago? I seem to remember hearing about it a long time ago. Is slashdot just hearing about it now?
Why would they let a computer choose the numbers? That is subject to fraud. Why not have a random drawing like anybody with a shred of common sense would do?
Would a lottery worker suddenly in possession of $7m he didn't earn that was transferred from some guy he knew who won the lottery ever be under suspicion?
Gee, I don't know.
How would anybody know he had this money? He would probably quit his job and stop hanging out with his work friends. Cutting ties with them probably insures his safety right there. If he did ever run into anybody, he could tell them he won a bunch of money in Vegas.
Better yet, he could take the easy road and lead a successful upper middle class life without having to work and just not get too extravagant, and almost certainly nobody would suspect a thing.