A lot of companies think they can get away with circumventing the terms and conditions of the tools they use and don’t weigh the costs of getting caught.

Read this story to see how to protect yourself what the guilty party tries to save money by cutting corners.

This is why you never throw away emails from the Boss

In the mid 1990s I was the the Sysadmin for a small tech company that no longer exists.

A new version of a well known server operating system was rapidly replacing the older Novel installations, and there was great demand for training on this new OS. Let’s call it “MT.”

Boss wants us to gear up to teach “MT” to the companies replacing their older systems.

I say great, here are the costs involved with purchasing X copies of the new OS for the classroom PCs.

While shifting to the new system, her boss gets off on the wrong foot.

Email back from Boss: “No, just use one copy for all the systems. I have the CD-ROM in my office, come get it.”

I reply that we will be in violation of the license agreement for the OS, and could face penalties.

Boss emails back, a little testy, to “Just do what I am telling you to do!”

He says do it, or lose my job.

I archive the email chain, and print off hard copies for safe keeping.

Months later due to a totally unrelated issue, the company gets audited.

Once the company is caught red-handed, chaos ensues.

All hell breaks loose.

I am called into a meeting with my Boss, and every Boss up the food chain to the CEO of the company.

“I was doing what I was ordered to do over my objections.” Etc.

I look over to my boss saying “I have no memory of that. I would never authorize breaking the law.”

I show the boardroom full of executives the conversation.

Boss gets red in the face and accuses me of forging the emails.

I reach back into my bag, and pull out the CD-ROM and license code and ask if he wants it back?

The company was hit with MASSIVE fines and went bankrupt the following year. My old boss was selling PCs at Best Buy.

No dishonor there, but a rather dramatic drop in pay, I presume.

Here’s what people had to say about this story.

You never know when you might need to defend yourself.

Note that the person doesn’t apologize for their mistake.

I wonder if you can still do this.

It takes a particular kind of snake to pull this…

Hard disagree. This puts sensitive information at risk.

I would have said no and then sued for wrongful dismissal.

There were just so many options!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.