Client from Hell redux

[KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

Tracy B sez:
> Yeah, and the highway patrol doesn't notice when I drive 6 
> miles above the
> speed limit. That doesn't give me the right to do it. 

Of course it does.

> And if/when I get caught,
> trying to use "It helped me do what I needed to do faster and 
> I didn't think
> you'd notice or care" as a defense isn't going to hold water, 
> is it?  

Irrelevant.

> (Yes, I
> still do it knowing it's wrong, but I don't pretend it's my 
> God-given right,
> and that's the difference between me and Andy P.)

Well, Andy P. would probably not be hypocritical. You'd 
both do it (exceeding the posted speed limit, if the 
situation seemed to warrant it), but Andrew probably 
realizes that's not inherently wrong, in any moral sense.
It's against the wishes of a local monopolist, and they'll 
hurt you if they catch you, but that doesn't make it 
wrong.  Speed limits are arbitrary. The only inherent 
wrongness in arbitrariness is in enforcing it, not in 
disobeying it.

Bringing this back to TW ethics, if that company was so 
hilariously lax that they left their server room unsecured 
AND they left their servers without passwords, then it's 
hard to imagine them noticing - or caring if they did 
notice --that Andrew made himself at home. They probably 
didn't even HAVE an explicit, posted rule against his action. 
If he didn't sign a contract about it, then it isn't breach 
of contract.  Andrew is -- brazenly and overbearingly, 
perhaps -- doing the job they hired him for, despite 
shortcomings in THEIR performance.

Before anybody knee-jerks, please note that I recognize 
a distinction between that situation and one where Andrew 
might have done the company actual harm.  He didn't, so 
that's a non-issue.  If they'd wanted him to stay out, 
they'd have posted a sign or taken the most elementary of 
security precautions -- passwords on the servers. 

Hell, we're a small, young company but our servers are 
kept in a locked room, protected by card-swipe AND keypad 
doorlock, and the servers all have passwords that are 
carefully protected, and the servers themselves live 
within a locked metal cage that's bolted to the floor. 
Our premises have door, window and heat/motion detection 
security, and the server room has additional safeguards, 
beyond those.  The fact that Andrew COULD just waltz in 
and do what he did, told him all he needed to know about 
what was important to that client company.

If I could afford him, I'd hire him.    :-)


/kevin