Life Is Simple

Big corporations are subject to much more scrutiny then an average guy. They are subjects to audits by IRS, environmental compliance, regulatory compliance and don’t even start on Sar-Box… In order to comply the company has to create a set of rules or policies and then enforce them. Sounds easy? Read on.

Most of regulations applicable to certain company are outlined in legalese. However, most managers, who responsible for creating and/or enforcing policies aren’t really fluent in that language. More often then not they are not fluent in some of the areas where regulation applies.

For example, if you average pointy-haired boss is overseeing an accounting department, what does he know about daily e-mail backup and retention policies? Probably very little. What could happen? He may restrict the size of the mailbox available to workers in order to prevent e-mailings of large attachments. He thinks (and you can’t really blaim him for this, for little does he know) that once your mailbox is small enough the attachments won’t fit. In reality, of course, what will happen is everyone will start using personal mail boxes thus creating a security whole as large as a Google.

Next step? By order of business all e-mail providers are blocked. No Hotmail, GMail or Yahoo for you. So what would those poor souls, who didn’t quit on this step do? They would start using public shares on the network, so that they can upload a document to a network drive that is accessible to that other department and just e-mail the link to it. If you are thinking that all company will undoubtedly watch out for termination lists and budget spreadsheets appear on a public share - you got that right.

By the time the management had gone in every way possible to restrict employees from successfully doing their work, about 75% of people would already resign. Therefore there’s a cage full of new monkeys and you have to deal with all the new issues right now.

So why all the pain? Why all the suffering? There are not many possible reasons behind it.

First - few are ruining it for a larger crowd. In any group there eventually will be someone who will try to bend the rules as far as he or she can. However, management and HR must deal with those people directly, not enforce stricter policies to everyone.

Second - as shown in example above - inability to comprehend or indifference to the “tools of the trade”. If you need to dig a mine there’s very little chance you can do it fast enough using just a shovel. It often comes hand-in-hand with the idea that employees are using company’s resources for personal benefit. However, if do not restrict people’s personal e-mail addresses they will not use your company’s mail servers to send out those huge funny e-mails.

Third - when company hired you - did they do all the screening, background checks and all the other intimidating tasks of figuring who you are? Oh, they’ve even sent you to take a drug test? Good. So why, after they hire you, they suddenly stop trusting you? Have all your phone conversation recorded, all your e-mails archived, all the web site you’ve visited - listed and submitted to your supervisor? That sudden lack of trust annoys most of people, so instead of concentrating on getting job done they spend their time figuring how to circumvent the system.

There will always be one or two rogue employees that will try to push it to the limit. They are usually not the top performers nor they are the best people around. However, with all the wall pushing around, with all the restricting and humiliating, they - most likely - be the ones who stay after all reorganizations. Questions is - do you really want these people to survive?

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