Re: anonymous mail

[peb@PROCASE.COM (Paul Baclace)]

>Apparently, Mr. Steshenko thought it was appropriate to use company
>resources for non-company activities. 

Use of phone, desk, email, bathroom, grounds, chairs, kitchen, are all
company facilities that are necessary for working for a company, but it
is widely accepted that they can also be used personally as perks.  At
the extreme of a perk-that-is-necessary is "calling your doctor".  This
is not company business, but if you can't make such calls at the
office, you end up working less in order to get around such
restrictions.  The other extreme is something that takes up company
resources due to purely individual convenience: posting to usenet for
personal business.  This can be done via a private account and does not
have to be done from the office, but many companies allow this because
they also expect people to work overtime for free and this keeps them 
at work. 

Depending upon many factors at a company, the amount of perk usage
allowed varies.  Some companies have policies about this while
others do not.  I think the reason no policy exists in many places
is that defining it is a form of encouragement (like saying you
have exactly 5 sick days a year, and they don't carry over to the
next; this causes people to call in sick even when they are not.
One company I worked for took sick days out of your vacation days
(but you got more vacation days than was ordinary); this encouraged
honesty, but also led to sick people coming to work).  

> On top of that, those activities misrepresented the company.

This gets into the disclaimer bit.  I *never* assume a person
is speaking for the company unless they are making a product
announcement; for anything else, it is fairly easy to see that
postings are personal (even if they regard business related 
subjects like commendts about the quality of particular software).

It would be far easier for everyone to assume that no messages 
represent the company, board of directors, etc., unless explicitly
stated as such, simply because official messages are rare and 
personal/unofficial ones are frequent.

>Steshenko's firing is something all the libertarians on this list
>should applaud.

The cost of accounting/surveillance/policing/ill-will must be balanced with 
the benefits of having a trusting/open/honest/self-policed-perks
policy; this is a tradeoff all organizations must make and has nothing to do
with free markets.  Libertarian thought doesn't say anything about this
tradeoff, except that governments shouldn't coerce a company into 
a particular position.  


Paul E. Baclace
peb@procase.com