Here’s an interesting question for all you developers… If you have a client that wants you to program something to help them practice unethical behaviors (i.e. not recording sales to escape taxes, reducing employee work hours, etc), would you do it? Or would you decline to make that modification?
. . .Good question. I’ve been a software developer since the mid 80’s and have run into this many times. The correct thing to do is generally that which seems the right thing to do, but always that which is both ethical and legal. All the best, Mark
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Originally posted by achowtc
Here’s an interesting question for all you developers… If you have a client that wants you to program something to help them practice unethical behaviors (i.e. not recording sales to escape taxes, reducing employee work hours, etc), would you do it? Or would you decline to make that modification?
Examples can also be found in Manufacturing for for example the food industry. Tracking and Tracing is of vital importance, but with dodgy modifications, the whole concept can be become very brittle, hence introducing a safety risk. Good question, difficult to answer.
Well faced with situation, first engage the client to the likely difficulties (as violation of accounting practices/tax laws) and failingly to make him understand do it Regards, Anuj
Ever had a client ask to store credit card numbers in the Customer Card, that is about as illegal as it gets, but I have seen it done many times.
I was talking to someone in the pallet business who told me that when buying timber they adjust all the paperwork/prices etc. for slightly smaller dimensions than they are ordering. This makes the load appear to take up less space and hence costs less to ship. As I was trying to get my head around the concept, he told me “This is normal practice. It helps if you simply accept that the entire timber industry is corrupt.” Cheers, John
Well… I’m sure there’s “minor” offenses and “major” offenses. I guess it depends on the individual programmer to draw the line, if there ever is a line.
As a starting point I would not do it. But if I end up in the situation that I “have to” do such a mod, the customer will pay a very, very good price! Bribe? Perhaps…
More Often than not, customers want to make a proforma Invoices which are used to declare a Lower value for Imports so the Customs duty and import taxes are lowered. In some cases even Higher for case of LC and banking consignments.
In Seed Industry, the law here requires maintenance of complete history of lots while all seed companies freely indulge in lot blending, losing vital amll lt infos. Even when a system is implemented, and the information could be saved somewhere, existing practices take precedence and the requirement is to “forget about it”. Never realising earlier this was not possible and with a system this is. This is just a sample deviation. Sometimes deviations involve postings, statutory reportings etc and everytime it is the same debate and do exercise. However I make sure in such scenarios to knowingly or unknowingly take out a Change request form from the client. I also draw a very firm distinction between a business and technical consultant and become a pure technical consultant armed with a signed CRFfor the scenario. I do not know if there is a way out. Would love to have one. Regards Amit
Hmmmm - ENRON and Athur Anderson comes to mind …
Whenever I confront such situations, I usually build the application, wherever possible, to be “table driven” so that the actual lying (if that’s what it is) is done by the client without my conspiratorial involvement. However, that is only done after an appropriate amount of general grumbling about corruption. On the one hand, I am not and do not wish to be a policeman. But on the other, I have a moral obligation to point out (privately) that some things just aren’t right. But if someone told me to do womething really obvious (like route some portion of the transaction to a personal account), I wouldn’t do it. So if there’s advice on the matter to give, it is this: tell the client "I’ll make you a place to type in the number (or define the dimensions, or track the lot no., or whatever). What you actually do with that place to store the information is your business.
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I also draw a very firm distinction between a business and technical consultant and become a pure technical consultant armed with a signed CRFfor the scenario.
Originally posted by amit_sharma - 2003 Nov 11 : 10:16:24
When confronted with this dilemma, this is the same approach I take. As a technical consultant, I’ll do whatever the client wants the program to do; with a signed programming specification. However, if hired as a business consultant, I would definately object to any illegal and unethical practices. I believe now you’re liable for conspiracy charges after the whole Enron/AA scandal. On the legal side, if you’re a technical consultant hired to do programming only, would you still be liable as a co-conspirator?
I guess that it is the same, whether you are just a programmer following specs or a business conusltant producing specs…being ethical and legit…is something that each one of us has to ask himself…where do we draw the line for ourselves [?]
As Business and/or Technical consultants we are not even allowed to give legal advices to our customers. So all we can point out that it is a non ethical practice. Mostly you will find such situations in a business which grow over a long time already and it is mostly business practice for years. Mostly the customer will know that it is “illegal” and he will still ask you to implement it. The last I can say about this is: If you don’t do it, someone else will.
Hi! In my experience the type of client who asks for unethical/illegal changes is the sort of client whose cheques are always “In the post” & loses the invoices you send them. [:(] If they are prepaired to “cheat” other people, they will try to “cheat” you too…[:(!] Furthermore, if you go ahead and make such changes & the whole situation blows up, your name and the name of your company will get “damaged” as a result. Let such clients go elsewhere - Let them make someone else’s life hard.
Yeah… it’s easier said than done to “let the customer walk away”. People, including myself, are greedy and will take on any job… [V]