Copying company contacts from outlook 6

[proletariat]

Today is my last day, and I would like to have some of the contacts that are in the company's outlook directory. I can import these into google mail for my future personal use.

Ethical or Unethical?

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Oo, no I am not saying anything of the sort, but thanks for the "read-between-the-lines" (mis)interpretation.

Most contact lists contain only information that exists on the web, phone books & catalogues and was probably compiled by various employees (engineers, buyers, etc) over a period of time. I have found & compiled my own list of contacts over the years & have shared them freely with any company that I have worked for. But I expect reciprocation ... if I have to use a companys contact I will add it to my own list for future reference ... just like collecting a Business Card. The companies have known this & have had no problem with that.


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[JAE]

CorBlimeyLimey,

For the condition you describe, it sounds harmless and up-front. But each company probably has their own view of their client/contact database. For your descriptive case, it sounds OK. But many other firms aren't so open about it.

Mine has a strict policy that the contact list as a whole comprises the result of years of marketing and relationship building and includes not only phone numbers with names, but also data associated with client history, projects, and future potential.

Taking this information would certainly be stealing if the firm has a set policy that you agreed to when first employed. That would be one of the primary issues - was there an initial agreement that the contact info was the property of the firm?

 

[GregLocock]

I'll give an example. Suppose I worked in Australia, and our buying group had spent time in China locating the rather few and far between suppliers who can (a) speak English, (b) understand our quality and timing requirements and (c) actually have an accounting system.

That is a rather useful list. Even if I had contributed some names to it, it is still more useful in aggregate than my contribution is.



Cheers

Greg Locock

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[HVAC68]

What if I have a great memory (I used to have, before the PDA/computer/mobile days) and am able to remember all or at least the most important ones. Can I use this memory and use the contacts at my new work place ???

HVAC68

 

[JAE]

Despite what I said above, I would tend to think that anything in my brain is mine. But someone with a photographic memory would blow away my assertions above!

 

[LHA]

...and HVAC hits exactly on why this database belongs to all who worked on it.

It is either a list (in days of paper and pencil), a compilation of bits (for most of us), a vague recollection (for those with good recall) or a fragment of our memory (for those with photographic memories).

Are those with photographic memories ethically bound to never look at the list, or just to "forget" the database when they leave? Are those with good recall ethically bound to "forget" what they remember? Am I bound to tear up my hardcopies, delete my e-copy, to never make a copy or to just delete it when I leave?

GregLocock: If you contributed some names to a list, you were paid to do so. Therefore your employer owns a copy of the data. You are not required to forget the some parts - and not other parts - when you leave.

I stick by my original thought: it would be unethical to remove the only copy from your employer, because he paid to have it created. But to not avail yourself to any ethically-acquired data - the quadratic equation, a vendor's address, whatever - would be to unnecessarily limit your own professional development.

Engineering is the practice of the art of science - Steve

 

[Ashereng]

If you rembemer it in your head, it is yours.

If you take a book, it is not yours. That is the difference.

Experience you gained through your work is yours to keep when you leave.

Goods you made through your work is the company's, it stays.

If you take information off the company computer list, that is the same as taking the book.

If you remember the information off the company computer list, that is the same as experience gained, that is yours to keep.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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[CorBlimeyLimey]

If you remember it in your head until you get home, then add it to your personal list at home, does it cease to be yours? You haven't forgotten it, you've just made a backup copy!

IMO, it's what you do with the information that would create an ethics issue.


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[epoisses]

Exactly. How many of you found a next job using contacts they met during their old job? Would that be unethical? Why would you voluntarily fight for yourself with both hands bound behind your back?

I don't see a problem taking a list of contacts with you. Otherwise you might as well give all the oxygen back that you breathed over the years, and don't forget all the coffee...
but then again I am not bound by a US PE license, I can just be as (un)ethical as anybody else...

 

[HVACctrl]

You're not using them to lie, cheat or steal. I don't see how its unethical. Maybe you will be competition. Oh well. Does that mean that even if you met someone during your tenure there you can never call them because its unethical?

That's just silly. Take the info and do the right thing.
Again, I would never lie, cheat or steal. This is none of these things.

Engineers are so hand-held and tied up by overblown exagerated concepts of ethics that its just ridiculous and aggravating.

Maybe denying you the list is unethical and childish.

Ed

 

[LHA]

To add more complexity, my printer at home is broken. If I remember it in your head until I get home, then add it to my personal list at home, then email it to my work address, then print it out, can I have that hardcopy? If I write it down at home, is that OK? If I write it down at work, is that OK? If I call my wife from work, ask her to write it down, is that OK? If I yell down the stairs from my home computer, ask my wife to write it down, is that OK? If I open it on my laptop at a WIFI truckstop, and write it down, is that OK? If I rent printer time at that WIFI truckstop, print it, is that OK?

I hate to seem silly, but the computer age has re-written the rules about possession, sharing, and where data is "located".

proletariat, I really hope you took a copy, to not have done so would have been cheating you. But I really hope you did not REMOVE the only copy, which would have been cheating your former boss...c'mon the suspense is killing us!

Engineering is the practice of the art of science - Steve

 

[HVACctrl]

lha has nailed it.

I was gonna say, "can I not use any knowledge I gathered on the job?" but lha said it better.

Ed

 

[HVACctrl]

Also lha mentions that company paid to have it created so at least one copy is theres. While I agree, it could be that it wasn't in the job desciption or list of responsibilities to create that list, but was done on your own.

If all obligations were taken care of, and the employer was happy with your contributions aside from the list, but you did the list as an extra, then maybe it can be argued that the employer didn't even pay for the list.

You should take a copy. There is nothing wrong with it. They may not WANT you to just so they can impede you as competition or out of the sour grapes syendrome. But who is to say what they WANT is right?

Ed

 

[GregLocock]

So if you contribute to a database you have an ethical 'right' to a copy of the entire database? Is that what I'm hearing?

I don't actually CARE about this, everything significant I carry from job to job is stored in jellyware or dead wood.



Cheers

Greg Locock

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[JAE]

I hate to disagree but these statements just don't make sense.

HVACctrl says: You're not using them to lie, cheat or steal. The whole point of this argument is: "is it stealing?". So saying I can steal as long as I don't steal is circular reasoning. And its like saying that as long as I'm a good boy once I take someone's property, its OK to take someone's property.

lha says: I hate to seem silly, but the computer age has re-written the rules about possession, sharing, and where data is "located". We engineers live and breathe via our intellectual property (all our designs). The concept of intellectual property hasn't changed at all. What's changed is the perception that digital stuff isn't intellectual property. It can be and is. Look at the struggles that the music industry has had to deal with when thousands copy and distribute mp3 files illegally.

The question isn't whether your knowledge and skills and memory can be taken with you and used in your new job.

The original question was whether it was ETHICAL for someone to take a list of clients/contacts from a company database and email it home.

There are personal Outlook files (with your own contacts in them) and company wide client/contact files that have enormous value to a company. There may be some degree of overlap in both. The former are yours. The latter belong to the company and even though it may be easy to take, its still wrong to simply copy and paste it home.

To flippantly say you can just take a company's client list, with the boss not liking it, just because some of its in your head, its easy to do anyway (hey wifey - write this down!), you'll be nice once you take it, and you had a part in its creation, is not describing ethical behavior at all.

 

[HVACctrl]

Jae.
I guess I just don't think its stealing- PARTICULARLY those entires that were built by the person in question.

Ed

 

[IRstuff]

THAT is definitely a non-argument. If your customer pays for your design, doesn't he own it outright? The fact that you did the work is irrelevant. Who paid for it is.

TTFN

 

[Ashereng]

If you have to copy it and send it home, it probably is stealing.

Anyhoot, we each march to the beat of our own drummer.

If you think it is ethical, then you will do it. If you think it is unethical, they you probably won't.

Like I said earlier, we each follow our own gut feeling.

So, proletariat, back to you.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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[HVACctrl]

Go ahead. Spend 3 years and countless hours rebuilding a data base that you built on your own at your job. The company never paid you to do it because you were already fulfilling all of your job requirements but did the data base as an extra-curicular activity. Granted, some of it may have been done on company time. But again, you were already doing all the your assignments without having to build the data base.

Don't spend 10 minutes copying the data base. Don't use a company Yellow Pages to look up a business phone number. If you feel you have to, tie one arm behind your back and spend years and countless hours rebulding the data on your own after you leave.

I don't think its unethical. I think its stupid to impeded yourself. You say "to-mah-to", right?

Here's one more for you: I design a buiding HVAC system for a client. It is modern, uses the most energy-efficient equipment and works like a charm. I am so satisfied with the outcome that on the next building I work on, I use the same concepts. Did I steal from the original customer, who, by the way, is extremely happy with the results I provided him? Did I infringe on a copyright? Did I do anything unethical?

Ed

 

[Ashereng]

It depends.

I worked on a project automating some things for a client. We developed a software package as part of the engineering on the project for the client. That application package that we developed, for this project and this client, actually did belong to the client as per the contract, even though we did not originally envision that we would develop the package.

Should our company re-use it, keep a copy in any way, even engineering notes, would have violated the contract, and probably copyright infringements.

Our counsel department came around and did a seminar on intellectual property ownership, and outlined steps the company had to take to satisfy the client. It is quite rigorous.

We turned over everything: notes on engineering pads, stickies, email ... everything.



"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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