Handbooks: Email and Porn Forever

The recession caused by Wall Street’s recklessness and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s derelection of duty isn’t  funny. Millions of Americans still suffer. The latest chapter of  the blame game has become somewhat humorous, however, while simultaneously reminding employers of handbook policies that have employment law implications. I’m talking, of course, about policies dealing with email and pornography.

The SEC sues Goldman Sachs, claiming it profited from serious conflicts of interest by selling incomprehensible securities that packaged sub-prime mortgages and then betting against these securities, the latter strategy resulting in a money-making machine for GS. The SEC lawsuit, though perhaps justified, comes two years too late.

Now emails from Goldman executives seem to show that Goldman knew exactly what it was doing. It was screwing clients in particular and the public in general as it gleefully followed the demise of the housing market while making tons of money in the process.

But wait. SEC regulators, instead of preventing Goldman’s screwing of America, were spending enormous amounts of time at work watching another kind of screwing. They were viewing pornography on their computers. I guess this shows that sexual screwing is more enticing than financial screwing, even to government regulators supposedly enamored of finance.

Employers have email and pornography policies. I’m sure both Goldman and the SEC had them. Do these policies do any good? Probably not. Goldman and the SEC don’t provide isolated examples of the futility of such policies. The only way to control boneheads who think think they are in a cocoon when they send emails and watch porn is to shut-down company email and deny access to the Internet.

Since that’s not going to happen, employers should refine their policies regularly and enforce them vigilantly. Real enforcement requires firing violators. If I’m not mistaken, both the Goldman executives and the SEC regulators are still on the job.