Spent the last 20 mins listening to some woman reading obviously and painfully from an autocue telling me not to take bribes when securing complex overseas deals. When I never make deals of any kind, corrupt or otherwise, cos it’s not even remotely my job.

Take bribes? Obviously. You should be making bribes. Is that the advanced class?

You won’t get very far in Africa / ME if you’re not prepared to grease the wheels of commerce, esp if you’re white – you often have to pay just to get through customs as ‘your paperwork appears not to be in order’ so either pay $200 or we’ll hold you at gun point until you do…..

A colleague had to bribe a customs official to get his laptop into Egypt. That was a funny expense form.

What is an example of an appropriate gift for a business contact?

a) a weekend in a hotel/spa during a tender process
b) a meal out to celebrate the placement of a contract
c) a bottle of champange
d) a cup of coffee

Yes, that’s right, a cup of coffee is an example of an appropriate gift for a business contact.

Yes, that’s right, that’s the sound of my spirit draining out through my feet.

We had to pay $2500 to get someone out of Nigeria!

When I contracted for a bank I had to watch the ‘how to enter a branch safely’ video. A lot. I didn’t work in a branch, I typed on a keyboard in an office block.

That and the ‘get out and stay out’ video. I liked that one though, because the snarky cow in it who backchats everyone ends up trapped in a burning building.

That and the ‘get out and stay out’ video.

A friend of mine has a window hammer, 50m knotted rope and grappling hook in his desk drawer. He works on the 5th floor of an office block.

Lol@torso

I’ve also had to do the training about how not to sell arms to Iran. Slightly more relevant, that one, but not much more.

50m knotted rope

I’d rather have 50m un-knotted rope and knowledge of gear-free abseiling techniques!

A friend of mine has a window hammer, 50m knotted rope and grappling hook in his desk drawer. He works on the 5th floor of an office block.

This is the only sane response to an office block. Much higher and he needs a parachute..

I’d rather have 50m un-knotted rope and knowledge of gear-free abseiling techniques!

Have you ever tried a gear free abseil on a vertical drop?

I’d go for hand over hand on knots …..

I can’t imagine hand over hand with 11mm climbing rope is much fun either though. I think I’d probably also keep a harness and figure of 8 in that case 🙂

Luckily I have mandatory training in ethics every year, because I do find myself getting less ethical as the year goes on, so it’s nice to be reminded about these things.

I think all this ethics stuff is just cultural imperialism. If these countries chose to run themselves by corruption and nepotism, who are we to refuse to fit in? If we go over there, we should live by their rules / customs.

I do find myself getting less ethical as the year goes on, so it’s nice to be reminded about these things.

It’s all the bloody mandatory training – makes you want to kill people.

telling me not to take bribes when securing complex overseas deals

What if you had to stay on late to make such deals? 🙂

Yes, that’s right, a cup of coffee is an example of an appropriate gift for a business contact

The UK Bribery Act states that gifts should be ‘proportionate’, so if they have just bought a tropical island from you then a weekend away *may* be proportionate. Similarly if they have bought a £250 piece of software, then the coffee would be proportionate.

UK companies are required to have certain ‘Anti-Bribery’ measures in place, so unfortunately some of those measures include this mandatory training. Heck, I can’t stand the training and I’m the one delivering it!

You won’t get very far in Africa / ME if you’re not prepared to grease the wheels of commerce, esp if you’re white – you often have to pay just to get through customs as ‘your paperwork appears not to be in order’ so either pay $200 or we’ll hold you at gun point until you do.

Also, I’m fairly certain that there’s an exception in the UK Bribery Act for things like that, however that’s where by knowledge runs a bit dry…

“Compliance” training.

Should you in anyway get up to some naughty shit in the future your company will not get prosecuted because you have been trained and they have a record of it.

I got trained after this happened. Not my fault BTW.

I was once offered the use of a hotel room and a couple of prostitutes. Did the video cover that?

I can’t imagine hand over hand with 11mm climbing rope is much fun either though. I think I’d probably also keep a harness and figure of 8 in that case

if you’ve gone to the trouble of stashing a rope and grapnel not also stashing a harness and 8 is just silly.

I was once offered the use of a hotel room and a couple of prostitutes. Did they video cover that?

I’ve heard about these weekends away with Binners and Hora…

never mind all that, are they putting on lunch?

Classic abseil doesn’t need a harness – I’ll suggest it to our health and safety people. Thanks.

however that’s where by knowledge runs a bit dry…

We get it too. I had to get a password reminder this morning as everytime we log on to the compliance system the damn password has expired.
This was my reminder. I lol’ed 🙂

That’s a shocking security design if it sends out expired passwords in plain text!

Aaaah, the Bribery Act! Happy days.

A friend of mine has a window hammer, 50m knotted rope and grappling hook in his desk drawer. He works on the 5th floor of an office block.

This is the only sane response to an office block. Much higher and he needs a parachute..

My company’s head office has a tube thing that you swing out of the window, then jump into, braking your descent to the ground using your elbows. The office is on the 16th floor, really hope if I ever have to use it that they’ve measured it right 🙂

That’s a shocking security design if it sends out expired passwords in plain text!

How else would I read it? 😆

It’s even worse than I thought, not only is it potentially telling strangers what your old password was, but the underlying system must be storing the password unhashed, which is beyond stupid.

I was once offered the use of a hotel room and a couple of prostitutes. Did the video cover that?

That’s just basic courtesy isn’t it?

oh yes

ethics training
security training
health and safety training
anti corruption training

are all completed with pleasure, the certificate saved, and uploaded to the appropriate year folder for evidence and auditing.

officialtob, nothing personal, but if I ever meet you, I’ll have to either kill you, or ask you a series of cunningly designed yet ever so slightly ambiguous multiple choice questions.

It all counts towards your 40 😉

It’s even worse than I thought, not only is it potentially telling strangers what your old password was

You’re looking into this far too deeply! It emails you (not strangers) the expired password so you can log in to reset it. Point is – why do the stupid bloody passwords expire anyway? It’s only a irritating compliance system.

It emails you (not strangers)

Email is hardly secure, plus I only need access to your machine for 15 secs and I know your current password, look for email with old password in the Trash folder, add one to the suffix….

officialtob, nothing personal, but if I ever meet you, I’ll have to either kill you, or ask you a series of cunningly designed yet ever so slightly ambiguous multiple choice questions.

Haha, I think I know which option I’d choose there.. 😉

If someone wants to hack into my account on the compliance training system and do my courses and tests, they’re very welcome indeed.

Email is hardly secure, plus I only need access to your machine for 15 secs and I know your current password, look for email with old password in the Trash folder, add one to the suffix….

Go for it! New password is P1ssflap2 btw.

Now you’ve done it Dez, brace yourself for hackageddon.

This topic is relevant to the last decade of my career. If you’re getting this training, it’s often because your employer has spent a huge amount of time and money clearing up a clusterfuzzle cause by wide boys like footflaps going off and doing the patently stupid and wrong. HTH.