Ask Bing: My boss surfs porn sites

Our CIO is surfing porn sites all day long. We (everyone in the department and HR) are well aware of this to the point that it is now a joke. The company is public and there is a 'Company Code of Conduct' that mentions unethical behavior.

The question at hand is, do we report this to the Board of Directors? The department as a whole has lost complete and total respect for this guy - what are we to do? We find his activity prior to any trips to increase and he is no where to be found for most of the day.

This guy is what I call a Disaster Hunter. My book Crazy Bosses, which is also featured in Bing Books on this site, has an entire chapter on him. He's going to bring himself down, and as in any spiral, the speed of an object increases as it reaches the center, right before it plummets down into darkness.

Personally, I have a thing against snitches. You guys are going to report him for surfing porn at the office? Good for you. Are you also going to report each other for using the company email for personal messages to your friends and family? Are you going to report the guy down the hall who likes to play Tetris while he's on the phone? Are you going to report your pal who likes to look at videos on YouTube and email links to all his buds? How about your friend from the company who uses his expense account to take you both out for drinks? Going to report him?

You don't mention how bad the department is suffering from this miscreant's wacky behavior. Are your numbers down? Has your department's performance hurt the enterprise? If so, your CIO is doomed, you can just stand back and wait, or say a few quiet words to somebody who ought to know, if you think that's right.

If performance is okay however (except when he's about to go on a trip), you might have to wait around for a while. In that case, my tendency is to tell you guys to turn the other cheeks on this one and support your slightly perverted boss. He may cut you some slack one day.

My boss fired me because I refused to sign a contract. He waited three months after I refused to sign the contract to do it since I was implementing a big project. While he verbally said it was due to the refusal to sign the contract he documented it as a non-performance issue. There was no documentation at all saying he was unhappy with my performance. What can I do?

My advice? Move on. The guy just wanted to fire you. When somebody wants to fire you, they're going to fire you. It hurts. They suck. What are you going to do? Of course, if you think it was due to your race, your gender, the fact that you're too ugly or something, you can always sue the company, or threaten to. There are many places that will pay you upwards of $100,000 simply to get you out of their thinning hair.

Be aware, however, that God has a certain punishment for people who frivolously sue their former employers. There is a special layer of purgatory reserved for such folk, a living limbo where they can never move on, never transcend whatever problems beset them in their old work location, never grow, never truly prosper.

I know your sense of justice is outraged by this untoward experience. But unless you think you have some kind of marvelous case, or are so enraged that life will not be worth living until the bad guys are punished, get as good a recommendation as you can and head out for greener pastures. And good luck.

I'm 29, have two years of college in an artsy-fartsy concentration, and have worked for a whopping TWO organizations in my career. One was for an amazing dot-com start up that gave me a boost to start my next job at a privately held organization. I worked my way from HR paper-pusher to Director of Finance in a matter of six years. I'm a quick learner.

Here's my issue: I have NO degree in finance. I am young, but fairly intelligent. And I'm not getting paid NEARLY what the others on the senior management team are getting paid. Sure, I get nice bonuses, but they aren't SALARY, and I'm earning about $30k less in salary than the other Senior Managers.

I know that one day I will run this organization (ten years) if I stay where I am. I know that my earning potential will triple in the next ten years. Do I fight for more money now, or do I simply bide my time?

Both. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Nobody was ever fired or disrespected for being appropriately ambitious and greedy. Senior management is made up of such people; they like it when one of their own knocks on the door of the club. Don't be arrogant. Don't threaten. Just continually (once every six weeks) raise the issue of your salary, bonus, stock options, etc., with your boss and with the friend you will immediately make in HR.

Here's the speech: "Bob, I love this company (and I love working with you, if he's your boss). But I'm not in this for my health. I don't like the feeling of being the poorest church mouse at the boardroom table. I have the same expenses as Murray (the guy who makes $30K more than you). I want to know what I can do to get my comp up to reasonable levels." Just keep saying it. Keep raising it. Keep it in front of people. And keep being the future of the Company. It will pay off, I promise you.

You might also think of asking the company to pay to send you to get your MBA in Finance (at night, of course). Stranger things have happened. With that degree in your pocket, you are immediately worth more, for some reason that has never been adequately explained to me.