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Subject:RE: How nosy are you? REDUX From:Rose -dot- Wilcox -at- pinnaclewest -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 31 Jul 2003 09:39:03 -0700
<<
...does the end justify the means? That's kinda like the question "There are
no stupid questions."
Yes, often the end does justify the means, and yes, there are stupid
questions. >>
I don't know about this proving "ends justifying the means" because the means isn't necessarily more than simple curiosity. I regularly read printouts left at printers, scan documents on my boss's and others' desks for information, and travel through any unsecured spaces on the LAN looking for pertinent documents. This is curiosity and not snooping. Snooping would be like hacking into secured spaces in the LAN, opening desk drawers when no one is around, and trying to crack the project manager's private password to check on his C:... Not that I'm not nosy enough by nature to be *tempted* to do that, but luckily, in my ethics, it is the doing and not the thinking of doing that can be considered "right" or "wrong".
Yes, I am nosy, but I don't think curiosity is a crime.
I won't touch the stupid question assertion with a ten-foot email though... I often ask questions that might be considered stupid. It's a matter of saving time, usually. But sometimes it's an ADD thing, like "Where are my glasses?" when I'm actually wearing them....!?!?!?
Rosie
P.S. My experience also echoes John's. I have never gotten in trouble for my curiosity and have always gotten rewarded for it.
P.P.S. As a young woman, in college working for the newspaper, I did sometimes go past the boundaries, and actually snooped. But I was young then, and I demand to be forgiven. And, probably, at my advanced age I can safely assume the statute of limitations has safely passed, so pffffft. (But just to be safe, if you press for details I will deny it ever took place.)
Rose A. Wilcox
CHQ, 17th Floor
Tranz1 QA/Documentation
602-250-2435
Rose -dot- Wilcox -at- PinnacleWest -dot- com
What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions. - Walter Pater, 1873
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