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Ask forgiveness, not permission

Dear Board of Directors, During the past few weeks I have been engaging in unauthorized trading. I bet that the Euro would weaken drastically, hoping to make the company at least $4.6 Billion. Instead, we're 5 billion down, as the situation changed.

I was going to ask for permission to use all that cash to trade, but I read on a blog that I should ask for forgiveness, after the fact. So, forgive me.

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This is also very tricky interpersonal advice. I used to tell college students not to ask for permission, but only for forgiveness. Then realized that this could be construed as advocating date rape.

The policy is not about always getting forgiveness, it's about asking for it when you can realistically expect it to be granted. A company employing that policy should also be very clear about what acts you'll never get forgiveness for, and that would of course include breaking the law like in the parent's (obviously exaggerated) example.

BS, they are essentially asking people to take the risk, if it works they benefit a great, if it backfires, they'll issue a press release disavowing you.

Remember, a hacker is not Google or Apple to get away with book scanning ("ask us nicely to remove scans of your books") or location tracking.

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