Your Ethics and Integrity, Your Principles — Keep Them Rock Solid

NOTE: Do not get me wrong, there are multiple companies with these BDIP & Restricted Entities requirements in place, that I discuss here, in order to cover their rear (reputation). And so, they do it. You either accept it and become part of this world or you walk away — your choice. BDIP & Restricted Entities are big deals…

My ethical choice as explained below, was to resign…

As such — you MUST DEFINITIVELY ask the hiring company about this critical area IN ADVANCE of your joining the company (as I will in the future). And make your decision accordingly as to staying with the company….

This first section is copied from another paper I wrote recently but that paper also fired off some of the neurons in me wee tiny brain to do this somewhat of an add-on, regarding “MY” highly prized personal principles — ethics and integrity… as to the kind of sacrifice I would willingly make to retain MY values.

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First, know this — YOUR ethics and integrity values are your foundational bedrock of who you are and what makes you a very, very valuable person on this planet. No one and nothing should cause you to weaken or reduce your ethics and integrity. These principles are gold, sorry — platinum and IF you are one of those who DOES mean well with high ethics and integrity, you are a person that others would want to follow.

If you are a hard-working, success-oriented person who SHARES success, means well and willingly owns up and takes the heat for your team’s mistake/ failure (even if the mistake was ‘not’ of your making — which is a spot I have been in for others and knew the costs)

— YOU would be one of the rare people on this planet that “I” would willingly follow.

Look into the mirror, look into your eyes. Are your eyes exhibiting the traits of having the ethics and integrity that others would want to emulate as a Good Role Model, as a Good Leader…? Or do you fall into the trap of being an unethical being who just wants to be in charge/in power over others…?

Reflect on that as you read this, what was meant to be a one-pager but, ummmm, turned into a little bit longer paper. Sorry. But, none of what I state is anything new — it has all been out there for decades (centuries). It is there “IF” you chose to do your own sole research and soul searching to determine if “YOU” are on the right track or the right side of humanity.

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A basic description of ethics and integrity I grabbed from the United Nations’ version:

• “Ethics” are principles that guide behaviour, while “integrity” suggests that we should carry out ethical principles in our daily lives and activities, rather than espousing an ideal and then doing something contradictory.

That should do it but, basically — do good, be honest, be fair, be a decent human being…

The reason for adding another article on ethics and integrity — is about using one’s own strength to uphold YOUR values and not let them play second fiddle to someone else’s or some company’s…

• That is, again — as long as your core values are on the side of good and not malicious…

If a company wants you to comply with their principles of ethics and integrity over your own, well, this should cause you some sleepless nights.

It did for me. It stressed me out so much, I ended up getting sick over it — the last two (2) days of the last full work week, I had to take off sick for 13 ½ hours (Thur & Fri). My weekend was completely kiboshed!!!! It took a week to recover from this.

What was the cause of my getting sick if it is not already clear — “deciding on my resignation.”

I resigned from a job that took four (4) long months to finally get in. Onboard for appx 3 ½ weeks, in the last month — and most of that 3 ½ week period was more training/compliance training for the employer and additional compliance training for the client. A client similar to DoD — standard material for DoD and other government agencies — not bad, just long and necessary. And I was about to submit for my classified network account (more paperwork, once you are on the inside — this being one of them), the final step before actually starting any real project work.

Now, what triggered the resignation was in having to comply to the company’s BDIP (Broker Data Import Program) and Restricted Entities compliance requirement.

The BDIP is a vehicle for employees to move any of the employee’s investments (401k, MMA, IRA, etc.) ‘IF’ any of the employee’s investments happen to be with any one of your new company’s Restricted Entities.

Restricted Entities — these are what some companies call other Company’s/Corporations that they are doing business with. Let’s give them arbitrary names in examples:

• Blunt Force Audit Firm

— — where you are working

• Jami’s Hatchery (IVF)

— — a company where you have an MMA with and Blunt Force was been brought in to perform audits of Jami’s records for some legal case

— — Jami’s is now a Restricted Entity

— — — — You have to move your MMA into a BDIP

• Zebra Thoughtspot (ZT)

— — a corporation where you have bitcoin or an IRA or something and Blunt Force was been hired to perform an annual audit of ZT

— — ZT is now a Restricted Entity

— — — — You have to move your bitcoin/IRA into a BDIP

Now, to come into compliance with Blunt Force, you have to agree (comply) with Blunt Force’s compliance requirements. This compliance requires “YOU” to move your investments from any Restricted Entity, current or in the future and into a Blunt Force approved BDIP. This is to ensure that while working with your company — there is, on your part:

• no conflict of interest or
• any sphere of influence from the company being audited over your assets or
• any kind of possibility of doing work (or favorability) with any company that Blunt Force is working with/for

So, here is where the strobe light warning kicks in.

There are a lot of folks out there, mainly older adults I am targeting here, not many 22- or 24-year-old college graduates or MBA grads. This is because, in most cases, 35–50-year-olds or older individuals have many more (a lot more) investments they have incurred over the years

You must move any of your affected investment(s), as part of the compliance requirement you agreed to — into one of the approved BDIPs… I will discuss it more below.

Bonus, oh yeah, a bonus, yes indeed. If there is any occurrence of financial loss during the transfer of your funds, there is “NO REIMBURSEMENT” for the loss(es) — this will be explicitly spelled out in some of your company’s material.

• That is — once you are already onboard…

Yes, that is correct — after you have accepted an offer letter. I was not made aware of this in advance of my offer letter. And I am fairly certain other new hires are not made aware of this in advance of their offer letter either.

It was a blindside hit. This was primarily something I have never seen before — I have never worked for a large financial firm, e.g. McKinsey & Co, BCG (Boston Consulting Group), EY (Ernst & Young), etc. There are quite a few out there doing financial and, ahhhh, other consulting work for other companies and government agencies.

But to be clear, to my understanding, these types of companies can require and do this compliance to ensure the companies they are working for, their clients — that everything and everyone under their umbrella is above board and there should be no issues of underhandedness or complicit illegalities.

Everyone signed the compliance requirement and moved their affected investment(s) when required.

There is also a second surprise for those who are married. For these large financial corporations, you ‘MAY’ be required to share all of your financial and investment information. This was not much of a stretch for me as I worked in Intelligence where there is already a laser focus on everyone.

The second surprise was that you ‘ARE REQUIRED TO SHARE ALL OF YOUR SPOUSES FINANCIAL / INVESTMENT INFORMATION’….

Even while in intelligence, I was not required to do this…

Here, was another barrier for me. I do not share my wife’s private information to anyone else, for any reason. Well, if there were some kind of legal action for some kind of nebulous reason that will never happen — I might comply.

I do not know about others out there but if I had known in advance that I would be required to share my spouse’s financial info, all of it and to also transfer any of my ‘affected’ investments from where they are currently to something else (BDIP) — I would shut down the job prospect and close the door and move on to another company.

After a week of agonizing (making myself sick and losing sleep) over this compliance/training requirement where you have to plug in all of your financial info and your spouses’ financial info and POSSIBLY have to move any ‘affected’ funds and then sign the agreement — I had a difficult decision to make.

Do I break my own ethics and integrity principles to comply with someone else’s or do I stick with my own decades’ long deep foundation of ethics and integrity and resign.

My decision, even without having a job already lined up — stick with my principles and move on.

• My choice — resign.

There was no way I was going to share my spouse’s information of that magnitude nor was I willing to move my investments so my company could show their commitment of various compliances to current or future clients.

So, I drafted a three (3) page resignation letter explicitly spelling out my reticence, that I cannot comport with their compliance requirements — to breaking my high bar of principles to follow someone else’s. And submitted it.

In the past few nights, after making my decision, I came across a May 2024 16-minute youtube piece “McKinsey: The Group Secretly Running Every Company (And Government?)“ by “More Perfect Union” where they talk about McKinsey and that company’s alleged shady history — past and current.

No, I did not and do not work for McKinsey, nor will I ever do so since watching this piece where the McKinsey whistleblower (Garrison Lovely) stated what he stated. Or for that matter, I will never return to this company I resigned from, after making the mistake of coming into the fold of this company.

I showed my wife that McKinsey video and pointed out the various highlights in the video — things that if I had known in advance — well, I would not have joined this current company. I showed her how everything now made sense for what one has to go through (endure) when joining a firm like McKinsey and others of that category.

Please note that McKinsey was part of a lawsuit regarding Opioids and Purdue Pharma. Also, with Enron back in 2001, Saudi Arabia in 2018, China in 2018, and more but I am very certain you can research these and many others over the years on your own.

That youtube video came out a month prior to the start of all my discussions with this current company.

— — — wish I had seen it when it was released…

Funny thing, there was also a solid piece by John Oliver, “McKinsey: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)” Oct 23, 2023 on his HBO show but I had not remembered it, until I saw the More Perfect Union piece above. It is on Youtube, link above — 26-minutes and well worth it.

I will get a new job but I will take some time to acquire two more Cloud / AI related certifications to make myself more valuable. And then go join another company but not another financial corporation, never again.

But another red flag that I completely missed — the company would not share this information prior to you being fully onboard and stated that is their policy — NONE of the medical, dental, vision plans options and costs. The company only shares a fluffer/filler of generic happy stuff, prior to your coming onboard.

But no real information. This was the first time in my very long career that I saw this occur and will be the last time.

If a company is not willing to share that very valuable medical information prior to your accepting an offer, information that NEARLY EVERY OTHER company shares — it should be a red flag to everyone looking to join that company.

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Bottom line — how much do you value your good, solid, core principles?

• Are YOU willing to place your principles second to another… or would’ja sacrifice the job and move on…?

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tags: BDIP, Broker Data Import Program, Restricted Entities, ethics, integrity, McKinsey & Co, EY (Ernst & young), BCG (boston consulting group), John Oliver, Gabriella Spielberg, Garrison Lovely, More Perfect Union