back to article Help! What does 'personal conduct unrelated to operations or financials' mean?

Help us out here readers: what on earth does “matters regarding personal conduct unrelated to the operations or financials of the Company” mean? We ask because that's the terminology F5 Networks has used to announce the departure of CEO, president and director Manuel Rivelo, effective immediately. Rivelo's successor is John …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    HR Speak

    For getting ratted at the Christmas party and taking a dump in the punch.

  2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Caught in his office

    With a 'woman of the night' by his wife?

    The possibilities are endless but that is what you get with PC speak.

    1. Anonymous Blowhard

      Re: Caught in his office

      Or maybe he was caught polishing someone else's trophy wife...

      1. D@v3

        Re: Caught in his office

        dipping his pen in company ink?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Headmaster

        Re: Caught in his office

        "Or maybe he was caught polishing someone else's trophy wife..."

        Buffing, Shirley?

        1. bpfh

          Re: Caught in his office

          He never buffed me. And stop calling me Shirley.

        2. Anonymous Blowhard

          Re: Caught in his office

          I wasn't aware she was called Shirley...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Caught in his office

      We were told to leave the office, immediately, one evening.

      We later found out that one male employee had gone up to one of the PAs, opened his trousers and asked her, what she could do with it? He quickly found out her answer, as she buzzed her boss and the guy was escorted out of the building, after we had been asked to leave...

      The big question is, what did he tell his fiancé, when he got home? "Hi honey, I got fired today."

      "Why?"

      "Erm..."

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Caught in his office

      Sounds like someone should ask Mark Hurd, isn't he the expert on these sort of things?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    er ..... what poll ?

    or is it just me ?

    1. Simon Sharwood, Reg APAC Editor (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: er ..... what poll ?

      Oops. Forgot to turn it on. Did that now

      1. Sir Barry

        Re: er ..... what poll ?

        OK matey, shoddy work will earn you a P45

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: er ..... what poll ?

          Or a promotion, if he can blame someone else.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: er ..... what poll ?

          "OK matey, shoddy work will earn you a P45"

          Don't worry, they'll spare him the worst of the embarrassment by letting him claim he was sacked for taking the aforementioned dump in the punch and shagging a trainee from HR. At the same time.

      2. Nick Kew
        WTF?

        Re: er ..... what poll ?

        Still can't see it. Is it from a third-party site that might be ad-blocked or XSS/security-filtered out?

        What page is it on, and what are the options?

      3. streaky

        Re: er ..... what poll ?

        This one *is* related to operations..

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sneaky ploy?

    Perhaps it's an underhand way of getting him to fess up himself. Since those defamation-free weasel words could cover anything from farting in the boardroom, to banging the underage intern in a company-paid luxury hotel suite after snorting prodigious quantities of coke, they might figure that he'll be straight onto the news saying "No! No! It's nothing like that, all I did was...".

  5. Harry the Bastard

    poll theft?

    /required body

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: poll theft?

      poll tax, surely

  6. Known Hero

    Substance abuse Gambling anything they deem unworthy

  7. Alister
    Trollface

    nothing likely to incite hatred, ridicule or contempt

    That's a bit limiting. I agree with nothing likely to incite hatred, but surely a bit of ridicule or contempt is fair game?

  8. Whitter
    WTF?

    ???

    Are you allowed to sack somebody for something that seems to have had no relevance to the company?

    1. Graham Triggs

      Re: ???

      Where does it say it had no relevance to the company?

      "unrelated to the operations or financials" means that whatever happened has not - so far - had a detrimental effect to the bottom line of the company.

      But "personal conduct" could mean anything - from sexual harrassment or bullying in the workplace (which clearly has relevance and would result in disciplinary action), to drugs or criminal activity outside of the workplace, which whilst not immediately impacting the company has the potential to do so.

      What they are really trying to say is that whatever cause existed to sack the CEO, they want to reassure investors that the company itself is not on the brink of collapse.

      1. Steve Gill

        Re: ???

        Surely both sexual harassment and bullying in the workplace have operational relevance as they impact the efficiency of the affected team members.

        It has to be something that could embarrass the company, or could worry investors, but did not happen in the workplace.

    2. Fungus Bob
      Coat

      Re: ???

      "Are you allowed to sack somebody for something that seems to have had no relevance to the company?"

      It was the incident involving three goats and lacquer...

    3. shrdlu

      Re: ???

      Yes, but only if you can't find a better justification.

  9. Yesnomaybe

    Could be...

    sexual harassment.

  10. DropBear
    Devil

    Weeeeell, see, it all started with this unfortunate idea of his to to raise questions about some obscure Halon refill expenses...

  11. Richard Jones 1

    Protecting The Company

    I suspect that the words have been carefully chose to avoid any implication of problems for the company's operations. In other words 'our company financial health is rudely perfect so don't ask'. One can speculate that he did something to affect relations in one way or another, but speculation about the real issue, as ever is just that, often with no justification.

  12. This post has been deleted by its author

  13. dogged

    It means he got his cock out in a board meeting.

    1. D@v3

      that's fowl

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Gave 'em the bird

  14. John Lilburne

    It could be anything unrelated to work could cause embarrassment to the company. A joke made in poor taste, sexual infidelity, doing a George Michael, ...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Most 80s joke ever...

      "Doing a George Michael..."

      You mean he turned up to a board meeting covered in chocolate because he'd been careless with his Wispa?

  15. jake Silver badge

    Obvious answer:

    Farting about with twatter/pintpissed/farcebook & the like on company time instead of doing his "job(?)". Would be my best educated guess, anyway ...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Obvious answer:

      ...but isn't that what "CEOs" are for?

  16. Chris King

    Recreational pharmaceuticals detected in bloodstream

    Well that would explain some of the things that came out of Sequent... You know a Unix is bad when your next machine runs HP-UX and feels sane by comparison.

  17. Chris G

    Perhaps turning up for a board meeting dressed as Miss Whiplash was a bit much for them.

    Personal conduct sounds as though he has been doing something illegal or embarrassing for them.

  18. kmac499

    Believing in Evolution... (This is a US company)

  19. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

    Missing Poll Option

    I think the obvious missing poll option is some sort of sexual impropriety.

    1. John G Imrie

      Re: Missing Poll Option

      My first thought was engaging in Ugandan Discussions with his secretary

  20. AkodoGilador

    Buggering the bursar?

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085478/quotes?item=qt0213725

  21. Jungleland

    Spending all his time reading El Reg.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    I suppose...

    ...he could of done a Clarkson.

  23. Pen-y-gors

    Gross Moral Turpitude?

    When I was at Uni, oooh, many years ago...the regulations stated that Professors could only be dismissed for 'Gross Moral Turpitude', which made us wonder exactly how bad something had to be before it became 'Gross'. Perhaps rogering the secretary was mere standard moral turpitude, but rogering a donkey... in the chapel...during the sermon..?

    1. Alister

      Re: Gross Moral Turpitude?

      but rogering a donkey... in the chapel...during the sermon..?

      That's a different offence... Muffin' the Mule...

      For a long time I thought Turpitude was what you used to clean paint brushes...

    2. Chris King

      Re: Gross Moral Turpitude?

      More likely copying another prof's work and passing it off as their own. That's almost a hanging offence, or at the very least they won't get invited to the departmental Christmas party for a few years.

  24. chivo243 Silver badge
    Angel

    Gotta be loss of self-control

    His kinks got the best of him... he was trying to straighten them out!

    Should have been a poll choice.

  25. Doctor_Wibble
    Headmaster

    A famous philosopher once wrote...

    Naughty naughty, very naughty...

    I'd be guessing he posted the wrong picture on the wrong site somewhere, and didn't take it down fast enough for the wrong person not to see it. Though one does wonder why it's OK for whoever reported it to be on that sort of site but not the boss...

    'Teach' icon as it's a discipline thing. Which might be true in more ways than one! Total random speculation, it's our speciality.

  26. Nick Kew

    Where's Tom Sharpe when you need him?

    The author of "Wilt" could surely have made something of this.

    1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

      Re: Where's Tom Sharpe when you need him?

      I fear here will be few that know what you're talking about (or maybe they've seen the film), but the books are indeed *excellent* :)

      1. The_H

        Re: Where's Tom Sharpe when you need him?

        Indeed. It would be lovely to find out that the alleged offence did indeed incorporate inappropriate use of an icing syringe and a tub of moisturiser.

    2. Chris King

      Re: Where's Tom Sharpe when you need him?

      Not without a seance, he won't - he died a couple of years ago.

  27. Dr. G. Freeman

    Spoke to the cute ginger HR lassie we've got here, for a translation,

    he's either

    1) punched somebody, or

    2) made somebody cry by calling them a rude name.

    or both.

  28. Zippy's Sausage Factory

    I can think of two other options

    Either he admitted he's a Trump supporter, or there is some serious financial shenanigans going on in the company they just found out about and they want a scapegoat before the SEC comes knocking.

    Oh wait, that second would usually call for a promotion, wouldn't it?

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Got caught with his pants down

    And his secretary was taking dic-tation?

  30. SirJasper

    Shirley a question that ought to be posed to Mark Hurd.... he probably has a good explanation of how these things happen

    http://fortune.com/2010/11/05/what-really-happened-between-hp-ex-ceo-mark-hurd-and-jodie-fisher/

  31. BlartVersenwaldIII
    Devil

    "Criminal charges unrelated to work"

    Does the counterexample to this option imply that there are criminal charges relating to their work that one wouldn't get fired for? Does El Reg know something we don't? :)

  32. Dabooka

    Missed an option

    Surely 'Shagging an intern' should have been a choice?

    1. bpfh

      Re: Missed an option

      I thought that interns were fair game, only full-timers out of probation period were off limits?

  33. breakfast Silver badge

    As they used to say on Craggy Island

    "Look, that money was just resting in my account..."

  34. Loud Speaker

    Most likely

    It would be ...<p>

    incest, during office hours, on company property, with two or more witnesses.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Devil

      Re: Most likely

      Look, when we said we were a family friendly company, we didn't mean that!

  35. Paul Woodhouse

    Told the BOFH and PFY that they were going to be working over Crimbo while the rest were off, without overtime... obviously thats not what he got sacked for, but thats what started it....

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Didn't they cancel that show like three years ago now?...

    I guess you could say that F5 wanted to...

    (sunglasses)

    ...refresh the CEO position.

    YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

    (Unfortunately they forgot he was cached, so it turns out he's reappeared as the new CEO anyway).

  37. Velv
    Facepalm

    Sent his CV to Cisco, Juniper, Brocade, Citrix, Barracuda, etc from his work email address?

  38. bob, mon!
    Devil

    Golden parachute clause

    He was planning ahead when he specified the wording in his contract....

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm guessing sexual harassment.

  40. TeeCee Gold badge
    Facepalm

    Caught shagging the secretary[1] has to be favourite. So traditional as a reason for sudden defenestration that you have to wonder why so many senior execs do it.

    You'd almost think that our lords and masters were actually a bit thick....

    [1] During office hours for bonus "belongings are in the street and you can shove yer golden handshake where the sun shines" value.

  41. noodle heimer

    board chairman's son?

    not too good to get caught with your hand wrapped around certain tills....

  42. sixit
    Facepalm

    $h*tty $h*tty bang bang

    He was banging someone, or something, or multiples/mixtures thereof. Or maybe he just didn't shower.

  43. AbeSapian

    Sexual Harassment

    Chasing the ladies around the conference table is the usual unspoken secret for these dismissals.

  44. Gigabob

    Non-FInancial Bad COnduct

    He went postal and shot a mailman. Its the holidays - it happens.

  45. Flat Phillip

    JM

    My guess he has done something that John McAfee would approve of.

    Perhaps they can get together and form some sort of strange start-up.

  46. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    Trumped up charges

    The US election has somehow liberated all the xenophobes, conspiracy theorists, haters, and general crazies that have warped interpretations of a law and religion. I don't know what happened in this case but I expect that we're going to see a lot of conduct issues.

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