An affair to remember

摘要

Harry Stonecipher was the architect of his own misfortune. The former Boeing chief executive was recently ousted after the company discovered he was having an affair with a junior staff member. The CEO's undoing came in the form of a "very graphic" e-mail he had written to his paramour, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. An anonymous insider blew the whistle, offering up e-mails exchanged between the two as evidence. One might assume the whistle-blower had an axe to grind with the big kahuna, and that may be the case, but it's probably closer to the truth to say he or she was simply following orders — the boss's orders, in fact. Under a policy Stonecipher introduced last year, all employees were required to sign whistle-blower contracts, compelling them to report potential ethical lapses.