You would think Quiznos would have learned to watch the boys when they play on the Internet

Back in 2006, Quiznos had an experience no corporation wants to have, one of their Senior VP's was arrested. Sure, when you employ hundreds or possibly even thousands of people, things like this can happen, but when it happens to one of your senior staff, it can be troubling. Making this worse, of course, was what this VP, Scott Lippett, was arrested for: being an Internet Predator. The allegation was that Lippett had enticed what he believed to be a 13 year old to meet up for sex. Being the nice guy he thought he was, Lippett said he'd bring the alcohol and some sort of sex toys! Now, no one can blame Quiznos by saying they encouraged or condoned such activity - that would just be unfair. But the fact is, many leading HR publications warn that not having an Internet policy in place is asking for legal trouble. This policy should be drafted to protect the company from a host of issues, most of which are more likely and far less dramatic then what happened at Quiznos. These policies, when thoughtfully drafted, will protect both the company and fellow employees. While the thought of the FBI coming in a seizing laptops might not happen to an average company, the chance of email coming into play during legal discovery is not only possible, its entirely likely. Many HR publications have had numerous articles on having this type of policy in place. As for the policies themselves, they need to go beyond just which web sites employees surf to, email usage is just as important. On the subject of email, one such publication had this to say back in 2006, right around the time Lippett was arrested: "The mixing of work and personal use of e-mail by employees can create serious problems for employers in the event corporate-related litigation arises for various reasons, e.g., sexual harassment, product liability or even anti-trust cases, where opposing lawyers can seek the submission of internal e-mails of employees as evidence." When it comes to Quiznos specifically, based on the number of lawsuits and this past experience with their Senior VP, there is just no excuse for them to not have a policy. Of course, I don't know if they do, since Quiznos does not exactly tell any franchise owner much about anything, let alone what goes on in those cubicles in Denver. It could be they have one, maybe they even have a very good one, but what good is is if they don't use or enforce it? On one website out there today, you can find one of their VP using his Quiznos corporate email on a website that certainly is not run by Quiznos. (At least I don't think it is.) This is on the website for the the band Tickler, which is apparently operated by Mike Manning, their Vice President in charge of Quality Assurance. Who am I to judge? Maybe they think it's just cool that Manning gets to talk about guitar hero instead of worrying too much about the quality of the beef they use. Maybe? Maybe they just don't know about his email usage. But if that's the case, what does that say about them? Where is their IT department on this? Do they even have an IT department? You would think a billion dollar company would. In our recent trial with them the Judge called them "confused" in his ruling. When you see something like this, it seems to describe a lot of what goes on with this company. For a corporation that is obsessed with finding out if some store in Lake Nowhere, USA is using a bread knife that they bought from an outside vendor (cheating them out of the dollar they would have made), yet doesn't know what goes on within its own corporate office, I would, at the very least, say it is confused.