. . . cont'd from Hot News Oh the endless aggravations we create for ourselves. The nice and intelligent person who purchased the Walkman was kind enough to send several courteous but inquisitive e-mails in an attempt to understand the scope of the situation and whether or not there was anything about which to be concerned. I responded apologetically, with an explanation of the simple circumstances surrounding the recording in question. The buyer seemed satisfied with my answers and I (eventually) breathed a sigh of relief. The moral of the story is: Make Sure That Whatever You're Selling Is Thoroughly Checked Before You Ship It To A Customer. Protecting your assets is important. My father was in the used car business for over fifty years. Almost every baseball, football, hockey puck, baseball bat, baseball glove, and dozens of other things I was given when I was young, came out of the trunks of cars that my father and his partner took in trade. I mean people leave the most wonderful stuff in their car trunks. It's cool when you're a kid; embarrassing to do it (sometimes) when you're an adult. When I was a kid, working on the car lot during the summer holidays, I got to keep all the change I found under the seats when I was cleaning out the trade-ins.

So too do little mistakes and lack of care become the seeds of a disaster, because when information about you or your company or your interests falls into the wrong hands, you suddenly have to rely on the kindness of strangers to protect your interests.

As an adult, I now wonder why I never check under the back seat (at least) whenever I trade in a car (my father's been out of the business for a long time now—he'd give me back my stuff for sure).

Immediately after the Walkman 'incident' I started making telephone calls to friends and business associates in an effort to find out who else had sold potentially compromising stuff over the past six months. The list I compiled was surprising and it should remain a list of concern at the very least for everyone in business for themselves. Check out these highlights:

• At least 10 hard drives installed in used company PCs (containing a mixture of data storage and boot disks) sold to a Jobber. All of the drives were intact. Some contained up-to-date project and product development information.
• Backup CDs containing business data accidentally included with the sale of some miscellaneous goods (a poor backup storage plan is like no plan at all).
• Retail software worth tens of thousands of dollars stored on backup CDs and DVDs accidentally included with some commercial music CDs sold/traded to a used music CD store. You paid for the software with money out of your pocket, so why on earth would you want to give it away free to strangers?
• One brand new, 19" LCD computer monitor accidentally shipped off with a bunch of used CRTs because a Shipper/Receiver wasn't keeping his small warehouse area properly organized. So why aren't you periodically inspecting your shipping & receiving department?
• A used fax machine sold to someone, and shipped with the last fax tossed in with the cables and product documentation. The last fax contained a private financial report which had been sent by an accountant to one of his clients.

There's more, but you get the idea.

So what are we doing? Are we really in so much of a rush—so pressed for time—that we can't even take a few minutes to protect the very thing we're working to build? How did we get that dumb?

From little acorns grow might Oaks, the saying goes. So too do little mistakes and lack of care become the seeds of a disaster, because when information about you or your company or your interests falls into the wrong hands, you suddenly have to rely on the kindness of strangers to protect your interests. These days, that sort of reliance is a low percentage bet.

I was lucky, even considering the comparatively minor incident I caused, that the person I dealt with is considerate. But when more important data—your intellectual property for example—is at stake, are you certain that the recipients will be as understanding and just delete or erase what doesn't belong to them? Where business and hard work is concerned, I wouldn't take the chance.

Be careful. Check your shipments from top to bottom, end to end, inside and out. The business (and embarrassment) you save may be your own.

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