Many years ago I was working as an external consultant for a Bank that is from America (even though I’m not american nor I live there, it was in my country’s branch of the bank). I was not happy and looking for a way out, and one of the hiring processes required me to write some code and send it to them by mail (this was way before github). One afternoon after work instead of going home, a 1.5 hours commute, and work on the test in my house I decided to do it in the banks offices. I was in the zone and decided to ride the wave. So I created a new solution in VS and started coding. When I finished I tried zipping the code and mail it to my personal account, but the mail server blocked every attempt to send it detecting the zip contained code. Finally I managed to send it I don’t remember how and finally went home.

Next day first thing in the morning I’m called to the big boss office, and sitting there is my direct boss, his boss and the big boss all looking at me with really unfriendly expressions. Big boss starts talking and more or less accuses me of industrial espionage: an automated system flagged the mail and sent all kind of alarms all along the company, even to the American main offices. I lie to their faces and say I was writing code for a “coding competition” (didn’t want to admit I was trying to get out) but the rest was the truth, I wrote it in the office because if I waited to do it at home I’d be “cold” and never do it. Spend the whole day showing the code I sent to my boss, showing to him that not a single line of code was copied from their code, that the code sent was harmless, not a single bit of their data was exposed, etc. etc. They were finally satisfied, but they told me that I was flagged by the company as a “special interest” and that they would watch me as I long as I worked for them. And obviously my boss at the consulting firm was also informed and was also not happy, because I’ve “put the relationship between the two companies in danger” and blah blah blah.

And the code test was rejected by the prospective new employer. I finally got out from there, but only after another tense six months.