VLAN confusion
-
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 Sounds like your company has made a decision already.
The CIO has failed at one of the most basic life skills...
"Never take advice from a sales person."
Yes, I am aware of this sigh but I can only do so much. I don't want to get into the details of my work dynamic with my boss and all that, and long story-short, I have to do what he says as I am the only sysadmin/low man on the totem pole.
In a healthy company, that statement should get you in trouble - because knowing that you have a security / ethics breach and a rogue actor putting the company at risk should be something that the company doesn't just allow you to expose, but requires you to expose. Does the CEO really not want to know that he has a CIO abusing the company for personal reasons?
It's comments like this that make this hard to accept. It's not that it's not possible - but how do you know his CIO is abusing the company for personal reasons? It's every bit more likely that he's simply failing at his job of researching good solution - and that no reasons other than laziness are really involved here.
Yes, this. I 100% believe this is far more accurate description of what's going on vs corrupt employees "on the take".
Scott considers the act of not protecting a company from sale personal to be on the take/corrupt.
I think to not feel this way requires an extreme degree of "flexible ethics." If I pay someone to make good decisions and protect my business, and then that person takes that money and turns around and does exactly the thing that they've been paid not to do and even uses their influence to enable it, that's completely corrupt and unethical. Completely. The entire basis for the job is a lie, and the actions taken aren't just to fail to do the job that he is paid to do, but to act completely contrary to the job and actively act as the enemy of the business. He's paid to work for the business, but acts literally against it.
Please explain where the grey area is here that allows this to be a "Scott sees it" way. How does Dashrender see it another way?
-
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
in the meantime, are there any good voice solution alternatives that you guys could provide? Part of our requirement for our phones is that we may not want to have it cloud-hosted due to the fact that our internet connection goes down every so often during business hours. YES I get that this is another problem that should be resolved vs applying a bandaid, but we live out in the country and have limited ISP options (Spec---m and Centu---ink).
FreePBX will probably meet your needs as it generally meets the needs of most people. It's opensource and free, can be hosted in house, and integrates with any SIP based IP Phone. There are people, here in the community that support it.
And will likely cost 1/10 what Cisco will cost. Seriously, you should give @JaredBusch a call and ask him to quote you a full on replacement and compare it's cost to Cisco.
1/10? I'd be surprised if it cost 1/100th.
-
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
in the meantime, are there any good voice solution alternatives that you guys could provide? Part of our requirement for our phones is that we may not want to have it cloud-hosted due to the fact that our internet connection goes down every so often during business hours. YES I get that this is another problem that should be resolved vs applying a bandaid, but we live out in the country and have limited ISP options (Spec---m and Centu---ink).
FreePBX will probably meet your needs as it generally meets the needs of most people. It's opensource and free, can be hosted in house, and integrates with any SIP based IP Phone. There are people, here in the community that support it.
And will likely cost 1/10 what Cisco will cost. Seriously, you should give @JaredBusch a call and ask him to quote you a full on replacement and compare it's cost to Cisco.
1/10? I'd be surprised if it cost 1/100th.
Well, I'm not that cheap of a date.
-
@jaredbusch said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
in the meantime, are there any good voice solution alternatives that you guys could provide? Part of our requirement for our phones is that we may not want to have it cloud-hosted due to the fact that our internet connection goes down every so often during business hours. YES I get that this is another problem that should be resolved vs applying a bandaid, but we live out in the country and have limited ISP options (Spec---m and Centu---ink).
FreePBX will probably meet your needs as it generally meets the needs of most people. It's opensource and free, can be hosted in house, and integrates with any SIP based IP Phone. There are people, here in the community that support it.
And will likely cost 1/10 what Cisco will cost. Seriously, you should give @JaredBusch a call and ask him to quote you a full on replacement and compare it's cost to Cisco.
1/10? I'd be surprised if it cost 1/100th.
Well, I'm not that cheap of a date.
Haven't seen Cisco pricing lately?
-
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 Sounds like your company has made a decision already.
The CIO has failed at one of the most basic life skills...
"Never take advice from a sales person."
Yes, I am aware of this sigh but I can only do so much. I don't want to get into the details of my work dynamic with my boss and all that, and long story-short, I have to do what he says as I am the only sysadmin/low man on the totem pole.
In a healthy company, that statement should get you in trouble - because knowing that you have a security / ethics breach and a rogue actor putting the company at risk should be something that the company doesn't just allow you to expose, but requires you to expose. Does the CEO really not want to know that he has a CIO abusing the company for personal reasons?
It's comments like this that make this hard to accept. It's not that it's not possible - but how do you know his CIO is abusing the company for personal reasons? It's every bit more likely that he's simply failing at his job of researching good solution - and that no reasons other than laziness are really involved here.
Yes, this. I 100% believe this is far more accurate description of what's going on vs corrupt employees "on the take".
But his explanation clearly shows that any defense of the CIO is a panic emotional response with no logical connection. His reasoning is disconnected from the situation and highlights my point.
Most people aren't like Scott - Scott can be shown that something he was doing is horribly corrupt and once he agrees with you, he will not be upset in any way... Most SMB business owners aren't like that in my experience. Sure Enterprise leaders probably are like that, they know things change, and mistakes happen and it's life.. as long as things are moving in the correct direction, the chance of there being blow back are low.. but in SMB, it's all personal - even though it's just business - and they take it personally and don't want to look like fools, etc.
-
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@jaredbusch said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
in the meantime, are there any good voice solution alternatives that you guys could provide? Part of our requirement for our phones is that we may not want to have it cloud-hosted due to the fact that our internet connection goes down every so often during business hours. YES I get that this is another problem that should be resolved vs applying a bandaid, but we live out in the country and have limited ISP options (Spec---m and Centu---ink).
FreePBX will probably meet your needs as it generally meets the needs of most people. It's opensource and free, can be hosted in house, and integrates with any SIP based IP Phone. There are people, here in the community that support it.
And will likely cost 1/10 what Cisco will cost. Seriously, you should give @JaredBusch a call and ask him to quote you a full on replacement and compare it's cost to Cisco.
1/10? I'd be surprised if it cost 1/100th.
Well, I'm not that cheap of a date.
Haven't seen Cisco pricing lately?
Point to you.
-
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
There's no take - he's not personally gaining anything (at least it's not likely) from his dealing with a sales person instead of a buyer's agent. Sure the company is getting screwed.. but the CIO isn't getting a million in his pocket, or even a can of soda..
Is he failing at his job - yes, but so are million and millions of people in this same situation.So you think he's a volunteer and not getting paid? Unless he's not been paid, there is money involved.
And you claim that he's not getting any benefits from the vendor. That's an absurd claim. Of course he is. Will the Cisco sales people do any design work here? Any setup? Any support? That alone is part of the corruption.
Is he getting cash back? Unlikely, but only barely unlikely. Even that is extremely common and given what we KNOW about his ethics here, there is zero reason for you to interject the assumption that he's not getting any benefits more directly.
-
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
Most people aren't like Scott - Scott can be shown that something he was doing is horribly corrupt and once he agrees with you, he will not be upset in any way... Most SMB business owners aren't like that in my experience.
Mostly because... they are unethical. Once you accept that people are often unethical, it's starts being a logical set of results.
-
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 Sounds like your company has made a decision already.
The CIO has failed at one of the most basic life skills...
"Never take advice from a sales person."
Yes, I am aware of this sigh but I can only do so much. I don't want to get into the details of my work dynamic with my boss and all that, and long story-short, I have to do what he says as I am the only sysadmin/low man on the totem pole.
In a healthy company, that statement should get you in trouble - because knowing that you have a security / ethics breach and a rogue actor putting the company at risk should be something that the company doesn't just allow you to expose, but requires you to expose. Does the CEO really not want to know that he has a CIO abusing the company for personal reasons?
It's comments like this that make this hard to accept. It's not that it's not possible - but how do you know his CIO is abusing the company for personal reasons? It's every bit more likely that he's simply failing at his job of researching good solution - and that no reasons other than laziness are really involved here.
Yes, this. I 100% believe this is far more accurate description of what's going on vs corrupt employees "on the take".
Scott considers the act of not protecting a company from sale personal to be on the take/corrupt.
I think to not feel this way requires an extreme degree of "flexible ethics." If I pay someone to make good decisions and protect my business, and then that person takes that money and turns around and does exactly the thing that they've been paid not to do and even uses their influence to enable it, that's completely corrupt and unethical. Completely. The entire basis for the job is a lie, and the actions taken aren't just to fail to do the job that he is paid to do, but to act completely contrary to the job and actively act as the enemy of the business. He's paid to work for the business, but acts literally against it.
Please explain where the grey area is here that allows this to be a "Scott sees it" way. How does Dashrender see it another way?
I think, to put it simply, if someone is doing their job in an honest and sincere way to the best of their ability, yet still sucks at some or all aspects of their job, then that means that person is just guilty of being bad at their job, not that they are corrupt or on the take.
-
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 Sounds like your company has made a decision already.
The CIO has failed at one of the most basic life skills...
"Never take advice from a sales person."
Yes, I am aware of this sigh but I can only do so much. I don't want to get into the details of my work dynamic with my boss and all that, and long story-short, I have to do what he says as I am the only sysadmin/low man on the totem pole.
In a healthy company, that statement should get you in trouble - because knowing that you have a security / ethics breach and a rogue actor putting the company at risk should be something that the company doesn't just allow you to expose, but requires you to expose. Does the CEO really not want to know that he has a CIO abusing the company for personal reasons?
It's comments like this that make this hard to accept. It's not that it's not possible - but how do you know his CIO is abusing the company for personal reasons? It's every bit more likely that he's simply failing at his job of researching good solution - and that no reasons other than laziness are really involved here.
Yes, this. I 100% believe this is far more accurate description of what's going on vs corrupt employees "on the take".
Scott considers the act of not protecting a company from sale personal to be on the take/corrupt.
Let's pretend that the CIO is the company's bodyguard. He's paid to protect the company, to watch for danger, to take a bullet if necessary. That's his job.
Now as a bodyguard an assassin comes along and says "I'll buy you lunch if you leave your guard down. Just come sit at this table instead of actively protecting your target." If he takes that lunch, and still gets paid to be the bodyguard but intentionally looks away, that's corrupt. He's getting "favours" or more, in order to "look the other way".
Even worse, it sounds like the CIO likely sought out the assassins in this case. Invited them to make him an offer.
If you put it into a non-technical context - once someone is getting personal benefits (pay, less work, kick backs, free lunches, personal security, recommendations for the next job) in order to let down their guard and not protect something that they are paid to protect... that's the corruption.
-
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 Sounds like your company has made a decision already.
The CIO has failed at one of the most basic life skills...
"Never take advice from a sales person."
Yes, I am aware of this sigh but I can only do so much. I don't want to get into the details of my work dynamic with my boss and all that, and long story-short, I have to do what he says as I am the only sysadmin/low man on the totem pole.
In a healthy company, that statement should get you in trouble - because knowing that you have a security / ethics breach and a rogue actor putting the company at risk should be something that the company doesn't just allow you to expose, but requires you to expose. Does the CEO really not want to know that he has a CIO abusing the company for personal reasons?
It's comments like this that make this hard to accept. It's not that it's not possible - but how do you know his CIO is abusing the company for personal reasons? It's every bit more likely that he's simply failing at his job of researching good solution - and that no reasons other than laziness are really involved here.
Yes, this. I 100% believe this is far more accurate description of what's going on vs corrupt employees "on the take".
Scott considers the act of not protecting a company from sale personal to be on the take/corrupt.
I think to not feel this way requires an extreme degree of "flexible ethics." If I pay someone to make good decisions and protect my business, and then that person takes that money and turns around and does exactly the thing that they've been paid not to do and even uses their influence to enable it, that's completely corrupt and unethical. Completely. The entire basis for the job is a lie, and the actions taken aren't just to fail to do the job that he is paid to do, but to act completely contrary to the job and actively act as the enemy of the business. He's paid to work for the business, but acts literally against it.
Please explain where the grey area is here that allows this to be a "Scott sees it" way. How does Dashrender see it another way?
I think, to put it simply, if someone is doing their job in an honest and sincere way to the best of their ability, yet still sucks at some or all aspects of their job, then that means that person is just guilty of being bad at their job, not that they are corrupt or on the take.
Right, we aren't talking about that here at all. We are specifically talking about a CIO that you believe to be competent yet intentionally allowing someone to take advantage of the company anyway.
-
I guess it boils down to an understanding of one's job and the actual understanding of adulting and buyer's agents vs seller's agents.
I'm guessing most people, including most IT people (or whomever is making the decisions in general) don't adult.
Because of the lack of knowing their job and these other mentioned things - they don't see themselves as unethical. This is the cornerstone to why I don't see them as corrupt. So to you, they are corrupt because they don't even realize they are corrupt, because they don't understand their role.
-
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 Sounds like your company has made a decision already.
The CIO has failed at one of the most basic life skills...
"Never take advice from a sales person."
Yes, I am aware of this sigh but I can only do so much. I don't want to get into the details of my work dynamic with my boss and all that, and long story-short, I have to do what he says as I am the only sysadmin/low man on the totem pole.
In a healthy company, that statement should get you in trouble - because knowing that you have a security / ethics breach and a rogue actor putting the company at risk should be something that the company doesn't just allow you to expose, but requires you to expose. Does the CEO really not want to know that he has a CIO abusing the company for personal reasons?
It's comments like this that make this hard to accept. It's not that it's not possible - but how do you know his CIO is abusing the company for personal reasons? It's every bit more likely that he's simply failing at his job of researching good solution - and that no reasons other than laziness are really involved here.
Yes, this. I 100% believe this is far more accurate description of what's going on vs corrupt employees "on the take".
Scott considers the act of not protecting a company from sale personal to be on the take/corrupt.
Let's pretend that the CIO is the company's bodyguard. He's paid to protect the company, to watch for danger, to take a bullet if necessary. That's his job.
Now as a bodyguard an assassin comes along and says "I'll buy you lunch if you leave your guard down. Just come sit at this table instead of actively protecting your target." If he takes that lunch, and still gets paid to be the bodyguard but intentionally looks away, that's corrupt. He's getting "favours" or more, in order to "look the other way".
Even worse, it sounds like the CIO likely sought out the assassins in this case. Invited them to make him an offer.
If you put it into a non-technical context - once someone is getting personal benefits (pay, less work, kick backs, free lunches, personal security, recommendations for the next job) in order to let down their guard and not protect something that they are paid to protect... that's the corruption.
More like, the bodyguard has eaten way too many sandwiches over the years and he has become overweight, slow and lethargic, and is now increasingly more unable to quickly get in front of all the bullets that are headed towards the CEO.
-
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 Sounds like your company has made a decision already.
The CIO has failed at one of the most basic life skills...
"Never take advice from a sales person."
Yes, I am aware of this sigh but I can only do so much. I don't want to get into the details of my work dynamic with my boss and all that, and long story-short, I have to do what he says as I am the only sysadmin/low man on the totem pole.
In a healthy company, that statement should get you in trouble - because knowing that you have a security / ethics breach and a rogue actor putting the company at risk should be something that the company doesn't just allow you to expose, but requires you to expose. Does the CEO really not want to know that he has a CIO abusing the company for personal reasons?
It's comments like this that make this hard to accept. It's not that it's not possible - but how do you know his CIO is abusing the company for personal reasons? It's every bit more likely that he's simply failing at his job of researching good solution - and that no reasons other than laziness are really involved here.
Nope, you just made an impossibly illogical excuse to try to make it look like what I said isn't the obvious answer. That's how extremely irrational it is to try to defend.
The issue is NOT his ability to research or to know anything technical. The issue is a fundamental ethics breach of his job duties. Any mentioning of a lack of ability or skill in a technical or research area I see as meaning someone has agreed with the lack of ethics and is failing to attempt to rationalize how something so obviously unethical must have a viable excuse.
Stop and examine the situation. Obviously, something unethical has happened. It's so obvious, so clear, that the real issue is... how is everyone closer to the situation not pointing it out and talking about it?
I assume you're referring to the fact that he's talking to a sales person, and not a buyer's agent?
Right, he violated basic business ethics and common sense. This is often done because it results in personal benefit. It can be as simple as wanting to continue to get paid to not do a job and he feels that this will let him live on easy street while being hard to prove. That's the most common thing that I see. Not direct pay from the vendor, but the vendor using the situation to make the CIO's life easy in a way that doesn't flag the business quickly.
Why work and do your job, when you can "hire" a sales person to make it look like you are trying while you kick back and get paid to do nothing?
-
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
I guess it boils down to an understanding of one's job and the actual understanding of adulting and buyer's agents vs seller's agents.
I'm guessing most people, including most IT people (or whomever is making the decisions in general) don't adult.
Sure, because no one checks in on them, it's way more personally advantageous to accept pay for a job they don't do and just forego all those ethical complications that honest people have to deal with.
It's fine to be incompetent if he's only incompetent, he'll welcome being questioned and there is zero fear of retaliation.
But it's been stated that he IS competent and there is an assumption of retaliation. So his lack of adulting isn't in question, only his ethics.
-
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
I guess it boils down to an understanding of one's job and the actual understanding of adulting and buyer's agents vs seller's agents.
I'm guessing most people, including most IT people (or whomever is making the decisions in general) don't adult.
Because of the lack of knowing their job and these other mentioned things - they don't see themselves as unethical. This is the cornerstone to why I don't see them as corrupt. So to you, they are corrupt because they don't even realize they are corrupt, because they don't understand their role.
Yeah, I agree with this. This is all I've really wanted to express. Nobody is maliciously corrupt here, but not everyone is the best at their jobs here either.
It's a trade off too. We are probably going to get ripped off in some way or another, and we've got to all try to do our best to stay educated and informed so we can ward off the saleswolves.
-
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
Because of the lack of knowing their job and these other mentioned things - they don't see themselves as unethical. This is the cornerstone to why I don't see them as corrupt. So to you, they are corrupt because they don't even realize they are corrupt, because they don't understand their role.
People steal music, pirate movies, use Windows without a license... and don't consider themselves unethical. People make all kinds of excuses for their own behaviour because everyone believes that they are ethical and have a good reason for breaching everyone else's ethical believes. Rioters, looters, common thieves almost always feel that "they are good people" with a good reason for what they do.
-
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
@coliver said in VLAN confusion:
@dave247 Sounds like your company has made a decision already.
The CIO has failed at one of the most basic life skills...
"Never take advice from a sales person."
Yes, I am aware of this sigh but I can only do so much. I don't want to get into the details of my work dynamic with my boss and all that, and long story-short, I have to do what he says as I am the only sysadmin/low man on the totem pole.
In a healthy company, that statement should get you in trouble - because knowing that you have a security / ethics breach and a rogue actor putting the company at risk should be something that the company doesn't just allow you to expose, but requires you to expose. Does the CEO really not want to know that he has a CIO abusing the company for personal reasons?
It's comments like this that make this hard to accept. It's not that it's not possible - but how do you know his CIO is abusing the company for personal reasons? It's every bit more likely that he's simply failing at his job of researching good solution - and that no reasons other than laziness are really involved here.
Yes, this. I 100% believe this is far more accurate description of what's going on vs corrupt employees "on the take".
Scott considers the act of not protecting a company from sale personal to be on the take/corrupt.
Let's pretend that the CIO is the company's bodyguard. He's paid to protect the company, to watch for danger, to take a bullet if necessary. That's his job.
Now as a bodyguard an assassin comes along and says "I'll buy you lunch if you leave your guard down. Just come sit at this table instead of actively protecting your target." If he takes that lunch, and still gets paid to be the bodyguard but intentionally looks away, that's corrupt. He's getting "favours" or more, in order to "look the other way".
Even worse, it sounds like the CIO likely sought out the assassins in this case. Invited them to make him an offer.
If you put it into a non-technical context - once someone is getting personal benefits (pay, less work, kick backs, free lunches, personal security, recommendations for the next job) in order to let down their guard and not protect something that they are paid to protect... that's the corruption.
More like, the bodyguard has eaten way too many sandwiches over the years and he has become overweight, slow and lethargic, and is now increasingly more unable to quickly get in front of all the bullets that are headed towards the CEO.
No, that's not at all what this is. That would require him to be senile. You are trying to tie in some lack of technical competence, but that cannot be a factor here. This is a situation where he asked someone to buy him food. If you feel he's that stupid that he doesn't understand the most basic adult behaviour, you would logically also think that he is wearing Depends and needing a nurse to feed him.
It's simply not reasonable to claim that your CIO is so brain dead that he can't tell who his friends are from his enemies. Is that really what we want to jump to instead of simply the logical, obvious "he sees a chance for personal benefit and leverages it like almost all people do in that position?"
Why is the obvious, logical, simple explanation not considered to be so and insane, impossible, illogical ones assumed?
-
@dave247 said in VLAN confusion:
Yeah, I agree with this. This is all I've really wanted to express. Nobody is maliciously corrupt here, but not everyone is the best at their jobs here either.
Not an option. Either your CIO is competent and corrupt, or incompetent and would welcome your exposure of the problem.
So which is it... are you comfortable telling the CIO and CEO about the situation because they honestly want to do what is right, or do you have ANY fear that they will punish you to silence the exposure of what they plan to do?
You can't have it both ways.
-
@scottalanmiller said in VLAN confusion:
@dashrender said in VLAN confusion:
Because of the lack of knowing their job and these other mentioned things - they don't see themselves as unethical. This is the cornerstone to why I don't see them as corrupt. So to you, they are corrupt because they don't even realize they are corrupt, because they don't understand their role.
People steal music, pirate movies, use Windows without a license... and don't consider themselves unethical. People make all kinds of excuses for their own behaviour because everyone believes that they are ethical and have a good reason for breaching everyone else's ethical believes. Rioters, looters, common thieves almost always feel that "they are good people" with a good reason for what they do.
yeah - I don't think most would agree with that.
If you asked a person stealing music if they thought that was ethical - they would probably tell you no.
But if you asked that same person, assuming you're the head of IT, and you need a phone system, would it be ethical to call cisco and ask for a purchase - they would say yes it is.
The difference is the expectation of understanding that difference, adulting as you've called it... I really think this is a missing concept to most.
of course, once you fully explain buyers and seller's agents.. they would likely turn on a dime and agree with you.
