As a longtime corporate grunt, I can guess exactly how management leaned on him. He should have left and let the scumbags find another patsy to do their dirty work.
but putting stuff in text/IM/email is instantly discovered if anything ever goes to trial and there is electronic discovery
Once an org gets burned by discovery in a lawsuit they go to great lengths to ensure it will never happen again.
Verbal: oral, spoken rather than written.
You’ve been using verbal correctly.
At least at the entry level, I think a lot of the "don't say the word 'competition'" training started as a reaction to relatively recent legal tangles - it wouldn't be surprising if people at the senior level also have gotten more careful about how they communicate.
That said, people get complacent and then wham - front page of the New York Times saying something dumb.
> Lomasney once advised a young follower, "Don't write when you can talk; don't talk when you can nod your head."[1]
The West End Museum[2] attributes the longer quote to him.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Lomasney referencing https://www.jstor.org/stable/361565
[2] https://thewestendmuseum.org/the-life-legend-and-lessons-of-...
This source says text messages. Thought I saw instant messages somewhere else.