Often there is a certification to go along with the video or manual, so the next question could be "so you lied when you signed this certification saying you watched the video?" And even when there isn't failure to follow established procedures can be devestating to someone's credibility. Even if the procedure is stupid, it looks really bad in front of a decision maker or jury when someone says "oh yeah I just blew off that thing I was supposed to do." It's this clear-cut self-contained transgression that makes it easy for people to question your whole character (maybe more easy than is justified).

Sure, obviously that looks bad for both the company and the individual in question.

But I think maxcan's point is that at no point in the process has the cheating really lead to any actual consumer harm. Which is a pretty important point.

I mostly agree with that. I was trying to explain why these videos exist in the first place--so that when the underlying rules are broken, the regulatory authority can make the rule-breaker look like a liar instead of merely someone ignorant of the rules.

Ya, I think your clarification was great but it mostly supports maxcan's point that these programs exist so that "some company's lawyers can mitigate some liability."

Either every individual who used the script, or the entity that created or promulgated it, is held culpable/liable. When an employer is tacitly encouraging employees to ignore a legal requirement, and the employees are happily doing so, there's plenty of blame to go around.

What happens then? You're reading about it on Buzzfeed. That's why it's a dumb thing to do.