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I was once the lead controls engineer for an engineering company designing and building refineries. One of my tasks was supervising designers to complete drawings for the installation of control instruments. The company's files were full of installation details which could be copied and retitled for any project. This is done all the time and to do them from scratch would take 10 times as long.
One designer refused to use them because she thought it was plagiarism. My boss and I both disregarded her concerns and instructed her to use them anyway. She complained to my boss's boss and his boss's boss untill finally we were called in to explain this unethical thing we were asking an employee to do.
Of course once we explained the situation they all agreed there was no malfeasance but I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I would have taken a bit more time in explaining things to her. Maybe it was because she was from an Eastern European culture and had an unusual understanding of plagiarism. She was under the impression that I did not think she was skilled enough to do them herself and was therefore making her use the work of others.
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