Alabama IT Whistleblower Fired For Spyware

chalker writes "Vernon Blake, an IT sysadmin for the Alabama Department Of Transportation, wanted to get evidence that his boss spent the majority of his time playing solitaire on his computer. Since emails to higher up supervisors were ignored, he installed Win-Spy, which grabbed screenshots several times per day over a period of 7 months. 70% of the resulting screenshots showed an active game of solitaire, and another 20% showed his boss checking the stock market. When he reported this to superiors, he was fired, even though he had 21 years of service in the position. His boss got a reprimand to 'stop playing games'. He is appealing his termination in court since he claims it was part of his job description to 'confirm and document' computer misuse for ALDOT. His complete story is here."

Comments

A few thoughts

[shoemakc]

A few thoughts:

I work at a engineering firm, and while quite a few people will work in CAD most of the day, many of the older engineers will not. If they're not in a meeting somewhere they'll mostly be marking up paper on their desk and passing it off to CAD people: their computer is really only there for email and to compose the occasional letter. If they've got solitare open on it it doesn't mean they're not working. Maybe they opened it during breakfast or lunch and havn't used the computer since. It happens...quite a bit.

Secondly, I also know the type previous posters have mentioned: those who are concerned more with what others are doing then themselves. The drawbacks to these types are at least twofold: Not only are they getting little work done themselves, they're also easily duped by someone who looks like they're doing work, but isn't...either do to deception or gross ineffciency. What's worst is when these people aren't part of your group so they really have no understanding of your actual output.

Thirdly, no one likes a snitch. If you were asked to do it by someone higher up that's one thing, but it's definately not something you want to perform unilateraly. If the bigwigs didn't care about it before, why the hell will they care about it now? Eventually you just have to accept the fact that people are complete wastes and let it be. Besides, that's what happy hour is for: bitching about useless coworkers :-)

-Chris

Management Problems Alabama Enron FBI ....

[OldHawk777]

Many people in management are pet-rocks (two out of three are inbreed worthless). Around here we call'em View-Graph Engineers (Good Briefers) a/o Career Managers (Promotion Focused). I have also heard them call me and my colleagues worker-bees and pack-mules to important to getting the job done to be promoted into management.
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In the past (2003.07.19 2:29 and many other times) I have said management in the USA from CEO (Government, Business, Religion) to first-line pet rocks are failures/worthless/harmfull 66% of the time. Alabama/Ohio/NY, Enron/FBI/CIA, last/present/next group of politicians (I suspect) will be about 33% effective.
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911 recommendations implimentation will mean nothing if management is not fixed and no one goes to jail for life, because there is an excuse for political or financial treason. I hope they fix management and get rid of the 66% pet-rocks, because they will kill US and destroy the nation slowly from within US like a cancer.
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Management blames others (citizens/employees) for failures. We always find out later that the Government/Business/Religious militray/civilian worker-bees and pack-mules did all the right things, but management and pet-rock/office/plutocratic politics did all the wrong things .... The (civilian worker-bees and pack-mules) make no decisions and can only seek permission, but those at cause of the failure point the finger at the group that many like to use as an excuse the poor and/or honest. Incompetent decisions that sometimes are made by unaccredited university degreed (diploma mill) managers, Bosses, and politicians are the typical today.
Failures in business and government projects are due to piss poor performance by management and Bosses not the worker-bees and pack-mules employees. Ecology, business, and tax laws, pension and health benefits, ... don't cause bank/CU failures, business bankruptcies, criminal fraud and theft in business the majority of failures in our economy/business are due to piss poor performance by management and Bosses not the worker-bees and pack-mules employees.
2001/09/11 NSA, CIA, and FBI failures were not because of the field agents, workers, and soldiers. Two Shuttle disasters, Hubble Telescope, X-43A, ... failures are due to failures in leadership and delusional denial by management. Credit Unions (CU), Global Crossings, World Com, Enron, ... failures, and Delta and other companies CEOs and staff steeling (lack of a better word) from worker-bees and pack-mules pension funds, reductions in pay, benefits, and health insurance to fund the CEOs' and staffs' ever increasing pay and benefits increases, and then put CEOs' and staffs' retirements in protected trust.
Politicians of the Capitalist Republic applaud CEOs' and staffs' performance in saving the economy by getting the worker-bees and pack-mules (US Citizens) to pay for the bad global economy. The President after 2001/09/11 called for all good US Citizens to spend our money and support the USA. The CEOs', staffs', and politicians (have a different agenda) are setting up more corporate and wealthy tax welfare programs for the oil and construction companies in Iraq and national parks, pharmaceutical companies in Africa, ....
US Citizens will pay in the future (our children, grandchildren, ...), financial responsibility is a thing of the past, and social security is always secure, because the government can maintain benefits for the wealthy today, and increase the social security retirement age until the right number of US Citizens die and never collect any benefits (old folks don't have many dependents). US, EU, and UN Citizens are becoming the whores of the wealthy fucked now, beaten later, and screwed to death.
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OldHawk777, Yep, I know I have said it all before. I am originally from Alabama, I know the old-boys network. The IT professional is fucked and shit-out-of-luck. I know it is (and ha