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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."
If you ask me, the more interesting question is: To what extent should an employer have a right to decide what their employees do on company time.
Should it matter if you're spending half your time playing Solitare if you still manage to do the job you're supposed to do?
This boss's managers don't seem to want to get rid of him. One conclusion you could draw from that is that perhaps the boss actually is getting what he's supposed to be doing done. (Maybe most of his work isn't even done on the computer?)
In that case, who cares if he's playing solitare? Perhaps he's thinking things through and making decisions while doing it?
Personally, I've got a job where nobody tells me what to do with my time, as long as I get the job done.
And that's the way it should be, if you ask me.
By my definition, a job is performing a task for money.
this guy wasn't too bright..admittedly.
but friends and i have dealt with situations like this before (the tech side, not stuffed suit side).
here's what happened: we had a dumbfuck COO making life absolutely miserable for everyone. he did absolutely nothing for the company and his net contribution to the company was ZERO. yet his fellow stuffed suits excused his bad behavior, even though the fucktwit COO was single handedly decimating moral through out the ranks.
well amongst the techies, we already had one guy leaving for a better job, so he volunteered (with help from unknown sources) to gather some dirt. he put it all together in a report of our COOs activities and in the middle of the night, placed hard copies on nearly 300 desks, and emailed over 1000 employees. this shit was gravy...we had evidence(photos/screen caps/receipts) of: an affair w/underling, porn surfing, game playing, almost zero actual work, frivilous purchases on company credit card, 3 hour lunches, sleeping frequently on the job, etc.
shit hit the fan, they accused the entire IT dept in complicity, but the single IT guy leaving, while not admitting it directly, intimated that he acted alone.
needless to say, the uproar amongst rank and file quickly drowned out the investigation.
The COO, CFO and a vice president all left.
Apparently they believed that their similar activities had been documented as well....as an anonymous message (not from us) stated "more was coming". we actually had nothing more, but the threat alone was enough.
karma rolled some fucking heads that month.
little guys: 3
fucktwit suits: 0
While most of us would find this guys actions appropriate, he obviously did not understand the attitude of the management he worked for, and THAT is what determines whether his actions were right or wrong, not what you or I or even he thought. When it became obvious that upper management didn't give a shit, his job as IT narc was done. At that point, his actions should have been regulated to gathering evidence for that day when things came crashing down (and they would have eventially) to cover his ass. If your bosses have expressed a distinct disinterest in how that posisition was managed, YOU are in the wrong for going any further, as much as it pains me to say it. At that point, you may be stepping on good ol' boy toes or some other crap, and while you have the right to do it, your an idiot for doing so.
It really surprises me that after 21 years of supposed service, this guy gets canned for the expose, which leads me to believe there is something(s) we're all not being told. 21 years and this guy still doesn't have a sensible grasp of the environment that would can him as sooner than praise him? 21 years and this guy is worth less than a solitair playing spider monkey? Normally that only happens when they're just dying for an excuse to get rid of you, normally after you've done something to piss them off.
Sorry, but thing aren't adding up here for the righteous IT guy here. I'm betting he screwed the pooch way before this incident.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
His job, he says was to find computer misuse. The boss wasn't misusing the computer, he was possibly misusing his time. If he had been playing solitaire with a deck of cards, would that be misuse of his desk? Of the cards?
No, misuse of the computer, if you ask me, would involve installing spyware and trojans on other people's computer, looking at their files, flooding the network, running a porn site.
This sysadmin scares me, if he doesn't think you are doing your job properly, then even after he has told your boss about it he thinks he can install spyware on your computer and watch you. What other thing that bothers him would make him feel justified in doing crap like this?
I would fire him on the spot, possibly consider pressing charges. While employers do own their computers and thus you don't have as much privacy from your employer as you should have, this guy was not authorized by the employer, and what he did is possibly illegal.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Or the business world. Most of the people in managerial positions don't know what thtey're doing, they got their by luck and kissing the right ass.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
You know, there are dumb-fuck executives at most companies. As most people are more than aware, trying a direct confrontation to this (however "legitimate" the confrontation may be) usually ends up in more trouble that it's worth.
At my last job, we had a few dumb-fuck executives that eventually drove our company out of business, hence it's my previous job. Anyhow, there was one such guy that was spending company money for himself, sexually harassing the ladies (one quit after her superior wouldn't take serious action against this guy), and basically did everything to screw the company and nothing to help it.
We had plenty of mud to dig up, actually, we didn't need to dig any up because it was well known throughout the entire company. The CEO etc. wouldn't do jack, because (although not as bad) he had done similar things to a certain extent.
It was obvious that making a stink would only get the person making the stink have a miserable life, or get fired for some technicality. So, instead of a legitimate confrontation, we used a more shaddy approach. Most of it was illegal, but hard to prove, but wouldn't get anyone fired. So long as we weren't caught in the process of doing it.
We basically harassed the fucking hell out of the executive in question. Some very childish pranks like using a high strength epoxy putty to seal all the key holes on his Mercedes (keyless entry still worked, but he did notice this), took the air out of his car tires, and ripped off the emblem. Next came the dog shit on his door steps, uprooted flowers in his garden, and other general vandalism. To make sure he understood it was an internal effort, we glued his books closed, and chopped a few cables on his office computer. (I still can't believe that this was done by the sysadmin himself... BOFH or what!?) There was loads more, but we finally drove the thought home by sending a piece of mail from a spoofed acount that generally said "Either your life could continue being hell, or you can leave the company. You choose." He was gone in 2 weeks.
Was this legal? No! Was it ethical? Probably not. But it was the lesser of 2 evils, where the other evil was making a stink and getting fired in return. Sometimes doing it the "right way" isn't really the right way at all if you end up losing. It's not worth it. I suppose we could have hired someone to break his legs (there were more than a few ladies in the office that would have been very happy to contribute to the "hit tip" if we had collected!) but we certainly got more entertainment and satisfaction out of doing it ourselves. Best of all, it wasn't even a coordinated plan, it was completely autonomous. As soon as people caught on that someone was raising hell, everyone else followed.
So Patrick, if you're reading this, now you know. By the way, I have your Mercede's emblem.
You want one command? Done. Run this as a local admin:Or perhaps you'd like to nuke all the games at once? You could of course run the Uninstall section for each game. But since we're so fixed on the "one command" notion, we'll need a file c:\nogames.txt with the following contents (disregard the spaces added by slashcode):Once we have that, run this command to blow away all the games at once. (Add
Just because YOU don't know how to administer a Windows network doesn't mean it's not possible.
Results are what matter. If someone can get their required work done with 10% of their time, no one should really care about the use of the other 90%. Sorry...gov't or not. That's what happens in companies who are concerned about the bottom line. You get your shit done, you have a job. You don't, you're fired. If higher ups thought he was getting work done, Solitaire is not an offense. If he's slacking, Solitaire becomes an offense. That simple. Dunno why there's 200+ posts debating this.