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IT Management Always Blames the Worker Bees
An anonymous reader writes "A refreshing dose of sanity, It Management Fail: Always Blame the Worker Bees counters Security fail: When trusted IT people go bad, which advocates the usual reactive and punitive Big Brother measures for keeping those icky, untrustworthy IT staffers in line. Management really needs to look in the mirror when IT screws up."
...that IT folks do the job they're paid to do without stealing!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Windows!
Yours In Osh,
Kilgore Trout
Slashdot has turned into a run-of-the-mill lame blog, complete with sarcasm in place of an actual argument. I guess it's time I either took up reading people's random crappy blogs from the web, or found a new site.
I blame God for this. It's clear who fucked up in all cases. If this were a perfect universe, I might let him slide, but NO MORE!!1!
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
Chase links, please. Anybody doesn't blame the admin that article refers to is insane.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
If you do your job correctly, then everything runs smoothly and you don't get any attention (or credit) at all. But as soon as something goes wrong, it's obviously because YOU FUCKED UP, and you get LOTS of attention! Other than money, can anyone cite an upside to working in IT?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
and once again the neo-fascists forget about innoncent companies who have had their offices raided and lost days of productivity
No, seriously. It won't. If you think Management is going to own up to a fault (especially a massive one) of their making, and risk losing job, career, etc? Heh... good luck with working under that assumption.
The best counter you can have against such a manager (especially one who consistently screws up) is to make sure you get a paper trail and project management chart all set - and get his signature on it! Then, be double-plus careful to note all changes and deviations, again with supporting evidence. It won't prevent an asshat from blaming you and/or your team anyway, but it will make fixing that blame much harder to do.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The guy who sneaks into your bookstore with a portable scanner and makes a copy of a book and leaves without buying anything isn't a "customer."
No, that's what we call "a potential customer".
Yeah, that's true for situations where the only copies of the software being run are pirated. And you're right that many a pirate mislabels himself a customer without understanding that, as they're doing squat to support the company that makes the software they pirate, said company has no incentive to play nice.
But the situation with the BSA threatening to sue isn't usually that black and white. Far more often you have a situation where a company is running legitimate copies of BSA software on their machines, but also running "extra" copies. So you have ITExampleCorp that has 500 legit copies of XP running on 1500 machines, or something to that effect.
Suing ExampleCorp in that instance is, in fact, suing your customer. Of course, what the BSA prefers to do is to instead demand that ExampleCorp buy licences from them to cover the other thousand boxes, using the threat of a lawsuit to make them comply.
I'm not strictly disagreeing with you, but I do think you're conflating two different forms of piracy.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Playing devils advocate. What if they buy the book scan and OCR the text then upload the text for everybody to share. Are they still a customer? Do you still sue?
...throw employees under the bus. My boss told me I had X number of days to get a project done (X = I don't remember the days). The code needs to go through a senior developer before it hits QA. Here is the kicker: I was given this project because a senior developer did not have time to get it done. Now you may be thinking, "Well if the senior developer did not have enough time to do it, wouldn't that mean that he would not have time to go through the code?" If that is your question, the answer is, you are correct. The senior developer did not have time to look this over. What happened was that this sat at the senior developer for about 3 days with my boss yelling and getting snarky at me. I told him where the code was. No changes were required for the code. What happened was that this manager was looking to get rid of me (there are reasons that there is no need to bring up, but let me just say he pulled me into some office politics and I had never been in the situation and did not know how to handle it). and since this was a new manager, he thought he needed to fire somebody so that everybody knew who was boss (I seriously had confirmation of this with people I have kept in touch with from the company). Also, the senior developer the boss really liked. Even though the senior developer took 3 days and found nothing, I got fired from it.
What does this have to do with anything? My boss really liked the other person and did not want to tell people in a business meeting that the project was late due to him taking too long. I got thrown under the bus since according to my boss, "if it was going to take that long for the senior developer, I should have gotten my portion done in 4 days instead of the 7 I took".
Some IT managers will blame everything on the "worker bees" (even if it was the manager himself who pulled in an unrealistic due date when he personally knew how busy the senior developer was). He knew that the senior developer could not get the project done in time and needed a scape goat or whatever it is called, so it was all pinned on me. I will not say all of them, because I have had some incredible IT managers as well.
The world is how you make it
For want of a nail...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
This is a fundamental flaw of top-down command and control, probably helped by a cover up culture.
You're not suggesting that this is an unreasonable course of action are you?
If you're audited, and found to have 500 legal copies of the software running on 1500 systems, demanding that the person who is in violation of the license terms pay for the other 1000 copies they're using seems pretty reasonable to me.
They're still a "customer" of Barnes & Noble, or Amazon, or wherever they bought the book. They're also still a pirate violating the author's copyright. And for the violation of the copyright, yes, the person whose rights are being violated should still sue.
Or, better yet, PCs get recycled to other employees in different job roles, and ExampleCorp doesn't fully wipe the PC before transferring it. Or they delete the software, but the BSA goons run an undelete utility and claim infringement because the bits were still on the hard drive.
Ultimately, it's the manager who is in charge of their "worker bees". If their employees aren't up to par and you've tried to help them improve and they can't or wont, shit can them. It's quite simple really. If you aren't getting rid of the bad eggs for your team, guess where the problem lies? Hint, it's actually not the bad egg anymore, it's the person in charge.
Yeah, I wasn't coming down on either side of the argument there - I wasn't condoning or condemning the BSA's actions in that hypothetical case, just stating that that's their standard MO.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Don't forget the ITExampleCorp that has 1500 legit copies of XP running on 1500 machines, but when the BSA come a-knockin' can't definitively prove that each machine has a valid license. Say, the machines started out OK, but over the course of business they got wiped, reinstalled, cloned, moved, repurposed, etc... There may still be 1500 licenses and 1500 machines, but that won't cut it when dealing with the BSA. In the end, ITExampleCorp is coerced into shelling out even more money to appease the BSA and be deemed "legit", even though they did nothing wrong.
So, yeah, suing a customer.
Fair enough. I just had to ask because TFA describes them as an "extortion racket," and it strikes me that if that's what they do, it doesn't seem all that unreasonable.
I can understand why the BSA would be antithetical to FOSS types, but what you described doesn't sound like particularly vicious tactics.
There are a few things I've seen in work places that really contribute to the bashing:
1. Suits who won't talk to IT staff
2. IT staff that won't talk to suits
3. Both sides bitch about the other behind closed doors and the grapevine still passes the scuttlebutt
4. Both sides having a superiority complex
I'd encourage the IT staffs to go and talk with your management. You'll be glad you did.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
IT leadership in my company turns over about every 6 months to a year.
For i until Bankrupt = 'yes'
Huge problem happens...
IT leadership is canned...
New guy/girl comes in...
BIG CHANGE!!!
MASSIVE HIRING!!!
BIG PROJECTS!!!
Bill comes...
VPs panic... there are charts and graphs depicting the panic in graphic detail...
IT leadership is canned...
Change canceled...
Layoffs...
Projects canceled...
New IT leadership declares the "Restructuring" was a "Massive success"
Next i
No, FOSS types love the BSA. Not only are they "vigorous" in promoting license compliance, but they're a walking billboard for the pitfalls of closed source/proprietary software.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
This is nothing new. Any industry is exactly the same. Blame it on whatever you like.
I used to work in IT - management would screw over the staff at a moments notice for no readily apparent reason.
I now work in Healthcare - where managed screw over the staff at a moments notice for no readily apparent reason.
It's called Capitalism.
You know, as techies it really is part of our job to learn how to explain things understandably to laypeople. And do it without techie terms, so you can forbid joe redneck officefodder to use terms like "cpu", which he'll think means the computer case and the magic inside. To him, that's accurate enough. But to us techies, it's not. It's in fact so wrong as to be painfully reminiscent of carco culting. So don't use those terms, and talk in language laypeople understand.
In the same vein it is the brass' job to explain in terms laypeople, like us techies, will understand what they're up to. That's part of leadership that's part and parcel of good management. That also means getting rid of the entire middle layer of buzzword-salad spouting cattle. We need good managers. We should demand that from our brass. And they ought to deliver, too.
Reminds me of the programmer joke:
A man flying in a hot air balloon suddenly realizes he’s lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts to get directions, "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"
The man below says: "Yes. You're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."
"You must work in Information Technology," says the balloonist.
"I do" replies the man. "How did you know?"
"Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but It's of no use to anyone."
The man below replies, "You must work in management."
"I do," replies the balloonist, "But how'd you know?"*
"Well", says the man, "you don’t know where you are or where you’re going, but you expect me to be able to help. You’re in the same position you were before we met, but now it’s my fault."
It is interesting to me that Carla shows all the arrogance, cockiness, self-righteousness, and dismissiveness that is mentioned in the article. She defends most of those mentioned in the CW article, with the sole exception of "Sally" with whom she wistfully sympathizes to the point of sounding regretful.
No wonder she doesn't like the first article. She is the exact same kind of person who does the things mentioned in the first article.
...like a hot air balloon.
Seriously, that was the best thing in this thread so far.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Every problem that persists in any organization (not just IT) is a management problem. If the problem is with a manager, it's a management problem one level higher.
IT Management has no idea so that why they blame the workers I looking at you CITY of SF.
I have a little sympathy for "Sally". What she did was wrong and I don't condone it, but the article (clearly written from a management perspective), is rather cavalier about the company just essentially eliminating their IT department. Cost cutting is as cost cutting does, and I don't know the whole story (it may have really been a necessary measure), but the whole thing is treated kinda like "Oh well she was just a little upset because she was being let go." As opposed to "She was rightfully pretty damned pissed that the company was terminating her after 8 years of what appeared to be service they were extremely happy with, to save a few bucks, and they weren't even bothering to be upfront about it."
As it turns out she was probably a thief, or very very careless, but clearly no one knew that when the decision was made. All in all I'd say a better "lesson learned" from that one is "be upfront with your employees about major changes in their careers due to company action, and help them in every reasonable way to adjust to the changes you caused." Not: " Watch your evil employees like hawks when you're about to screw them to make sure they don't screw you first."
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
You mean like what happened to Ernie Ball, who are now entirely OSS based?
Time for a union!!!!!!!
...the less oxygen there is.
The keyword seems to be "oversight," or lack thereof. "Ed" was one of six workers at a $250 million retailer in Pa. "Ed" has a boss and he/she only had to look after 6 people. Six people! How do you not know what Ed is doing? And as a company that has $250 million in revenue, how are there only six people?
"Sally" had "privilege escalation" at a Fortune 500 company. Why? Because she puts out fire and was "special." She worked from home. Where was her boss in all this? Why didn't that person realize that perhaps "Sally" shouldn't have had "privilege escalation?"
In all of this, where were the managers? Aren't they supposed to manage resource? Shouldn't they be held accountable for lack of oversight?
It isn't fair to call them an "extortion racket."
"Gestapo" is a much better better epithet.
Management cannot tell the difference between good IT and bad IT people.
I use the Fireman/Pyromaniac analogy. As far as management is concerned, they are both in the fire business. And Firemen are treated like pyromaniacs.
A guru is a type of bully. We have to face up to this.
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/serial.htm#Guru
IT is an easy place for these guru bullies to hide, because management has no clue. It cannot tell the firemen from the pyros.
Too many of our IT brothers and sisters baffle with bullshit. Because saying "I don't know" is political suicide.
Too many are in the IT business that should not be in it. The MSCE and Y2K really exacerbated this with an influx of quick buck artists and opportunists.
The head computer guy should be best buddies with, and lunching with the controller. Not playing video games or feeding his gizmo fetish on the company's dime.
The other problems is that we deal with reality. You can't bullshit a compiler. Either the server boots or it does not. No PR campaign, no image management, no group think, no politics, no backstabbing, no WORDS or DELUSIONS are going to change the fact the server still does not boot.
The IT guy gets to bear a lot of bad news.
Another problem is time and budget pressure. Tends to fray tempers. No time, no money and the server won't boot. Denial is not a management option at this point.
Put on a helmet. It's gonna get worse.
You're right, FOSS types never sue anyone for violating a license. Except when they do.
Violating a license from a developer, whether that license comes with a dollar tag or not, is not something responsible IT folks should encourage.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
So you have ITExampleCorp that has 500 legit copies of XP running on 1500 machines, or something to that effect.
Suing ExampleCorp in that instance is, in fact, suing your customer. Of course, what the BSA prefers to do is to instead demand that ExampleCorp buy licences from them to cover the other thousand boxes, using the threat of a lawsuit to make them comply.
Which, of course, often comes back to bad management.
IT guy: "Hey, we're running 1500 computers on 500 legit copies of XP. We need to fix this, immediately."
Manager: "It's working, right?"
IT guy: "Yes, but, it's illegal. We're going to need to plop down a significant chunk of change to become compliant."
Manager: "There's no budget for that, and I'm not asking MY boss for extra funds for it. Just ignore it."
IT guy: "Er, ok, but I want it officially noted I object to this."
Manager: "Stupid un-manageable dork."
BSA: "Boogity boogity boo!"
Manager's Boss: "Why is your department running illegal copies of Windows XP?"
Manager: "It's them damn nerds down in IT, you can't trust'm!"
Manager's Boss: "Ah, good to hear. Here's your bonus. Mine's bigger."
Manager: "About the um... YP thing the eggheads were complaining about? We need to budget some money to fix it, I guess."
Manager's Boss: "... It's working, right?"
Repeat ad nauseum.
If you can't find your licenses, call your VAR. They'll have them on file somewhere; if they don't, time to pick a new VAR (and sue the old one for all the damages the BSA hit you with; it should be a certainty that you still have records of your original purchase from them).
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Literally loled on that one. Good job.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
If only the BSA did that. They're more into socking small to medium sized businesses with huge bills when they can only prove that they bought 990 out of the 1000 licenses they need in theory (even if the vendor told them 950 was sufficient for their use).
When I was let go from one large company I never left logic bombs in things I wrote... no... the applications would simply stop working after a few months because applications aren't written in their obsolete macro tool of choice, so nobody else knows how to fix them should simple formatting changes occur in the input data.
As it was, I was amazed that they were still using such an obsolete tool, (there have been new versions of it, but they were using the old version so they wouldn't have to license the new one, and so all old versions of scripts would continue to work.)
There are few "full black" sheep that have no licenses whatsoever. Usually the BSA crashes into a company on a more or less reliable source (disgruntled employee) who may even have a case where a company failed to keep up with the sometimes rather obscure licensing requirements and schemes of various companies. Quite frankly, if you want to get a company in trouble today, don't send the IRS anymore. Send the BSA. The chance that they somehow, somewhere, some way forgot or overlooked something is WAY higher, their licensing crap is way less transparent than the tax laws ever were.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The thing is that history suggests that they will sock a company with HUGE fines if they find that they can only prove they bought 1450 copies when they're running 1500. They are not interested in the idea that it was an innocent mistake or that the paperwork might be lost in the shuffle. They will demand far more than the cost of the 50 copies.
The entire air around them reads like "that's some nice software you got there. It'd be a real shame if some of it weren't licensed..."
Sally gets no sympathy for her response just as her management gets no sympathy for what produced it. But yeah, if it was just hers I might not have posted. Other cases presented (as real, bs-meters didn't twitch) ... flat criminals, given no-oversight keys to core business systems.
So I also don't agree with your summary of the takeaway. You've got an organization that large, you're obligated to protect it. You're admin'ing a large server, do you turn off security because having it on is insulting? Not keep logs, or just never check them? They're talking about sensible basics.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Sometimes it's damn hard to be compliant.
- An employee is terminated, and the license for something he installed years ago on a server is non-transferable. The software keeps on running as it always has, until an audit discovers that the person is no longer with the company.
- A legacy system runs software that since then has been bought by another company. While you have a legal license with the original company, this can not be verified.
- You use both open sourced and closed source licenses of the same software. An audit counts all, and sees that the number of closed source licenses is lower than the total. Good luck explaining that you can use both at the same time.
- Virtual machines that never run at the same time share licenses. The audit needs all of them turned on at the same time.
There's so many pitfalls it's not even funny. And quite often, companies pay for lots of licenses they don't use, or have for several times.
IT workers are like all other kinds of workers - they think they're rugged individualists who can stand as an army of One against a totally unified management. And if they cannot, they think they can start their own businesses.
Of course the road of unemployment is littered with tons of squirrels who think this way. But hey, IT workers look at them as examples of natural selection. At least, until they themselves are outsourced and they find themselves spending 4 additional years in college burning through their severance package while amassing ten thousand in debt... you get the picture.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
It's also common that XYZ corp has 1500 desktops and can only prove that they paid for 1200 licenses, when in fact they have 1600 licenses and maybe some irregularities in documentation. Hence the appeal of site licenses, where you buy the thing twice.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
You're right, FOSS types never sue anyone for violating a license.
That was the opposite of what I was trying to get across. The BSA increases the visibility of license compliance as a serious issue (a good thing for FOSS), while being total thugs about it (also a good thing for FOSS). It's win/win.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
They certainly don't show up with the sheriff and a swat team, or trash a bunch of computers because they don't understand this whole 'UNIX' thing.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
If the people hurt by the BSA were all scurrilous pirates, I'd agree and applaud. But what about the companies who made a good faith effort to keep in compliance with the twisty and not well documented little passages of company-wide server, desktop and portable licenses, and then got nailed anyway? What about a system that makes it easy to accuse and very difficult to prove innocence?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
But that has nothing to do with the BSA.
A former company of mine ran into this issue, and the issue was that over the years they had purchased from multiple VARs, some of which no longer existed. How do you ask your VAR to check your licenses, when the VAR has vanished from the earth?
This isn't even rare. Any company that has been in business for a significant amount of time (say, since Windows for Workgroups) will have gone through several VARs, had churn amongst all personnel who might know about licensing, and couldn't tell you where all their licenses are if you put a gun to their heads. I guess in that case you just re-purchase some subset of your licenses every few years. This must be the "rental" model I've been hearing about.
Even in cases where licenses were purchased directly from the vendor, the contract was sometimes vague as to exactly how many licenses of what type could be in use simultaneously. In the best of times it's a headache.
It's "showing intent" that's missing from the equation.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I don't agree with her response, just think she is more sympathetic than the others. My problem with the way the whole tale was presented was that the company's actions, which in my opinion were very nearly as bad as "Sally's" are glossed over as perfectly reasonable. Of course you outsource the entire department. Of course you don't tell anyone till the last possible moment. Of course you don't provide counseling or job search assistance.
While their points about escalation of privileged and job separation are perfectly valid, their most "valuable" piece of advice for this one appeared to be "Watch your employees close when you're about to screw them, the sneaky bastard probably figured it out." They didn't even bother to mention being open and honest with your staff, providing transition services or any of the other things the company could have to done to prevent or cushion the proximal cause of the employee anger.
Sure, watch people, especially people under stress. Sure, don't give people access to systems they don't need access too. Sure, make sure you know who has what keys. Also treat people with a bit of respect and don't fuck with them any more than you have to at a bad time.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I fail to understand, in our modern society, why we retain this system of management-worker relations that is more appropriate to the mid-twentieth century. We rarely have strikes anymore (the ones that stand out are those by millionaire athletes, not laborers). We have effectively replicated the feudal system in modern times, with management operating as the king's court, complete with courtiers vying for executive favors. The best advice I can give my children (and this goes for more than just IT careers - doctors and lawyers play this game too) is to be mediocre at your job, but excel at playing the corporate system. Since government is likewise organized, and the corporate world wields so much power, this arrangement is not likely to change without a revolution - economic or otherwise.
"You've got an organization that large, you're obligated to protect it."
Which is why management is ultimately responsible. They make the decisions. If they get credit for the positives then they get credit for the negatives. Don't want credit for the negatives? Then don't take credit for the positives. Companies with good management minimize the effect of bad employees. If you have a problem with bad employees, you don't have good management. That doesn't mean the employees are excused from their conduct or not prosecuted or the like.
You're not suggesting that this is an unreasonable course of action are you?
If you're audited, and found to have 500 legal copies of the software running on 1500 systems, demanding that the person who is in violation of the license terms pay for the other 1000 copies they're using seems pretty reasonable to me.
Most businesses - if they're sued by someone they have a business relationship with - will generally speaking cut all business ties with that organisation once the lawsuit's done and dusted.
The BSA essentially provides software companies with a third-party to do the suing. "Oh no, we didn't sue you", say Adobe, "that was the BSA. Sorry to hear of the troubles you've had - how many copies of Photoshop shall I put you down for?".
In many cases, even when the business owner is well aware that the BSA is nothing more than a front so you can pretend you don't have to cut business ties with Microsoft, Adobe et al, there's not a lot they can do about it. While we may bang on about F/OSS on /., for many products even when there are F/OSS alternatives, by the time you've written the requirements down there's a good chance you've excluded most, if not all of them.
What about the Matrix?
dosent matter where you work management will run over there employees.hell basic human nature there. if you can gain something by running over some strangers wouldent you.
I don't agree with her response, just think she is more sympathetic than the others. My problem with the way the whole tale was presented was that the company's actions, which in my opinion were very nearly as bad as "Sally's" are glossed over as perfectly reasonable. Of course you outsource the entire department. Of course you don't tell anyone till the last possible moment. Of course you don't provide counseling or job search assistance.
Unless there was a requirement in her contract for advance notification, she shouldn't expect one. Just like the boss shouldn't expect advance notification if she had been looking for other work and decided to quit.
But the most telling part of this whole story is that none of the other outsourced employees decided to get revenge on the boss. Yet they were all in the same position, so what's different about her? My guess is simple- her opinion of her 8 years of work most likely is quite a bit different than what the boss felt. I can't count how many times I've heard people who are well known to be the worst person in the group touting their awesome work ethic and massive knowledge and skill base. I have very, very rarely heard anybody straight out admit that they sucked, were lazy, or otherwise a screwup at work, even when they get caught doing something stupid. Hell, at one of my first jobs, working in a casino, we fired a book-keeper for embezzling a pretty big pile of cash. But even at her trial, she insisted that it was somehow "owed" to her because she was such an "awesome" employee and wasn't being paid enough, treated right, etc.
Ya, sometimes bosses screw you over; that's life. It's still not ANY justification for taking revenge against them. They already paid you for the job you did, get over your personal issues and concentrate on finding a new job.
The BSA are not the police though so if they come to "audit" you telling them to fuck off and maybe try to make an appointment next time is the correct response.
Saying that MS can be asshats about licensing too. The last place I worked wanted to sell second hand refurbished PCs but MS insisted that the Windows license was only for the original owner and could not be transferred. I.e. every machine that was being sold for £30 upwards needed a new Windows license at £70 a pop. We just ignored them as we felt their position was not legally sound and they shut up about it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Where I live (Hungary, Eastern-Europe), labour law mandates andvance notficiation for both the employer and the employee (it's 30 days). I guess there's a similar law in other EU countries as well.
These are the problems that most union opponents have with them:
1) Unions protect mediocre employees.
2) Unions frequently demand pay and benefits which are not appropriate for the job; the average senior UAW member makes substantially more money than most senior software engineers I know.
3) Unions won't back down in the name of the common good when everyone is suffering. Government employee unions are particularly bad for this.
4) Many of us believe that you shouldn't have to be a member of a union to have a job in any company or field.
CSC recently decided they couldn't meet the projected #s they had promised to Wall Street, so unilaterally cut a week of pay, in exchange for forced vacation at the lower rate. They did this to the entire outsourcing group, even the accounts who bill by the hour. That will cost them more than they gain for those accounts.
An employee asked "you speak of your commitments to Wall Street, what of your commitments to your employees?" The response was "at least we didn't fire you"
The BSA has a reputation as a extortion racket. What a great business model, sue your own customers! Only in tech. Once again, an anti-anti-piracy screed misunderstands what a "customer" is. A "customer" buys something. The guy who sneaks into your bookstore with a portable scanner and makes a copy of a book and leaves without buying anything isn't a "customer."
Really? Meet Ernie Ball. He makes a pretty case of it being a racket.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Look at oldschool Russian communism. Anytime something went wrong, they'd tortue/interrogate/imprison anyone in order to extol the virtues of communism. In fact, they'd rather throw hundreds of people under the bus than admit that maybe they might possibly potentially be a problem. Sound familiar? Businesses are the same way.
The people in charge will do absolutely anything to remain in charge. This includes cherry picking the most complacent and defeated workers, and even creating the most complacent and defeated workers through a long series of soul crushing punishments. Like punishing you with menial labor if you finish your assigned duties before the end date. Put in 110% once? Congratulations, that 110% is now your 100%. You'll miss that raise for not giving even more than that when someone else makes tiny but consistent improvements over a few years, even though you work twice as fast, more efficiently, etc.
The end result is a crushed and defeated workforce. You can see this when people are too terrified to say hi to their supervisors or higher ups when they see them out in public. They instead avert their eyes in shame. Same thing in Russia, back in the day. You don't talk to a member of the Party because you might get interrogated.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
The view they present is not what you and TFA say it is. The view they present is that some people can be provoked to vengeful and even criminal behavior, and some get there all by themselves. That employees have no monopoly on behavior like that, that people inside the management tribe are just as prone, is beside their point, but they certainly didn't hesitate to make it all the same, now, did they? In fact, the three examples they detailed cover the spectrum: one case of flatly criminal and unprovoked fraud, one case of a vengeful but panicked reaction, and one case provoked by entirely justified hatred.
I think that your premise and TFA's accusation, that Computerworld's post is self-serving and blinkered, constitute exactly the tribally-motivated defensive projection you're attributing to them.
I think that there's far more than enough of that going around, and if you want to find tribal and stupid managers pointing fingers only outside the camp you won't have to look very far.
That I can look at the mod scores and see a lot of people inside my own camp doing the exact same thing doesn't surprise me a bit. But don't ask me to like it or stay silent about it. If you want to claim "their" behavior is worse than "ours", then act like it. But don't expect any group that accepts tribalism to ever achieve it. None ever have. Go take a listen to "For What It's Worth", or "Us and Them", to pick only two examples of people making that point rather more gently than I just did.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Well you can't have it both ways..... Either you pay for it and supposedly have "amazing software(TM)!), or you use something free.....
It's expected the FOSS Guys wont let you cheat and avoid using their code while at the same time not incurring the penalty for not using said free code (cost).
I'm astonished. So many people on this site are blaming the management for crimes committed by employees. Like the managers weren't good enough or something. The people in that article were criminals, to put it simply.
Sounds like my last job ;).
Where do you get this? I have, not once, but twice now, said I don't approve of her actions. I also say "company's actions, which in my opinion were very nearly as bad as "Sally's" are glossed over as perfectly reasonable." Note the bold. "Sally's" actions were the worse of the two. She was wrong, however she was more understandable in her actions than the others. The other two were flatly criminal and I don't claim otherwise anywhere.
I'm not being "tribal" here, she was in the wrong but so was her company. The article presents her as wrong, but ignores the company's wrongdoing (beyond superficial and obvious security mistakes). I'm not saying she shouldn't have been let go, I don't know what the company's situation was. It's quite possible that they had little choice. What I am saying is that there are different ways to handle layoffs, and based on the info in the article this company handled them in the least friendly possible way.
Mow maybe the company did give notice to their employees that layoffs were imminent. Maybe they provided good severance packages, job search assistance or career counseling. I don't know, but it's not mentioned in the article. If they did do all of that, the article could have mentioned it. It would have made "Sally" seem that much less sympathetic. If they didn't do any mitigation, the article could easily have mentioned that too. It would have fit quite nicely into the lessons learned. People who are treated well in a bad situation, like unavoidable layoffs, are much less likely to be revenge motivated than people who are treated poorly. It doesn't mean some sociopath won't do something evil anyway, but at the very least it's a *a* good counter strategy to the revenge motivation.
Security is about more than making sure systems are locked down and people are prevented from getting access to unnecessary privileges. There's a social aspect as well. A disgruntled employee is much more likely to do bad things than a happy or at least content employee. people who are treated with respect are (generally) happier, and happy people are (generally) less likely to do damage. You don't want to base your entire enterprise security strategy around "Happy people", but it should definitely be something that gets considered.
The article even acknowledges this, saying that you should keep a particular eye on people when news like layoffs could leak out. That would have been a perfect place to segue into talking about how to manage these sorts of crisis to minimize employee unhappiness and thus minimize the chance of people even wanting revenge.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Hah! As if! I mean, just compare these two quotes from the article:
And then:
Look: They "traced" the sabotage to Sally. They said "We will sue you if you don't help us fix it". Sally, who is currently unemployed (hell, she might even have retired, especially after 10 years at a high-paying job) and in any case can't afford a Fortune 500-caliber legal team, agreed. They said "Don't tell anyone about it ever". That is literally all the information that is presented; the narrative structure forces the reader to assume that Sally actually sabotaged their systems, but what evidence of that is there?
Read between the lines here - some other employee(s) left the logic bombs behind, the company decided that A. Sally made a good scapegoat because she is apparently magic and B. Sally was awesome at fixing shit, so therefore C. They would get her to help fix their shit for free by threatening to sue her.
I mean, come on! How does that make any sense as presented? Evil bastard sets off "logic bombs" (what are those, by the way?) in the servers; you go back to evil bastard and say "fix this or we're gonna sue you!"; evil bastard nicely fixes everything for you without setting up more "logic bombs" that this time will wait a bit longer to go off. Does that sound plausible at all? Does that sound like the actions of an entity that actually believes evil bastard is really an evil bastard?
I've always thought of scouring the electronics dumpster in my area and peeling away the MS Windows XP stickers. That computer is not going to need it, the key is likely still valid, etc. Perhaps MS looks at it differently.
Where do you get this?
I think that's a good and fair question too. As I see it, you answer it yourself several times -- it's plain we're coming at this from different directions.
I also say "company's actions, which in my opinion were very nearly as bad as "Sally's" are glossed over as perfectly reasonable."
I was planning on quoting that myself, and had typed "You also say" before I realized it was so fresh in my mind because I'd just seen it for a second time.
Skip the parenthetical clause: "company's actions are glossed over as perfectly reasonable." That's the part I don't see. Sally's their go-to. Spit starts splattering, she's the one they call and they treat her as one of the team. Do what you need to do, get whatever tools you need. You can bet they treated her very well personally too.
I'll emphasize the part that stood out to me as I was reading the article: the reporters lead with that. They spend the first two paragraphs on the extent of her commitment and value to that company.
They didn't have to do that. They wan to put their thumb on the scale, they eliminate most of the first two paragraphs and focus on the bit about "the company's culture". Yes, they're quoting some second-guessing consultant, and rereading it now I can see that that would focus some people's attention -- but it's precisely that blindspotting I'm objecting to: the article makes every attempt, and successfully I might add, because you and I do both see it, every attempt to portray the depth of that management team's betrayal.
If the reporters had had published much more detail I think they'd have risked revealing the company's identity -- maybe they could have reported some more, but not much, and since they made their point ... well, a cardinal rule of writing is "omit needless words!" As I recall, the authors of that rendition actually put it this way: "Omit needless words! Omit needless words! Omit needless words!". So these reporters did just that.
I haven't read all the comments here, but I did give it more than a glance. I see defence of the management, which physically nauseates me, but I don't see any defense of the reporting. I'm going to hammer on it, along the lines of Strunk & White's repetition: here is the picture they paint of the management: "oh hey, you're great, ten years of dedication, we know you, you know us, you're a damn smart lady and one of the team." And then what, they treat her like she's blind, stupid property they can kick to the curb without a word.
I had to make myself delete the word I had in place of this sentence. Not a good word to call anyone in public.
You see it, I see it, because they reported it.
And then slashdot+dog accuses them of bias because of how heinously the management behaved?
Which slashdot+dog knows because the people they're accusing of passing over it lightly portrayed the brutality so vividly?
Really?
Try reading "Sally wanted revenge" in an absolutely deadpan tone, trying to sneak raw mockery in under the radar. I actually cracked a smirk when I read that. I thought: "nice." because I'd already felt they did a really good job of shoving it in right to the haft. Twisting the blade like that was ... nice.
And only after that lead do they talk about her reaction.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
s/post/comment/
s/Diver1/Diver!/
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
If you have to deal with MS licensing you quickly realise that their position on everything is that you owe them money.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It also reminds me of a "leadership" book that was required reading for one of my graduate classes, "Leading Geeks" (I'm not going to post a link because the book was a turd, why this drivel was required is beyond me). It's foundational premise was that somehow IT people "geeks" were a special breed of human with all the negative sterotypes noted it the original article and then went on to perpetuate them. Geeks aren't special other than they are talented, which is no different than any other type of field where talent is required to be successful.
If you're one of these clueless managers, buy a clue.
If you work for one of these pointy-haired bosses, get a new job as soon as the economy makes that feasible.
Changing the world... one research project at a time.
The Google Cache version of the 20.08.2003 story
If you do your job correctly, then everything runs smoothly and you don't get any attention (or credit) at all. But as soon as something goes wrong, it's obviously because YOU FUCKED UP, and you get LOTS of attention! Other than money, can anyone cite an upside to working in IT?
You actually make good money in IT? Do you have a time machine that goes back to 1996?