The twin house right behind me just sold for double what houses around here were going for only 10 years ago. We had a couple of kids on our street inherit the house when their mom died. There was drug activity (sales, and 3 fatal overdoses in one week) and a small baby lived there despite the utilities getting shut off last Winter. Every adult person on the block got involved in pressuring the police and politicians to clean this mess up. The house got sold and is now being restored by the new owner. If you think this stuff only happens in Philly then you are sadly mistaken, because our police department's anti-drug measures of the last few years (like Operation Sunrise) have pushed many dealers out of Philly into upstate towns - which are totally unprepared to deal with them. Crime and drugs move easily, even into wealthy areas. Is there a Town Watch group in your neighborhood? Have you talked to the local police district Captain? What about your city councilman or local commiteeman? Ours were very helpful. Talk to your neighbors, you can make a difference if you act together. You won't get away from this stuff by moving out of Philly, but you can resist it. Sincere best wishes to you!
Actually your reply is typical of Philly residents. I have lived here over 50 years and am still amazed at the local inferiority complex. Despite many great things (like the biggest urban park system in the country) we have a very negative attitude ("addy-tood") about our town.
We may have slipped a bit since Ben Franklin's day (and our recent politicians sometimes make it seem like we have slipped a lot farther), but have you, for example, checked out how hard it is to own a house in Boston or San Fransico compared to Philly?
I have worked in government and I have worked in non-profits and (mostly) I have worked in corporate (Fortune 500) IT shops. Government is the worst: If you make a mistake your name gets in the newspaper (see above) for all your friends and family to read. In the corporate world if your systems got the worm this week then your company is terrified of any publicity which would indicate that they do not know what they are doing, so they will not even admit it happened let alone fire you. They are more likely to move you into management where (the theory goes) your incompetence won't hurt, although these days you might be in the next layoff. Of couse you also might be in the next layoff even if you are the IT guru who has kept them in business for 20 years.
I have worked in government IT shops including that one (back in the 1980s), the Department of Defense, and also for many Fortune 500 corporations in the years since. I have worked with computers since the 1970s, including mainframes, minicomputers and PCs.
There is no question in my mind that the hardest IT environment to work in is local government. They haven't been able to hire any new people since I left in the 1980s, although many have retired or (like me) moved on.
If you think that downsizing and tight budgets are a problem in your corporation the past 3 years, how would you like to work in an environment where the budget and staffing has been going down for over 20 years?
I just love all the smart remarks from folks here who manage to keep their personal PCs up to date (just like mine) on Windows update and have all the latest software, including Anti Virus protection. Until you have experienced working in a place where some of the equipment is older than you (and some of those city workers have been keeping things going on a broken shoestring for more years than many here have been alive) don't assume that you are smarter than everyone else in the real world, where you can not take old but critical systems down for the latest patch from Microsoft every week.
I used to work for one of the government IT shops mentioned above and spoke to my former co-workers this week. They would have been hit MUCH harder by the worm if they didn't still have many, many PCs that are running older OSes like Windows98. Their excuses sound very familiar. One IT manager was quoted as saying, "We download every patch we know of (???) each night". He did not say anything about APPLYING any patches, though.:-(
I spent most of the 15 years since I worked in that government shop (before recently getting downsized) working for a major computer services company which has contracts with many Fortune 500 corporations as well as all levels of government. Based on what I have seen in my career (and through conversations with other former co-workers this week), almost any corporation that had a problem with this worm is now working very hard to cover it up, keep it from getting in the news, etc.
To sum up: government IT shops make lame excuses, corporate ones will never admit they made a mistake.
Thank heaven the perpetrator(s) of this worm did not have a little more skill (or more malevolent intentions)!
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The twin house right behind me just sold for double what houses around here were going for only 10 years ago. We had a couple of kids on our street inherit the house when their mom died. There was drug activity (sales, and 3 fatal overdoses in one week) and a small baby lived there despite the utilities getting shut off last Winter. Every adult person on the block got involved in pressuring the police and politicians to clean this mess up. The house got sold and is now being restored by the new owner. If you think this stuff only happens in Philly then you are sadly mistaken, because our police department's anti-drug measures of the last few years (like Operation Sunrise) have pushed many dealers out of Philly into upstate towns - which are totally unprepared to deal with them. Crime and drugs move easily, even into wealthy areas. Is there a Town Watch group in your neighborhood? Have you talked to the local police district Captain? What about your city councilman or local commiteeman? Ours were very helpful. Talk to your neighbors, you can make a difference if you act together. You won't get away from this stuff by moving out of Philly, but you can resist it. Sincere best wishes to you!
Actually your reply is typical of Philly residents. I have lived here over 50 years and am still amazed at the local inferiority complex. Despite many great things (like the biggest urban park system in the country) we have a very negative attitude ("addy-tood") about our town. We may have slipped a bit since Ben Franklin's day (and our recent politicians sometimes make it seem like we have slipped a lot farther), but have you, for example, checked out how hard it is to own a house in Boston or San Fransico compared to Philly?
I have worked in government and I have worked in non-profits and (mostly) I have worked in corporate (Fortune 500) IT shops. Government is the worst: If you make a mistake your name gets in the newspaper (see above) for all your friends and family to read. In the corporate world if your systems got the worm this week then your company is terrified of any publicity which would indicate that they do not know what they are doing, so they will not even admit it happened let alone fire you. They are more likely to move you into management where (the theory goes) your incompetence won't hurt, although these days you might be in the next layoff. Of couse you also might be in the next layoff even if you are the IT guru who has kept them in business for 20 years.
I have worked in government IT shops including that one (back in the 1980s), the Department of Defense, and also for many Fortune 500 corporations in the years since. I have worked with computers since the 1970s, including mainframes, minicomputers and PCs. There is no question in my mind that the hardest IT environment to work in is local government. They haven't been able to hire any new people since I left in the 1980s, although many have retired or (like me) moved on. If you think that downsizing and tight budgets are a problem in your corporation the past 3 years, how would you like to work in an environment where the budget and staffing has been going down for over 20 years? I just love all the smart remarks from folks here who manage to keep their personal PCs up to date (just like mine) on Windows update and have all the latest software, including Anti Virus protection. Until you have experienced working in a place where some of the equipment is older than you (and some of those city workers have been keeping things going on a broken shoestring for more years than many here have been alive) don't assume that you are smarter than everyone else in the real world, where you can not take old but critical systems down for the latest patch from Microsoft every week.
I used to work for one of the government IT shops mentioned above and spoke to my former co-workers this week. They would have been hit MUCH harder by the worm if they didn't still have many, many PCs that are running older OSes like Windows98. Their excuses sound very familiar. One IT manager was quoted as saying, "We download every patch we know of (???) each night". He did not say anything about APPLYING any patches, though. :-(
I spent most of the 15 years since I worked in that government shop (before recently getting downsized) working for a major computer services company which has contracts with many Fortune 500 corporations as well as all levels of government. Based on what I have seen in my career (and through conversations with other former co-workers this week), almost any corporation that had a problem with this worm is now working very hard to cover it up, keep it from getting in the news, etc.
To sum up: government IT shops make lame excuses, corporate ones will never admit they made a mistake.
Thank heaven the perpetrator(s) of this worm did not have a little more skill (or more malevolent intentions)!