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Fraternal Order of Locksport
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
Danozano pretty well sums up your situation here:
Sucks that you got the ax.. but you live and you learn.
(I have the actual booklet hanging in my office. Picture by Tacitus)Happiness is a belt-fed weapon.Comment
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
well this certainly has been a fun threadLast edited by bjaming; October 26, 2009, 07:51.Network Jesus died for your SYNComment
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
I'm sorry you lost your job. I once had a job that I hated, and I could have done mean, nasty things to them, like hidden porn videos on their CDs, or other such things, but I kept things at a slow burn. I wasn't necessarily the happiest employee there, and it showed, but I did do my job, and I did my best to get along. In the meantime, I took some long lunches, a few sick days, and eventually, after applying for job after job after job in a town where it was not uncommon for hundreds of applications to be submitted for one single tech job, I was able to find employment someplace else where I have turned out to be much happier. It's not really about being clever, or even having business acumen, it's really just common sense and patience.
The company that you were at sounds totally unhealthy. The fact that they needed to install key loggers says a lot. Work should get done and these sort of measures should not be necessary. The brunt of it falls on the management here IMO - they either have some serious issues of their own, and/or they do not know how to hire people that would be good for their company.
I'm sorry that you lost your job, but I do hope you can find a company that you will be able to fit in and won't be so damn creepy.2 or more, use a forComment
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
I would not send that letter.
You are admitting to things that could later haunt you. How much of a benefit is sending this letter going to provide you, even with the best results? Not much in my opinion. You lost the job, move on.Comment
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
dont mind me just removing some information from this threadLast edited by bjaming; October 26, 2009, 07:52.Network Jesus died for your SYNComment
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
Personally, it sounds to me as though you're trying to rationalize your actions that you knew were wrong to yourself and to whomever you're sending the letter. If I recall, I'm not going back to the beginning of this thread, that you pretty much said you were going mess with the system. From that it would seem that you knew what the correct course of action was and you chose not to follow it.
Yes, it sucks that the company installed something without your knowledge, but before you took any action, you most certainly should have contacted your immediate superior and let him walk the chain of command to see what was happening.
I don't think your reasoning for reading someone else's email is valid. I know at my place, I am not allowed to open someone else's email without written authorization from the XD, and I will never open it without my supervisor present, mostly just to CMA.
I don't see any porpoise to sending this letter. As long as you left under your own power, and you didn't make a scene, you technically didn't burn any bridges there, and it's been stated earlier that most states have laws to protect you when getting a new job. The hiring company can only verify the dates of employment but are not allowed to get any other information.
Hopefully you'll find something in this rotten economy, but if I were you, I'd chalk this up to a learning experience and just move on.A third party security audit is the IT equivalent of a colonoscopy. It's long, intrusive, very uncomfortable, and when it's done, you'll have seen things you really didn't want to see, and you'll never forget that you've had one.Comment
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
Any update bjaming? I've been following this for a bit, as I have interests on several levels.
My "employer" (I have a salary but I'm a partner) starts new businesses. Our current project is well underway, and with a whopping 5 very carefully selected employees, we didn't think anything like this would be a problem for quite some time. But the actions and production of one employee gave us reason to pause. After many strained conversations with my partners (we all hate "Big Brother" crap), we decided to install some monitoring/productivity software.
What we discovered astounded us. This employee spent 60% of their time doing anything and everything BUT work. The employee was warned, informed that the monitoring software was present, and shown the records. There was no argument or denial, they agreed to focus more, and we went along.
1 week later, it was discovered that they were attempting to use proxies to bypass the sites we had blocked, and found a way to bypass permissions and uninstall the monitoring software. The logic escapes me; clearly the lack of the software on that machine where it had previously been implemented would be noticed as they knew we pulled the reports each day (and told them that such would continue to be the case for 30 days). We terminated said employee, and they denied any knowledge of the programs being removed or of proxies being attempted.
And now we have these stupid programs on all the production PC's, because the other partners outvoted me. Despite that fact that the results now only show what we found out the first time - that our other employees actually work MORE than we thought or expected, lol.
*sigh*
Those things are a double edged sword. There has to be trust at some point. "Who watches the watchers?"Kill as few people as possible. But as many as necessary.Comment
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
Seems like its proven iteself to be valuable, so they'll keep using it. I've had plenty of days where i've though about having it, but i just didn't want to be that sort of company.
Seems like its a lack of management though to me, if you can't figure out your employee is 60% less productive without monitoring what they do on a PC, somethings wrong in the chain of command, the reason i'd thought about doing it was that i already knew one of the guys was spending all day surfing, yes its getting back up information but its an at will employment, and i don't like the idea of treating everyone as if they need to be watched.
Granted if its some huge corp where its easy to slack off and hide its one thing.- Null Space LabsComment
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
Fair enough - though I didn't expound much. Suffice it to say it WAS in fact a managing problem; insofar as this individual had a problem being managed. They'd already been warned repeatedly for other issues.
I just do NOT understand why a talented individual selected to be on the ground floor of an already successful startup company where the sky would literally be the limit in under 2 years would pull crap like this one did. If I'd had that kind of opportunity at age 20..!?!! ANyway ...
As someone who despises these kinds of things I'm annoyed that implementing one so early on was A. - deemed necessary an B. - effective enough that now we're probably going to have them all the time. Grrr.
Keeping on topic for the OP; I can only hope that my partners never reach a point where they behave like management at his company did. Now I know the cancer is there, I can monitor and treat as necessary I suppose.
*more sighs*
Completely off topic: Charlie - 1900 lb cars don't NEED torque, lol. How come you don't come play with us at the LVRSCCA?Kill as few people as possible. But as many as necessary.Comment
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
Yeah but i do understand the mentality, some people find it easier for the magic box to be the blame for the actual firing, other companies are so paranoid they'll get sued for wrongful termination they'll gather as much intel as possible.
Believe me i've been there, great working environment, great perks, and still you'll get the one guy that slacks off letting the rest down.
And OT. If you've got enough HP to spin the wheels from leaving one corner, to arriving at the next, you've got enough ;) which is why we have a 1900lbs 460RWHP car.
SCCA just isn't my thing, too many old guys that rarely drive making up esoteric rules then arguing about them like wikipedia editors :) plus i'm always on the road , at the dyno, and my car is always in bits or i'm working on someone elses car whose in the event. I do do a lot of cars for people in the SCCA though.- Null Space LabsComment
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
From a management standpoint, they cannot just install monitoring software on one machine of the suspected person, as that would potentially lead to problems of directly targeting one individual. They have to do it company wide to make it 'fair'. Yes, it sucks but that's the way it works.
Being on the end this side where I have do to the monitoring, I understand that I cannot directly target a person, no matter how many times they fsck up. What you could do in your place, if you see the reports is to give it about 6 to 8 months where the reports are showing that everyone else is being productive and then write a report that this software is at this point no longer necessary. But leave the option open that any new employee that gets hired will have the software installed during their probationary period, and that if wrong doing is suspected, it can be installed at any point in time without prior knowledge of the employees.
Most of the time, it only takes making an example out of one person to get the rest of the people in line, or as I like to say "A little of the user's blood on the admin's walls, keeps the rest of them behaved."A third party security audit is the IT equivalent of a colonoscopy. It's long, intrusive, very uncomfortable, and when it's done, you'll have seen things you really didn't want to see, and you'll never forget that you've had one.Comment
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
Oh I get why it had to be on everyone's, and the handbook we wrote says that it my be used (forward thinking always), but now that we got the data we needed, I don't know why it's still needed. It could be implemented again if "necessary". :shrug:
Charlie - car discussion to resume in the car thread, dev/random. :)Kill as few people as possible. But as many as necessary.Comment
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
and again, removing data so it can't be searched laterLast edited by bjaming; October 26, 2009, 07:53.Network Jesus died for your SYNComment
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Re: [keylogging at the office] le'sigh
God, I can't believe I'm responding to this. I just can't leave it alone. Still, here we go, one more time...
Bullshit. Let me say it again. BULLSHIT. They are not spying on you. You work there. WORK. Your personal life belongs elsewhere. Period. To paraphrase slightly, "Ignorance of the employee handbook is no excuse." I don't think you've learned much from this exercise. It's too bad, too, because it was an opportunity to learn.
The real issue is that you violated certain ethical rules, and you've done nothing but weasel around it on the forums ever since. How many companies watch? Plenty. What are their rights to do so? Are you serious? You work there (or at least you used to work there). Every single packet that goes out on the ethernet is owned by them. Every piece of paper. Every pen. Every computer. Get used to it.
"Protected information" that isn't work related doesn't belong at work. Sure, there are plenty of people who do online banking from work (and other things as well). It's a privilege, not a right. There are people who shop on eBay at work. That doesn't make it right.
You don't sound like you were hourly. If you were a salaried employee, you don't get any of that stuff. Those things are for hourly employees. Yepper. It's one of those dirty little secrets.
Well, sure, but their key logging software captured you, breaking the rules. That's much more likely, and certainly why they did it. The sad things is, that to catch you, they had to do this to everyone (if it had been just you, the issues would have been much murkier).
Uh, no?
Jeeze, louise, man. Give it up. You did wrong. You were caught. Move on. Get over it.Comment
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