Official Secrets Act alert went off after embassy hired local tech support Welcome to yet another instalment of On-Call, The Register's week-ending column in which we share readers' stories of extreme sysadminnery performed under extreme duress. This week, meet “Lee” who told us he used to work for a British government department that operates lots of offices overseas, usually in embassies. Lee was …
Years ago I received a call from a worried colleague who was concerned that the contents of an email he'd sent had leaked. It was an email he'd sent to a close friend at another firm advising that he'd been made redundant. He had been quite senior at his firm before they'd merged (i.e. been taken over) with us. He was part of the merger synergies (i.e.cost cutting) that the firm had publicised. He'd lost out because compared to his opposite number in our firm he was paid better, had far better benefits and was contractually entitled to a bonus. He'd been told not to make it public yet for various reasons (i.e. scaring his valuable clients off). Word had leaked out about his departure and he was concerned that his redundancy money would be at risk.
I said that he had little to worry about as his boss and the HR director who were the ones who would be making decisions on this had been out for a "liquid dinner". They'd had one too many bottles of vino (etc.) and not enough food and were both easily blotto by 21:30*. They'd both mislaid their Blackberries that night and hadn't noticed until the next morning (it had been a fun evening apparently). The things had already been given the full remote security wipe** whilst these two were making attempts made to locate them. Then came the admission that the auto locking timeout was set to 15 minutes for one of them and they were red faced that company secrets may well have been purloined. *We already knew when they had got too drunk to care because that was when someone had called the "If found" number attached to the back of them. It was established who had lost them and where fairly quickly. We therefore also knew where they were and when they were lost. Someone had handed them in to reception at the private members club they'd been dining in. They'd been placed in the safe overnight awaiting their collection when the member and guest had sobered up.
**Couldn't take any chances.
I've worked for a firm where the drinking culture was ingrained in the fabric of the firm. My first company phone a Nokia 6310 had the mobile number printed on the back of the thing in huge type. I never had one with if found please call this number. The excitement of having a work phone was dulled when I realised that the person who had had that number before was one of the sales guys. So for two days I mostly received calls from his clients who were obviously drinking buddies too asking whether I was free to get "Rat Arsed". I asked for a different number after that.
"They weren't relatives of the Foreign Secretary were they ?"
One would have hoped they were the Prime Sinister, the FS and the rest of the cab'init ... but one can dream ....
>> We need an icon containing, amongst other things, a cage of monkeys, some fruit and a large fan. I'm sure fellow commentards could make good use of it ....
No wonder, when an "official scold" and a year without promotion is the only punishment for something that had the potential to compromise the embassy network(s) and expose government data to other, possibly hostile, interests. If I'd done that with my company laptop I'd have been demoted or fired, but no doubt the UCS cretin will end up as a cabinet minister with a fancy pension. They don't live in the same world as the rest of us.
'when an "official scold" and a year without promotion is the only punishment'
That's paradise, I assure you. I work with UCS's too (great term, by the way), and if one of them is unable to do something with their IT kit then it's us who get the blame, whether it was an actual fault or just user error - "Well, WHY does the computer LET them do that?! That YOUR fault, IT!". If a UCS or, heaven forbid, a politico, has an IT issue it triggers a root and branch witch-hunt for someone to blame, usually ending up with the engineer who was trying to fix the issue.
UCS getting blame? a scolding? That doesn't usually happen....
I was told to get down to a government IT building immediately - lugging my HP4972 lan monitor on public transport. On arrival it was after normal office hours. In the days before mobile phones I had to stand on the street in a threatening area of the city waiting for someone to realise I had arrived and open the door. Inside the building were a team of other specialists assembled in a hurry from various projects.
The reason for the panic? The government minister in charge of that department was having response problems with the networked word processing application. He was trying to write his speech for the upcoming party conference.
I worked for the Canadian version of the FCO for 20 years. Promotions came rarely: it wasn't unusual for lifers who were nearing retirement to receive a couple of promotions during their entire career, perhaps every decade or so. I was assigned to one of our embassies in a (shytehole) developing country when a long-awaited promotion finally materialized, and calculated that it resulted in an increase of C$1.38 per pay. Those were the moments that made the decision quite easy to give up the lifestyle in favour of doubling my salary plus a previously unknown thing called a "bonus".
There are a lot of silly gits in the foreign service - it's still difficult to consider them as diplomats. Political appointees as diplomats are absolutely the worst people on the planet.
At a party in the Westminster area where you would expect to find the odd civil servant I was talking to a bloke for a while. I was talking to him because he was a bit more interesting than anyone else I'd met so far. He was working he said for the FCO and couldn't go into more detail about his role because of the Official Secrets Act. He did say his job just involved doing a lot of things you'd find in a non governmental office. I was trying to tease things out of him but he wasn't budging and he flatly denied being in the "Executive Branch". Anyway after a few more drinks I did get out of him a story about where someone had 'lost' their government issue BlackBerry. This was in an unnamed foreign country and had happened at the airport after landing. The strong suggestion was that the local security service had purloined the device. There had been another almost identical situation before and the FCO were now wise to this. If you flew into that country your BlackBerry was a new issue and therefore wouldn't have anything classified on it or I think be provisioned to access anything classified yet. There were also rules/guidelines for security in that country that were enhanced compared to the normal rules applied elsewhere.
He never mentioned any monkeys but I have heard from someone else of a micro SD card being accidentally swallowed by someone. 64GB of irreplaceable data being vomited up does not sound like fun.
I know about the incident with the monkeys, if it is who I think it is then "Lee" was a living legend in government IT. The incident with the WiFi is all too depressingly familiar, especially having flown across the planet to do this then your head of department challenges your expenses for "8,000 rupiah for 4 beers for team at Jakarta Aiport" (about 50p).
The incident with the WiFi is all too depressingly familiar
Another favorite trick of those who are soo important they need a laptop rather than a static PC, is to plug it into a switched off wall socket and half an hour later ring the helpdesk with a completely unhelpful "It just went black! out of the blue! " type diagnoses.*
A sufficiently experienced I.T grunt , who is fluent in "User" , will put all these pieces together quickly , will know the user has laptop , maybe ask one question for confirmation like "are you 20 minutes into a meeting?" and then tell the user to switch the wall socket on.
In the middle of the I.T grunt efficiency scale , someone will plod over there an hour later , tut , switch the plug on for the user , and walk back to desk muttering about idiots. Or if done on the phone , will spend an inordinate amount of time talking about buttons and lights before establishing there is no power , by which time the user is getting irritable and not particularly receptive to a queston like "are you sure you plugged it in?" YESS!!! . Mid range I.T grunt will then assume psu issue and schedule a walkover rather than face further conflict by insinuating , correctly , that the user dosent know how to use a plughole.
At the far end of the I.T efficiency scale , that will not be got around to , until the user has again moved , probably to a working plug socket , and will say "its alright now" and the mystery is never solved.
*the user will of course have been completely oblivious to popups saying , in english (or whatever the user's chosen language is) , things like "Battery is low , plug your laptop in" , and will in fact deny any such messages ever appeared.
UCS standard:
1) The wall socket power switch being off is NOT your problem. It is an infrastructure issue.
2) Because you typed your password with the CAPSLOCK key down means that you need a new computer. Likewise forgetting your personal safe combination (MoD and FCO) is not your problem.
3) Sellotaping your confidential gateway ID to the top of your stapler is recognised as being ok to do.
Don't get me started on Capita standards ...
Sellotaping your confidential gateway ID to the top of your stapler is recognised as being ok to do.
It's not only OK to do, it's the only thing to do. You can't staple the ID to the top of the stapler, can you? So of course you have to sellotape it.
You IT types always miss the bleedin' obvious.
"*the user will of course have been completely oblivious to popups saying , in english (or whatever the user's chosen language is) , things like "Battery is low , plug your laptop in" , and will in fact deny any such messages ever appeared."
The thing is, I've had that happen to me on Windows...
Take laptop out and use it forgetting to plug it in, then half an hour later it dies with no warning... not sure why as sometimes I get a warning at 10%, othertimes I am in the middle of something and it just turns off!
" not sure why as sometimes I get a warning at 10%,"
Actually I get that with Outlook Meeting notifications. I've managed to go 20 years in I.T. withouth having to learn how to use the extra bullshit on the email client , but now people are making me have appointments and meetings etc.
and , 90% of the time the first I hear about an appointment is "x hours overdue"
I missed so many meetings because of this. Turns out Outlook notifications and windows 7 do not play well together.
The "by design" action of the notification popup is for it to be hidden behind any other windows.
So: it pops up with something your not worried about.
You continue doing some work.
Something important triggers the popup to update - but is still hiding behind the thing you're working on.
Good news is that there's a fix. You can add a simple macro to outlook to make sure the popup is always on top. Works well for me.
https://superuser.com/questions/251963/how-to-make-outlook-calendar-reminders-stay-on-top-in-windows-7
"The thing is, I've had that happen to me on Windows."
Much the same on Linux. If the battery's on its way out it doesn't fail gracefully. 90% to 12% to off can take seconds. It's one reason why I decided to replace SWMBO's ancient laptop rather than throw good money after bad on a new battery.
The problem with laptop batteries is that if they are at the stage where they can't even provide power for 30 minutes, at the end of that period, the voltage will take a sudden dive, effectively crashing the laptop.
As the warning is based on either the battery history and/or the voltage delivered by the battery, it often does not give the system enough time to spot and report a battery issue before it's too late!
"In the middle of the I.T grunt efficiency scale , someone will plod over there an hour later , tut , switch the plug on for the user , and walk back to desk muttering about idiots."
We make a point of noting that we had to switch the wall socket on, in the trouble ticket.
And if they didn't create a trouble ticket (this kind usually don't) then one will be created for them.
Some people are repeat offenders. It's all grist for the mill when they start slagging off IT to senior manglement.
"We make a point of noting that we had to switch the wall socket on, in the trouble ticket."
My job is all remote site contract maintenance. User errors get properly reported and signed off because we can then charge them for the call out at non-contract rates. That tends to focus the minds a bit so repeats don't often occur.
Challenging expenses. My last employer tried that exactly once on me...
Claim comes back with a snotty note: "REJECTED - RECEIPTS DO NOT MATCH CLAIM"
So, I drop the head of Finance a quick e-mail:
"Dear Sir
With regard to your recent note, I would like to point out that on the day of the claim I spent seven hours travelling, followed by seven hours on-site recovering the central file and print server after it crashed. If you're going to quibble over the price of a sandwich and a cup of coffee from a greasy spoon cafe, then I can either (a) Eat at more expensive restaurants just so I can get a receipt, or (b) I'll just send apologies for absence to every off-site meeting and make us look like the insular mob we truly are. Please advise me how you wish me to act on future events".
I didn't get an apology or an explanation, but my claim was paid in full and all subsequent claims went without a hitch.
He who lives by the snotty memo, dies by the snotty memo.
Challenging expenses. My last employer tried that exactly once on me...
Working as a contractor, I had a car (leased for me by the agency. NOT the vehicle I asked for and which was agreed to, but that's another story). Cars need to be serviced, on a schedule. So one day I report at the garage, and get offered something only slightly larger than a Peel P50. I'm 1m97; the place I'm contracted out to is 75km, one way. The combination of these three factors says 'hernia'.
I manage to drive home and extract myself from the mobile soup can, put on my motorcycle gear and head off to work, passing by the garage to drop off the keys and suggesting they get a midget to collect the thing. Even at -10C the trip is much more comfortable than the 2km from the garage to my home. The end of the day I ride back, only slightly hampered by snowfall and stupid car drivers not knowing how to deal with that. Next day I need to use the motorcycle again as I was too late (see: stupid car drivers) to go to work again, and back. The next day is a Saturday and I can collect my car at leisure. So far so good.
Then, at the end of the month I get a phone call from the agency's finance department. They object to two petrol card statements showing 'Regular 95' instead of 'Diesel'. I counter by stating I'm not a philantropist, and as the vehicle I had to use to get to work runs on Regular 95, that's what I put in the tank[0]. As it's a substitute for the company car I simply use the petrol card provided to top up. "No, you were supposed to get a replacement car for the day your car was at the garage. Which the garage states was a diesel as well, so you were using your own car. Which we won't reimburse you for." "Well, how am I going to get to work if I can't frigging fit in the replacement provided? How would you like a bill for the chiropractor?" "You could be filling the tank on your own car[1] every day using the company petrol card." "Tell me, did I do that? The distance is 150k there and back, and you can see I used about eleven litres on each of those two days. That's what my motorbike uses going that distance, nothing beyond that. So shut the bloody fuck up about me using that card inappropriately."
After a few more similar incidents, and the agency forgetting to offer the company I was contracted out to a contract extension I simply cut them out of the loop and got a temp contract directly with the company
[0] I know for a fact it can run on diesel, with reduced performance.
[1] It's not a car, you twat.
I worked for large drugs research company about 20 years ago on the helldesk. They did testing on primates (who, incidentally, were better treated than the staff). We had contractor who was completely useless, he would break more than he fixed so we suggested he spent the rest of his contract "feeding the monkeys" , which he did and that was the last we saw of him. Needless to say our workload dropped considerably...
We had contractor who was completely useless, he would break more than he fixed so we suggested he spent the rest of his contract "feeding the monkeys" ,
Would have been a good one to use for the totally useless helldesk contractor I had to work with once, except that the company developing and producing veterinarian medicine didn't deal with them (at least, not as research subjects). But having to clean up real bullshit would have been quite suitable for her; her only contribution to the process was taking problem calls and converting them into incomprehensible Dunglish.
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