Privileged Information

Working in an IT dept, you would assume that your boss wants people
to be able to get on their computers at all our locations to do their
work, and you know, make your company money…

That’s what I used to think.

Well, we have multiple cross-country hotels that are connected
through 1 server that can only be reached through our company’s
internet.

The server did have multiple IP addresses that you could use to
connect to it if the server name connection wasn’t working. But
depending on your location, the server name was set up to point to
one IP address or the other when you connected.

Unfortunately one of the IP addresses did not re-establish following
server maintenance, and had been down for hours. It was also the
address that had the larger number of users that wasn’t connecting,
with only one of our locations was able to connect to the server.

So via email, I informed the users to use the alternate IP address to
connect to the server, and as some of them had never used the
alternate IP, had included it in the email. It was either that or
tell our local IT groups to change the host table and pointers for
1000′s of computers.

I received an email from our Senior Director, demanding to know why I
was giving out privileged information to our employees.

Yes, he thought it was more important to keep the internal IP
addresses from our employees than to have all of our hotels get their
needed information and allow guests to check into the hotels.

He still never apologized even though both my immediate supervisors
stated that I had done the right thing, and they suggested I just let
it blow over.

Hooked On Phonics

As a correctional officer working in the control room, one of the jobs
was to type reports and forms to be sent to the security chief and the
state offices. One of the lieutenants was very urban and spoke only in
ebonics but what the real problem was he wrote that way as well. After
typing one of his reports and altering the wordage to be more
professional, I was read the riot act for changing his report, so the
next one typed was verbatim as he wrote it:

”I be standin by the lutinents obbis wen dis inmate say to me why theeses officers be
mesin with us about da ways we be dressing tellin us to be pull our
pantses up all da time, I be told da inmate to be quite and go back
to his work but he be steady cussin me and calling me do boy, so I
cuffed him and lockeded him up.”

This was typed just as he wrote it and forwarded to all it was required to be sent to. A week later he
was called into the security chief’s office, or obbis if you like, and was
promptly relieved of his position and placed on remedial report
writing classes. I shudder to think how many times others have had to
cover for his poor skills in the past because he had been employed
with the state for 15 years and 9 of those were as a supervisor.

Shake It Fast

Last week at work, I was setting up in the dining room for lunch. I
dropped a plate, and it landed on the table and clattered around. A
co-worker heard it rattling and told my boss that I was making fun of
his second in command. Apparently, she has some sort of disability
that makes her hands shake. I never noticed, but the sound of the
rattling plate was construed as me mocking her! My boss told her,
without even talking to me about it, and she has begun a campaign of
trying to get me fired. Maybe I would be happier that way.

Want Any Cheese To Go With That Whine?

My first real job out of college was working for a successful food
broker. The owner, while professionally successful and personally
wealthy, was the bigggest tightwad ever! Our office supply budget
would have been adequate for 1884; there were never any bonuses and
trying to get a cost of living raise required calling his wife to
bully him into it! The worst, however, came at Christmas time. We had
a very nice cheese vendor who would send all the girls on the order
desk (4 of us) beautiful baskets with assorted cheeses, crackers and
a bottle of wine. However, the vendor knew to call us prior to UPS
delivering our packages so we could meet the driver – otherwise (as
he had on two prior gift occasions) the boss signed for the baskets,
then regifted them to his clients, even though they had our names on
them!