Busted!

Make sure everything is in order before going on and doing ANYTHING.

Like James mentioned, it depends on a few things.

First, WHY were you in that station in the first place? This is the biggest concern. If you didn't have a VERY valid reason, then you could bring more down on you than you bargained for. If you "snooped" on this guy, they are going to wonder who else you have been snooping on and will not trust you as they could be next!

Unless part of your job is to randomly check what is going on, with a CLEAR policy of how to handle this, I would not walk away, but RUN away.

Getting someone fired does not make you a hero, unless that person was stealing or hacking.

If remoting in was for a work related purpose then you're in the clear. Any retalliation can be addressed under whistleblower laws.

If, on the other hand, you were simply spying on people's work and just happenned to catch the buzzard, be prepared to take some heat yourself, but it's still right to turn him in.

There are possible explanations on the user's part, one that comes to mind is that you don't know what a received email contains until you open it, but that's his problem, not yours. Turn him in.

in which I log on and change specific settings on the NIC.

There is no way to tell if someone is logged on untill you open the window and see them doing somthing.

If it is patient related we come back to it. If it is non patient/clinic related we have the option of booting them off.

In this case as soon as the window opens, there it is. Before I can form a single word, he skips to the next, then the next and then back again.

This is a very common problem here, with exception to kiddie porn it matters more who you are more than anything else.

There is no specific protocol on this issue, more politics.

Since you said patient info you must be in medical. I am too. Due to HIPPA I have to let a user know before I remote into their PC so they can close down the patient info. You might want to do that, if not because of your company, then just for your own protection.

You might still want to discuss how to handle this with your managers before going further.

I would stay away if it is just politics.

Wow, that sounds like a scary place to work, with arbatray rules, depending on who you are.

by too old for it Dec 20, 2005

... rife with politics once. We served nursing homes, and the owner, owner's wife, and the VP (owner's bang-buddy) could do no wrong.

Silly example: Drivers (all men) uniforms changed from white button down to baby-blue pullovers because she liked the color. The white shirts were less than 3 months old.

Unless there's something you're not telling.

I would think that management would want to know if one of their employees is breaking work rules, or worse, breaking the law!

Personally, I would hate to be in the position of it being discovered that I knew about this and didn't say anything.

by gsg Jan 20, 2006

Something else to consider. There is a case of an IT person who repeatedly had to clean porn off of a computer. The person downloading it was never reprimanded, contrary to company policy. The IT worker sued for sexual harrassment and won. Your company could be liable if a patient, visitor, employee walks by, sees the email, text or image, and becomes offended. I'd review the policy, write up what you observed, why you were in the workstation, and report the information per policy. Since it looks like you work in Healthcare, specifically a clinic, if the clinic is owned by a hospital system, then you fall under the policies of the hospital system. The hospital is required to have a compliance officer per JCAHO regulations. Since this could jeopardize the hospital, then this could fall under the purview of the Compliance Officer, and that person would be REQUIRED to investigate and address the problem. If they don't, then that is a JCAHO violation and can be reported, resulting in a JCAHO audit and possible type 1. If you are an independent clinic, and the Dr. likes the offender, you are hosed.

Let's review, and make a few reasonable assumptions as we go.

The poster "remoted into a public workstation to work on it". His/her profile indicates he/she is in technical support, so presumably he/she is authorized to take this action. No problem so far.

The poster notices that the "user is logged into personal email and viewing explicit emails". Determining the user was using this machine for personal e-mails in one thing, actually reviewing those e-mails and concluding they were of an explicit nature is quite another. Hear that crackling sound? That's the sound of the thin ice the poster is skating on here.

The poster indicates that the user was on "a public workstation, in a public area, not intended for personal use and the policy is that we do not use any PC, public or private, to view explicit content of any kind". I doubt this is entirely true, or if this is in fact corporate policy it's poorly stated and appears to be poorly executed. If the workstations are for public use and in public areas, then the part about no personal use is inconsistent. If the company is worried about the nature of the content they can simply block access to just about anything and prevent the problem from occurring in the first place.

The poster's motives are also perhaps a little less than entirely noble, because he/she is concerned that "there could be some backlash for me" and he/she wonders if it would be a good idea to "just call my co-workers over to my cube for a good laugh at how stupid and nasty this pervert is". Do the right thing for the right reasons, or do nothing.

Which, in this case, is the right thing to do...nothing. My read on this is that the poster overstepped his/her bounds, may have a little touch of vigilantism or a hero fantasy, doesn't understand the corporate policy nor the tenets of professional behavior, and would best serve the organization by figuring out a more effective way to lock down the public access machines.

The whistleblower laws? Surely you jest.

I guess I was assuming, uh presuming, that he has some level of professionalism particularly for the medical field. You are correct that the machines need to be locked down on this stuff. However, again, with HIPPA in place there does need to be some protocols set in place for remoting into the desktops. Primarily, I choose to give a heads up before connecting so they can close out patient info more because of my values than just because the company said so.

Also, the company needs to be made aware of their culpability in dealing with porn on their machines.

by too old for it Dec 20, 2005

... involves use of of a home-grown tool that announces that we would like to remote in for purpose.

Gives the user the option to say yea or nay, and time to close out of whatever they may be in that's confidential.

(Then again, we are in insdustrial chemicals, nothing that important, HIPPA-wise.)

I understood "Public workstation" to mean a workstation that was not assigned to a particular employee, not that it was for use by the "general public". We have several of these around... for example, an employee from another branch wants to check his email while he's here... the same restrictions apply to the employee regardless of which computer he is logged into.

I don't agree that the right thing to do is... nothing. In fact, he might be in more trouble for failure to report what he saw... his actions are every bit as tracable as the users... and while he can always lie and say he never seen anything, that wouldn't be right either.

by gralfus Dec 20, 2005

Pop up a message on his screen that he is being watched. Then reboot the PC remotely. that should put enough "pucker factor" on the situation to keep him from repeating.

I agree with James and JD, make sure you have everything in order according to your company. There are also some laws about pornography in the workplace that may come into play here. If this is the first time you've run across something like this it might be better to go to your manager and ask how it needs to be handled.

Just make sure you CYT (cover your tail--sorry, jd I had to use a synonym :) )

but what are these laws about porn in the work place?

short of getting sued because someone see them and decides the have discoverd the leach way to a "get rich quick" scheme, what else is involved?

Was not aware there would be any other laws about LEGAL porn anywhere?

by jamesrl Dec 20, 2005

At most places I've worked there are strict policies against porn, of any kind. The consequences need to be specifically spelled out "...up to and including possible termination of employment". We had to sign this doc before beginning employment - you are on shaky grounds if its general knowledge but you can't prove they knew the policy.

Now illegal porn is another matter- kiddie porn i.e. illegal activity is grounds for dismissal with cause.

Of course if you are a contractor, most employment contracts include a more general clause that can be used to terminate for any reason.

One of the reasons for the policy is harassment - if someone consistently shows porn on their workstation, a woman can claim a hostile work environment and sue.

I was a one company where one of the suppliers gave out some rather nice calenders every year to many of the employees. It was a Japanese supplier and the calenders were of some rather attractive Japanese models, many of them in Geisha outfits. Sure enough HR issued a memo - please take them home if you like, but don't display them in the office as they may consitute a contributing factor to a hostile work environment(to women).

James

and PTBWP (pass the buck whenever possible)

by faradhi Dec 20, 2005

I am a firm believer in giving the user the benefit of the doubt. They may or may not have intended to view explicit material. The emails may or may not have been solicited.

If company policy does not explicitly require me to report the infraction I would go to the user. Without accusing the user of anything and in very general terms, I would remind the user in a plain manner that company policy prohibits viewing explicit material. I would say that I know that sometimes explicit materials are unsolicited. I would also inform the user that returning to the explicit material usually is interpreted that the material was solicited. I would just tell them that if in the future I saw anyone viewing explicit materials, then I would report.

If the user tries to confess or deny I would interrupt the user and tell them I am not accusing them of anything.

This will let the user know they were busted. They would know the policy.

I believe in discussing any problem I have with an individual first. Then go to management. But again, this only applies if company policy does not require me to report.

I am sure others will disagree. This method requires discipline to remain general and non-accusatory. I would script and rehearse what I will say and I would not vary.

I have the following form letter used for when I notice something borderline.

During our scanning of network drives (we are recently having to do this with increasing frequency due to the dramatic increase in the amount of data we are required to maintain), I came across the following files on your personal drive...

... that don't appear to be work related. It's not a big deal, and I'm not intending to create one, but could you move this/these file(s) somewhere other than a network drive, or else delete the file(s)?

My main goal is to keep the increase in the amount of stored data to the necessary minimum, and secondarily to provide something of a "heads up" that not only can I see these files, everyone in the supervisory chain above you can see them as well should they choose to look. I am not the determiner of what is or is not work related, nor am I stating that anyone is likely to get into any trouble for having any particular file on their personal drive, but that inattention to this may lead to inattention to more serious things.

I appreciate your attention to this matter, and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call.

by usalady49 Jan 20, 2006

The rules and guidelines of a company. If the employer has set down these rules, and you are asked to read acknowledge that you understand and you agree to abide by them, then break policy, you do not deserve the company's trust. He gave you a job. He pays you to do that job. He does not pay you to compromise company policy. Nuff said.

by too old for it Dec 20, 2005

... the content at the next productivity meeting?

(GACK! There is a oxymoron: Productivity meeting.)

You're in the medical field so you know a lot more about it than I do. To the point about professionalism and your comment about HIPAA, my cut is that this is an area that requires an uncommonly high degree of professionalism in that you're dealing with confidential patient records. Doctors are bound by physician/patient confidentiality, but people who work around these records and have access (of whatever kind) to highly private data need to be at the top of the scale in terms of professional behavior with zero tolerance for ethical lapses of any kind.

If I knew that in the office of the physician I was seeing there worked someone who was not only surreptitiously monitoring other users' online activities but was willing to sell tickets to some kind of prurient frat boy viewing spectacle, it would not only be the last visit I'd make to such an office but I'd be leaving with every copy of my medical records in my possession. But that's just me.

BTW...no one said anything about porn. I'm not sure I trust this particular poster's view of what constitutes inappropriate material.

I completely agree about being above standards in professionalism in the medical field on IT. You certainly stated in the be most exact of terms.

You were also correct in the point about no one had said porn. I jumped to a conclusion and should not have--thanks.

The definition of "explicit" according to The Oxford English Dictionary: "1. Clear and detailed with no room for confusion or doubt. 2. Graphically describing or representing sexual activity". Clearly the context should point the way to the proper definition to be applied. The context here is ambivalent. I know what the writer wants me to THINK it means but there's a lot of room for interpretation of what might be considered to be "stupid and nasty" or exactly what a "pervert" is.

1. as stated earlier, I did jump to the conclusion the poster was talking about porn. I know, never assume anything.

2. Maybe I'm behind times. I thought 10-12 years ago it was illegal to have porn on computers in the work place. Maybe once again I just assumed it was illegal. I guess maybe it was company policy and I assumed it was law.

I'm not trying to start anything about this. I will research more before I make a blanket statement like this.

Whew! I hope I made it past that...:)

by jamesrl Dec 20, 2005

Explicit content and the poster called the guy a pervert. So it may be pornagraphic pictures in an email or it could be pornagraphic writing.

Most policies would cover both.

I can only speak for a knowledge of Canadian Law on the subject - and when I was working for a large corp, at one point I was chair of the Internet committee and went to some seminars on the subject.

Interestingly the big debate was whether universities had the legal right to filter or block content, and according to a supreme court justice who was a speaker, they do. Even though they are publicly funded they are in effect private "organizations" with the right to do whatever they like. This was about 10 years ago before there was lots of established precedence.

James

is illegal (although courts have ruled that communities may create ther own obscenity standards so possibly, the porn could violate those laws, but only if viewed from a public computer within that community (at a library or public school for example)). The only thing I know of that's illegal all over the united states is child porn.

but it was when he mentioned LAWS that I started to wonder.

It is amazing how far things have gotten. The calendars don't even have to be nudes and people feel there are grounds for a suit?

Now if I were to start making comments about why the office gal doesn't look that good, that could be harrassing.

And yes, there are some legitamate harrassment suits. But there are just as many that are a bunch of BS.

When I worked as a shop rat, the people with the worst mouths were female! I would get embarrassed sometimes! wow! (yes, that takes quite a bit!)

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=sarcasm

There was no snooping. I was only trying to do my work.

When the window opened, the content was right there. No hiding from it. No denying it was solicited or that it was porn.

It is impossible to work on clinical workstations and not come in contact with patient information. HIPPA applies to techs too.

amcol, if you think your doctor and his/her nurse are the only ones that ever look at or have reason to look at your medical records you are way wrong. If you mean what you say you will never go to a doctors office again.

Again, what was viewed was COMPLETELY unintentional AND COMPLETELY with in the course of carrying out normal job duties.

If you don't understand that, you don't really understand the question this thread is based on.

In regards to selling tickets, I have not and did not, will not do anything of the sort. Follow this link for clarification:

I am a professional, I behave professionaly and have done nothing wrong or unprofessional. Part of my role in this position is to judge if somthing is innappropriate.

My general rule of thumb is my Grandmother. If I would be embarassed to show it to her, it is inappropriate.

What I wound up doing is emailing relevant information to my immediate supervisor. He will probably just sit on it.

I punted,it is his baby now.

Don?t get your dander up. Your last question regarding ?Do I just call my co-workers over to my cube for a good laugh at how stupid and nasty this pervert is?? is what branded you. Even if it was a tongue in cheek statement the seriousness of it outweighed that. It is good to clarify what you mean but getting so defensive is not going to help anything.

I could have gotten defensive in my posts awhile ago about being called to task for jumping to conclusions. Instead, I admitted it and accepted the ruler on the back of the hand.

This post definitely clarifies a lot of what you were asking. Maybe you should have posted it first.

As far as your response to amcol yes, there is a lot of folks who have to view patient records in the doctor's office. However, the professionalism applies to them also. And, I think, overall, most medical employees adhere to that. You may hear more about the ones who don't because they are the ones that headlines the news and gossips.

"...HIPPA applies to techs too."

I absolutely agree, again, I consider one of the professionals taht do things right.

You are right though. I'll take my lumps...

because they become "anonymous sources" :)

The language in the original post appeared to be judgemental without a lot of facts to justify the tone. The new post is definitely clearer and the course of action sounds like it was a good one.

It is difficult to express emotions in the written word and especially so in short missives such as these posts. (I think that's what emoticons were invented for).

My own reaction to that last paragraph was based on:

1. I don't know the person who wrote it.
2. The language is condemning.
3. I can't hear the expression of sarcasm in the writers voice as it is being written.

It is still difficult to advise as to what action should be (or should have been) taken simply because this is an emotional issue that is open to interpretation even if we could see the same material that prompted the original post.

Too many times I have thought I had a clear picture in my mind of just about anything after having it described to me by another only to be amazed at the difference between actual fact and what my imagination supplied.

There are not too many ways to consider looking at porn as being innocent but I can conjure up a way or two.

You're overreacting a little.

I think we all know our medical records are viewed by more people than just our doctors. That was exactly my point, and I stated it as such...every single person who works with personal medical data, whether they're a medical professional or otherwise, has to operate at the highest level of professionalism when handling that data. Zero tolerance for ethical lapses.

You may have meant your comment about calling your co-workers to your cube for a viewing as sarcasm, but it didn't come across that way. Not to mention, this is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of zero tolerance...it's not a joking matter. However, we apparently agree on the important point, which is the issue of the professional handling of confidential information, so that's good.

Actually, I have to commend you on the action you took, sending the material to your supervisor. You indicated your workplace is highly politicized and this type of overt action was more likely to cost you than the perpetrator, so it's a brave thing you did. I still think the best course of action was to do nothing, but you're the only one who saw the actual material so you're the only one who can make a qualified judgment.

I also think you need to get clarity on the public workstation and personal technology use policies. This little dilemma of yours will play itself out again, and again, until your management recognizes they either need to pay attention or forget the whole thing and allow anyone to do anything. In the meantime, you're between a rock and a hard place. That's not fair to you.

by too old for it Dec 21, 2005

First, amcol, nice to see you out here as always.

We've been sketching out with ring diagrams various kinds of access a network, and finding out it's sometimes easier to view it as multiple networks.

An example would be the "public" wireless, where we would allow salemen, consultants and so forth to operate to get to their e-mail and to browse, but would have no access to "our" network. What data they would need access to would be one-way mirrored, so that it couldn't be corrupted (tho it may not be necessarily up to the minute). The internet runs around 128k bi-directional which is perfectly adequate.

IT, which has the ability to muck up everything, is the most highly restricted on where it can surf to, get e-mail from and so forth. The devil is in the intersections of the circles.

(Strange in this particular line of business: I have 5-year old databases on CD that are considered "accurate and timely".)

You're overreacting a little.

I think we all know our medical records are viewed by more people than just our doctors. That was exactly my point, and I stated it as such...every single person who works with personal medical data, whether they're a medical professional or otherwise, has to operate at the highest level of professionalism when handling that data. Zero tolerance for ethical lapses.

You may have meant your comment about calling your co-workers to your cube for a viewing as sarcasm, but it didn't come across that way. Not to mention, this is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of zero tolerance...it's not a joking matter. However, we apparently agree on the important point, which is the issue of the professional handling of confidential information, so that's good.

Actually, I have to commend you on the action you took, sending the material to your supervisor. You indicated your workplace is highly politicized and this type of overt action was more likely to cost you than the perpetrator, so it's a brave thing you did. I still think the best course of action was to do nothing, but you're the only one who saw the actual material so you're the only one who can make a qualified judgment.

I also think you need to get clarity on the public workstation and personal technology use policies. This little dilemma of yours will play itself out again, and again, until your management recognizes they either need to pay attention or forget the whole thing and allow anyone to do anything. In the meantime, you're between a rock and a hard place. That's not fair to you.

by pnettom Mar 22, 2006

I am a more than a day late on this topic but I would like to add something to mix. I have been involved in two cases where an employee at work was viewing pornography at work on a company workstation. The first case was an operator at a hospital, in that case the workstation ended up with a lot of extras loaded on to the hard drive that allowed anyone logging on to revisit over a dozen pornography sites with just a simple click of the mouse. The second case was when a tech had used his workstation to look at pornography. The tech?s workstation ended up with a few viruses.

If you ever want to see how fast you can end up with spy ware, ad ware or a virus then go looking for porno to view either on a web site or by having email sent to your account.

Referring the matter of to you boss is one of the good options that you could have done. At the least your boss should admonish the offender that they had violated a number of rules. But that is up to your boss, you have done what you needed to do.

by rob mekel Mar 23, 2006

who's counting. :D ;)

A more actual/recent link is:
https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=3&threadID=190899&start=0

Rob

by attackcomputerwhiz Dec 20, 2005

Define "public workstation"? Is it a workstation set up in a common area for multiple employees' usage? Is it a workstation set up for patients to surf the web while waiting for an appointment (yes, I have actually seen such a setup)?

The point brought up above that the email could well be spam and not solicited is quite valid. I get crud all the time in my email--especially my old catch-all Yahoo account which is a spam magnet. To expose that to ridicule is counter-productive.

Next question--how hard would it be for you to run a filtering program from your server to make sure that your users cannot even get to objectionable material in the first place? Or just set up content filters in Explorer (if that is the browser of choice at your shop)?

are workstations that are set up in clinical areas for doctors and nurses to update patient info, track and schedule appointments or to search for information pertaining to specific patient issues.

Some of them are available to paitents to use, but is limited to their special medical information.

I have gone back and collected information that shows that this is material is solicited deliberate.

This organization is very segamented. Often ill-logicly. Filtering and policy change/enforcement is handled by different groups.

a difdferent discussion, but,

"Filtering and policy change/enforcement is handled by different groups."

I believe that is as it should be. Policy is a "what", filtering is a "how", and enforcement is a "then what".

Actually, I could be a twin of Hoss C. About the same size and probably same hat size... I didn't even think about that. Cool!

I am glad to hear that you are trying to do things right. Sorry but patient's are very important to me, as well as to you, and I may jump too quick sometimes. I hope most people understand it's from conscientiousness.

I watched the originals not the reruns. It's fun to be old...

but as a kid it was a favorite show. I liked Ponderosa better than Batman and Spiderman.

Hey, I watched the originals too. Thanks for reminding me that there are some aspects of being old that are fun. Too many things lately haven't been...

I was thinking more along the lines of you never hear about the good teens just the ones who cause trouble. There are a lot more good teens than there are bad but you don't hear about the good ones. Same thing in an office. You don't usually hear much about the employees who do things like they are supposed to just the ones who don't.

by pueblonative Dec 20, 2005

Do you really know whether or not this was an explicit e-mail that he knew. In other words, was he just clicking through on e-mails and came up on this one.

each were the same format, a picture of a nude or partially nude guy and a list of his "turns ons" like "light nipple play". The email recipient was named "Phil".

More than enough to be preciesly clear what it was and why it was there.

by tony hopkinson Dec 21, 2005

equal concern about the pictures being a young brunette trouser rearranging hottie called Phyllis I can live with inappropriate. As for viewing it on company hardware, well that's a no no. If you are fortunate enough to receive the pivilege from your company to view personal email on their kit, a lot of people aren't and the reason is this sort of eejit.
By all means have him censured, just not censored. The big concern for me is to me this would indicate bad habits and a guy who would not consider the potential vectors for ad/mal and viruses that are prevalent on sites that offer this sort of browsing experience.

by kdoyle Jan 25, 2006

Could this be something that needs to be turned in to HR? If others walked by this "public" workstation and saw those images it might be considered sexual harrassment.

by msklizmantas Dec 21, 2005

then probably you should not bust/make good laugh, because you either have no clear policy in your company or you don't know it (or it is not covering what to do with accidents)

probably you should contact the user and talk with him about it and speak with management about written policy, which would define your behaviour in such situations.

by supahtech Dec 21, 2005

Most jobs I've had have had arbatray rules dependent on who's who. Every place has an elite class. Its not right, but its what I've seen.

by jdclyde Dec 21, 2005

than a rule you don't always enforce.

Setting yourself up for a lawsuit if you fire someone over a policy that you don't consistantly enforce.

I also would not like the idea of people snooping. We have remote software, but the system will "beep" every few seconds if it is activated so you know if someone is tapped in or not. Not a fan of setting yourself up to not be trusted by the users. And someone that would watch what someone else is doing can not be trusted.

by azul Dec 21, 2005

There is a blinking eye next to the clock that indicates their session is being observed remotely.

To my knowledge their have been a few lawsuits but they have all been $ettled.

As for policy, we have all brought it up at one point or another, we have had department heads chew us out over a lack of policy or protocol because they were trying to bust someone.

A month ago I had a request come in for log information. I showed where the user logged in, did his thing, went to email went back, logged into a site, downloaded stuff, went back to email, did a couple of Google searches and then logged off. I gave times, url's, login id's, and was even able to recover some of the images downloaded. Clear violation of stated policy --But it was a well connected doctor-- NOTHING was done.

It is very disconcerting, honestly, I am looking for a new job.

by sysadmin/babysitter Dec 21, 2005

If the "user" is a normal peon, disclose away - to your boss to handle. That is the reason for chain-of-command.
However, if the user is a high level executive, A recognized "golden child", your boss, or other person with the ability to have you fired...........
Discretion is the better part of valor....

by azul Dec 21, 2005

I emailed my immediate supervisor telling him what occured, but not specifying what w/s or user, he has been uncharacteristcly quiet about the issue.

There is no clear policy or protocol so I did what seemed to be the right thing. Given his silence I think he will accidently on purpose overlook that email.

by donford749 Jan 21, 2006

Always follow the policy. The last thing YOU want to do is to not have an evenhanded enforcement. If there is no policy then there is no violation. If the policy does not give you an enforcement protocol, then it must be clarified. If the policy has not been clearly communicated, then it is effectively unenforceable. Questions to ask yourself:

- Do I have a copy of a specific policy?
- Has everyone been given the policy?
- Does the policy give you direction on how to proceed?
- Have you followed the policy?

If you can answer yes to each of those questions, then you can simply stop. The reason a company needs a policy is so that everyone knows the rules and they can be evenhandedly applied. That way there can be no question of personal bias. Unfortunately, it sounds like management is not prepared to enforce the policy against everyone equally. This leaves your clinic open to legal problems. To protect yourself, you need to follow the policy the same way in every case. The other thing you need to do is document, document, document. Keep a written log of every occurence. This should not be personal, but very professional. Answer the who, what, where, why and how questions. Don't give your judgement of the material that they were except to categorize how it breached the policy and/or the law. The whole point of policy is to keep it out of the "this offends me", "that doesn't offend me" realm. Instead "this breaches the policy", "that does not breach the policy", with objective standards.

by too old for it Dec 21, 2005

"It is very disconcerting, honestly, I am looking for a new job."

I hear that a lot from my peers at the local Big University Hospital. I also understand thier HR people "just don't understand why our positions don't attract more qualified candidates"

There is a disconnect in there somewhere

by jdclyde Dec 21, 2005

is people want to use IT as a club to smack people with.

The most incompitance by a manager is when they want to check log files to justify if someone is "wasting time".

Well, if you were any good at being a manager you would know if they are wasting time or not because their job would either be done or it isn't. Glad I don't have to deal with that.