[ale] OT: Well it is going to hit the list sooner or later.

[Ronald Chmara]

On Aug 1, 2004, at 11:10 AM, Jonathan Rickman wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On
>> Behalf Of J.M. Taylor
>>
>> My interpretation of the SAGE code of ethics is the
>> following: I do not read people's emails, even tho it is
>> within my power.  I do not spy on people, even tho it is
>> within my power and in many cases may prove their misdeeds.
>> I do not collect data on people's misdeeds even tho these
>> people may be harming me on the job.  I do not make these
>> decisions.  I just run the server.
>
> Amen. As usual, Jenn is spot on. Dear God we need more like her in this
> profession! Folks, regardless of how we've been conditioned by our 
> peers and
> our own egos to feel, we are barely one step up from the position of
> Janitor.....
> Had I been in charge of the department mentioned, both the sysadmin 
> and his
> boss would have been terminated. One for wasting time and money, the 
> other
> for being a backstabbing, uppity, overly ambitious, jerk off. Cause we 
> all
> know that he probably was bucking for his boss' job.

I was faced with a similar premise (slacker employees, but being asked 
to make sure resources were properly being used), but as a janitor, I 
had a professional duty to note which kids were the ones making the 
mess, and take steps rectify it in a reasonable, professional, manner.

So, here's what I did:
1) Put together a policy paper that all company computers were company 
property, and that anybody using them to play games may be terminated, 
and got buy-in from the top to the bottom of the food chain. (As Jenn 
noted, superiors have to buy in ahead of time).
2) Warned all users that if they were suspected of abusing company 
resources, their activity could be monitored, and they could face 
termination.
3) I *never* had to do any actual computer monitoring, as I'm more of a 
"walkaround" admin type. It's easy enough to see who's wasting time. A 
mere occasional verbal comment about our resource policy was usually 
enough.

How many people got fired because of this? Actually, 6. Including two 
other SysAds who thought that because their systems were clean of 
spyware, nobody would notice them playing FPS games during most of the 
day.

All that being said, this guy was obviously not a trained Systems 
Administrator in the SAGE sense (he wasn't wrangling a shared server, 
the guy was installing spyware on individual user's desktops, without 
company permission). If there's no clear policy, merely guidelines that 
are open to interpretation, it is possibly both ethical, and unethical, 
to spy on users.... Users may prefer to know if they might be spied 
upon, but it is perfectly legal (and some would argue ethical) for the 
company to monitor use of it's resources at it's discretion, without 
notifying employees.

Where this guy shot himself in the foot was that he thought he was 
justified in making the judgment call himself, and took actions that in 
some companies would be considered firing offensives (sooying on users 
without permission). I would have canned the supervisor for wasting 
time, and disciplined the Systems Administrator, and sent him some SAGE 
advice.

-Bop