BOFH: Tech helps HR investigate the Boss's devices The Boss is – not to put too fine a spin on it – crapping himself. Apparently, there's a rumour about some legal action in the wind and that the substance of his email conversations is now being asked about. At the moment it's just some questions from HR, but who knows how far this could go? "… and so we will need to see the …
I totally agree, I was contracted somewhere and one my way home I got lost and ended up in HR, I asked them if they had any permanent jobs available and they said "I don't know, check the website" I made a point of making sure it was definitely HR then made my way to the exit making a mental note to never apply for a job there if HR were so useless they weren't aware of any vacancies.
That sounds about right, and often in properly devious ways. One firm I worked for was circling the plughole in 2001 and hired a very enthusiastic Aussie HR chap for an already over-staffed department composed of old friends and old flames of the exec board.
Cue the cuts with said Aussie in the lead sharing the bad news*, while also measuring up his new office as he was clearly expecting to head up HR once the superannuated HR team was shown the door. Barely a year later the fellah was out the door himself, with the old crew still in situ and blaming him for being over-zealous.
* I was in the first batch to go, but cannot complain because at least the firm still had cash for enhanced redundancy packages.
There are quite a few MBA types who make a good living on being brought in to do all the firing before being let-go themselves with a nice golden-handshake.
Even if you don't want to do it yourself, like the guy who felt bad firing everyone over zoom, why not just hire some big scary guy the gym for the day to do it ?
That's sort of the approach big companies take: they hire a high end CEO who gets paid a fortune to "optimise' the company which is none too subtle code for "sacking a lot of people and taking the blame for it". These people are set up with a massive salary and a hefty exit bonus based on how much money they "saved" the company, with zero reference to the disaster they plunge the company into because they're now too short on resources to actually properly operate because they invariably never just cut the fat (aka a lot of directors), they tend to go for the meat (people that do actual jobs).
Once the cutting is done the guy is handed his massive paycheck and waved farewell at which point the original miscreants return and shove any performance issue blame his way. Some of these people don't do anything else.
The good news is that sometimes they DO run into a wall. The moron let loose on the large company company I worked for (and left because I could see this one coming a mile of) subsequently was booted out of his next job with a lot less loot because it because apparent that his cutting actually had pretty little correlation with any effort to identify who was superfluous - he just told departments to reduce their numbers and sat back while they did all the bloodletting, and in the next company they were not quite as meekly accepting that idea. It turned into quite the deserved scandal.
he just told departments to reduce their numbers
In local authorities there is a twist to this. It seems to depend on how popular the department is with the higher ups how much they are told to cut. Though the outcome, that the people who do the jobs that actually need to be done are the first to go, seems to be the same.
I was the victim of just such a "Downsizing". The Manglement decreed that every department had to make a ten percent headcount cut, and as I was last in, I was therefor first out. Luckily, my wife worked for a different, associated, company on the same site, and they were recruiting "internally". She copied the notice from the company notice board and brought it to my attention, so I applied. I was given a most enthusiastic welcome and remained at that company for 18 years, rising to Principle Engineer, Technical Manuals, before my whole department was made redundant. Six years later, I was head hunted back to sort out the mess caused by not being able to produce manuals for large contracts.
I don't think I ever worked at a company big enough to have an HR. Mostly you dealt with a "boss" who tried to wear as many hats as he could and fumble through things that his staff could easily have done for him. I'll never forget the mid-'90s virus battle we fought. It ended when we discovered he had been "checking security" using a program on a bootable floppy he brought back from Israel. Some one there told him it was a critical aspect of computer security to check the computers in the office weekly, and handed him the "tool" to do it. I personally used a large tin snips to convert it into trash.
Got a cellphone? You've then got everything you need to make said recordings. Buy a phone case with a belt clip, clip the case to your shirt near your ear "so I can hear it ring when it's noisy around" (so the camera records where you're facing), and set it to save the recording to a large SD card or your cloudy file space. Granted, the battery will quickly go dead, but that's not as important as having 999 on speed dial for when someone realizes you've recorded them without warning them of that fact first & then beats you senseless before depriving you of said recording device.
I keep a small (business) card taped to the case with "Warning: You are being recorded for legal purposes." in 6 point type positioned so it can be seen (but not read) by anyone in front of me. It's amuzing when they get nose-to-card trying to read it, finally figure out what it says, & then leap back trying to escape the camera...
Which was never on because my phone is a FeaturePhone with only a single camera *on the back* (covered by the case), and of such low resolution that it probably couldn't make a decent recording if it tried.
I can't help but laugh when I tell them they've been pranked. They get mad, then relieved, then call me dirty names... which all gets caught on camera because I'm a lying SOB - the camera has been recording the entire time, the case has a hole in it for JUST this purpose, and I'm a terrible little shit. =-D
*Runs away before you kick my arse*
In the former colonies some places are single consent (you can give yourself permission to record) some require you telling the other person.
In the UK it comes down to the judge. But the odds are that while an employer secretly recording their staff in violation of GDPR is likely to be frowned upon - a poor oppressed minion recording a scary interview with HR just so they can remember what was said, is likely to be forgiven.
I recorded a meeting with HR when I was at a couple of companies back, where they outright offered, with no initiation, to lie to the immigration department about my termination date to give me more time to find another visa sponsor.
When I queried if that was illegal, never mind unethical, their response was well, yes, but it'd only affect you.. and they were just being nice to give me more time to find another job...
(I'd already found another job a week before this meeting, took me about three hours from being given the notice I was on the chopping block to shaking my new employers hand, there are benefits to being good at what you do, and having a network that knows it)
I did get a good severance package though..
I thought it was going to be that HR started getting shifty when they realised that the BOFH had all this.... on them... and that HR was going to start asking questions about retention times of such data... and how that corresponded to how long ago it was that HR suggested implementing a workforce right sizing for anyone over 40...
There's probably badge tracking going on "for safety reasons in case of fire" so the system always knows exactly who is where. Obviously the BOFH will have hijacked the system such that as he moves around the building, the systems wipe the data of his passing and automatically turn off the CCTV for his current location unless he instructs it otherwise, eg those occasions when he wants a record to use against others or with altered time-stamps proving he was somewhere else when the "accident" happened.
I'd think the BOFH would have a couple of "spare" badges, from when he had to work on the badge printer. Looks like a harmless "Windows Test Page" on the front of the cards, but the magstripes contain the numbers for the Boss, IT Director, and probably the PFY. Not to mention, FOBs can be had on Fleabay for practically nothing, and who ever really goes on a deep-dive in the "Credentials" tab of the access-control software anyway? It's just a bunch of long, boring numbers.
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"Yeah sure, and they shouldn't be using the company photocopiers to check on the progress of suspicious moles on their arses either – but we all do it."
"What?"
"Not our OWN photocopiers obviously. No, I use the one up in Human Resources."
"!"
this is pure gold. Thanks Simon for the laughs :D :D :D
SimonT has hit an inspired streak. BOFH has been around for nearly 30 years and all the old fans are expecting the boss to be the fall guy yet again - but this time the boss is just a pawn in the game to take down the bigger bait (and net the Dynamic Duo some dosh too). It's a very elaborate form of meta humour.
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