Reply to post: Walter Mitty

IT manager jailed for 5 years for attempting dark web gun buy

Lotaresco
WTF?

Walter Mitty

What is it about IT that seems to attract the Walter Mittys of this world?

Every year or two one of them seems to crop up in my line of work. They are fairly easy to spot because they will make ludicrous claims and will resort to bluster and name calling if they get challenged on it. It's odd that so many managers seem to fall for their line of spin and employ them.

Over the years I have seen people employed on the basis of an entirely fictitious CV (multiple occasions). When I checked qualifications claimed or work history the individuals concerned had fabricated their qualifications (one claimed a PhD when he had no higher qualification than HNC) or lied about their work experience. However the manager(s) who hired hadn't bothered to check any of the details.

Most recently the Walter Mitty employed as an Enterprise Security Architect had a knowledge of IT that was at about the level of "the man down the pub". It became obvious that something was wrong in his first week at work as he started to talk drivel (including a recommendation that for a new data centre build we should "Buy some of those little NAS things from PC World, they're really good.") His end came after a network engineer called me into a meeting where Walt was attempting to describe his Big Shiny Brilliant Security Ideas. He was talking drivel and when challenged on technical detail he fell back on "You're obviously too stupid to understand this." and "I can personally assure you that I can secure any system at any level." We asked some very basic questions about network architecture and he got every answer wrong in a way that left several people laughing out loud. Eventually he realised he was rumbled and ran away from the building never to be seen again.

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