Defusing the Threat of Disgruntled IT Workers 401
snydeq writes "According to computer forensics expert witness Keith Jones, for every logic bomb on the network or Terry Childs case that makes it into the press, there are 98 other incidents of disgruntled IT pros damaging company assets that you never hear about. And though most IT workers are too professional to take out their grievances on the systems they've worked so hard to maintain, unless management takes note of the growing discontent in the IT workplace, it may fall victim to the unspoken 'ticking time bomb' lurking within its call for IT to do more with less, InfoWorld reports. Drastically understaffed, battered by interminable hours and impossible demands, many IT folks are being pushed to the brink by management that neither trusts nor supports them."
Re:Pussies (Score:1, Insightful)
Come on. If your job is that stressful, fucking find a new one.
Good advice. Being one whom is burned out from all the stress, I need a whole other occupation.
Posting as AC for obvious reasons. They'll get my two week notice soon enough.
Try not being a dick to your employees (Score:5, Insightful)
Works wonders! If you are decent to the people you employ and/or manage, they will most often be really nice back. Not rocket science! Social science I guess though.
I'd like to know about the working conditions at the places were someone went haywire, my guess is that there is a very telling correlation. Guess that wouldn't be as newsworthy though :(
Why?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I left a ticking code bomb (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to wonder if the "99 other" incidents was where something just fell over after the "evil" IT guy left and Management just assumes it was malice.
Re:Pussies (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on. If your job is that stressful, fucking find a new one. Or, sack up and learn to cope.
With IT experience only, what would that be, another IT job with similar problems or pushing a mop?
In 99% of cases, if you freak out and do stupid shit, it's cause you're weak, not because the workplace really is that bad.
A bit of a generalisation there mate, as in my experience; in tech support, it could be the fact that you have to close X number of tickets a week, but you get at least twice that on average. Or as a sysad, you know what your budget to fix things is, but you get less than a third of that. Or as a developer, half your team gets sacked, the sales guys get payrises, AND the shorten your deadline by a month.
Re:Pussies (Score:4, Insightful)
In 99% of cases, if you freak out and do stupid shit, it's cause you're weak, not because the workplace really is that bad.
It is a LOT easier for a burger flipper to say that than a cubicle dweller.
This is news? (Score:5, Insightful)
This surprises me, I hate to use these sort of universal qualifiers, but in a LOT of companies Systems Admins and Systems engineers are overworked. So many that it seems like "duh, everyone knows this". What's worse is that its accepted and people (managers) don't seem bothered about it in the slightest bit.
My personal experience is that I worked as a Systems Administrator and then Systems Engineer for about 9 years. I left the field because it is an exceedingly frustrating career path that invaded any sort of personal life that I may desire to have. It was normal to work much more than I should. We're raised to believe that 40-60 hours a week is reasonable along with occasional peaks. However it was normal for me to work 60-80, hours a week, I remember a 3-4 month period where I literally only went home to shower and sleep for 4 hour intervals. This sort of treatment isn't just a few companies here-or-there, but this was my experience in working at 3 different places.
I would have left the profession long ago, but as it was I found myself stifled by this statement "You need more experience" or perhaps "you need a degree". What I found was that the sheer magnitude of work that had been put on my plate was so much that it was impossible for me to get "more" experience let alone a degree.
As an aside, before you go on with the "you should have known better and had a degree before you started this line of work" rhetoric, I grew up poor, and after I graduated high school my parents still didn't have the cash to help me in college. An entry level IT job in the late 90's paid crap, so I could barely pony up rent, food, car insurance, and other basic expenses - let alone get a degree. Too bad I was a fast learner, I quickly found myself with more responsibility and not much extra money.
What I've described is not limited to my own experience, I have met countless people who have had the exact same experience. Basically it goes something like this:
1. Was planning on going to college, but couldn't
2. Left home, got an IT job
3. Learned fast, got lots of responsibility
4. Got too much responsibility, can't leave work
5. Want out, but can't because "you need more experience" or "you need a degree"
I count it a miracle that I was able to transition from one career (SE work) to another (Developer) AND work on getting both experience and a degree at the same time, but I really don't see any other way to get out of this sort of trap.
Anyone else's experiences?
-b
Re:Pussies (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh, you sound like the sort of person who destroys companies from the inside out. If I were your boss, you'd be fired, and everyone working under and around you would probably hail me as a hero.
Re:This is only going to get worse. (Score:5, Insightful)
"We need to unionize."
Good way to be instantly undercut by cheaper labor.
I'd advise leaving or developing a good case of apathy. Any employer who screws me forfeits my loyalty and I feel free to become a (cheerful, friendly, lying) sloth.
Undocumented processes... (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet that for every malicious logic bomb, there are a hundred cases where a leaving employee takes with them the exclusive knowledge required to maintain some component of a critical system. What might have taken an hour to document will take their replacement a man-week to figure out, possibly with production services impacted, and there's no malice involved.
I suspect that properly resourcing and managing IT organizations to avoid *this* problem would prevent most of the frustration that leads to logic bombs.
Re:Pussies (Score:5, Insightful)
Under qualified people are a pain in the ass, and often a source of frustration for people that are qualified since it often becomes double duty making sure someone else's fuckups don't cause them for you.
But then there's also the barely-qualified lifers, too. There you get the double-whammy of long-term apathy and incompetence. They're just good enough to stick around, but bad enough that they deeply embed their stupidity, making improvements/upgrades almost impossible.
Re:Firing someone? Let them get unemployment (Score:2, Insightful)
It sounds more like they were looking for anything possible to fire you over. It costs a lot of money for a company to find, hire, and fire someone, so they're not going to axe you over a Claudia Schiffer wallpaper.
More than likely you're bad at what you do or have a horrible personality that they didn't like and whatever convenient excuse came up to avoid telling you the real reason they let you go was used.
Re:This is news? (Score:5, Insightful)
You were shooting yourself in the foot being so efficient.
The trick is to triage the work and simply blow off anything that would put unreasonable demands on your time (Don't blow off backups.) Continue to claim the old hours, put in face time if you have to, but don't do the fucking work.
Only when the work is not getting done will 'they' think of adding staff.
The fuckers certainly won't fire you and if they do who cares anyhow?
The simple fact is that after four or five 60 hour plus weeks you are getting less done then you used to do in 40. Performance degrades during death marches. Just degrade yours BEFORE it affects the rest of your life. It's not your schedule, it's your managers. If you miss deadlines does it really affect YOU? Remember they won't generally give you anything for the extra responsibility anyhow.
This isn't just true in IT. I followed a similar path and it's even more true in development, still more true in commercial software development.
You simply have to 'Manage your manager'. They are generally too stupid to get anything right without lots of help. No fear.
Re:Pussies (Score:2, Insightful)
you sound like your about 15 and don't know what a stressful job is.
Re:Why?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of the problem is that if IT is done right then it's invisible. Nothing breaks, there are no downtimes, no service outages, requests are completed in a timely and efficient manner, etc. You know good IT when you no longer have to think about the technology. You wouldn't not even know your company has an IT department. Everything just works.
Then the problem is that bean-counters come in and say "Do we really need to be spending all this money for IT? We don't have any problems with technology that would require an annual budget this size. Let's outsource it and save money. We don't need new versions because what we have clearly works just fine." That line of thinking will quickly get you into a position where nothing at all works and you're absolutely certain your company hasn't got an IT department because you can't get anything fixed.
Seriously, how often do you think about the service lines running to homes and businesses? Never unless there's a problem, and then you realize how big of a problem it is. Electricity is plug and play, flick a switch. Gas, water and sewer are totally invisible. IT is the same. It's either invisible or there's a problem.
Re:Pussies (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been in some pretty bad work places. To me the shock is that many more disgruntled employees don't walk in with guns blazing. Frankly we need more regulation to protect employees from abuse. People are forced to work and often don't have the luxury of telling the boss to stuff it. In some cases I would not even find a person guilty because i know just how rotten some employers can be.
Re:This is only going to get worse. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Firing someone? Let them get unemployment (Score:3, Insightful)
1. It's work, don't put pics of ladies on your desktop. Keep that crap at home.
2. You pissed off someone higher up than you. Glad to hear you got compensation tho.
3. What happened to the printer when you got ink in your eye? ouch.
4. You pissed off someone higher up than you.
The ONLY way to stay alive in a company (and you've highlighted it twice here) is to be in what I call the "good ole boys club" - If someone higher than you doesn't like you (or you let stuff slip that may go against the grain) then it's time to update the resume. I'm not saying bend over backwards all the time; it's a game and unfortunately one that needs played.
Paired programming... (Score:2, Insightful)
will go a lot to keep your programmers honest.
Re:This is only going to get worse. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not here in Miami, unfortunately. Here you are expected to start at $30k a year while teachers who only have a bachelors make slightly more. Cheap labor is already here from the endless supply of immigrants.
doctors who work in the ER work in long shifts but have at least 3 days off. They also get paid 3 times what your average IT worker does.
Lawyers don't do anything without billing for it. Engineers are slightly akin to IT workers except they're unionized already.
And managers. Ah yes, managers. They leave at 3:30 unless they have someone watching them. Then they leave at 5:00 on the dot.
Meanwhile, IT workers are expected to be on call 24/7 unless there's a second shift at a larger shop. In a smaller shop, they have to deal with unrealistic deadlines for projects while still doing support and maintaining their regular systems. They have to work 16 hours a day to get those projects done or they risk losing their job to someone cheaper.
Disrespectful management is more of an epidemic with IT workers. Usually management only needs them when there's a problem. So managers tend to treat us like we're the cause.
How many laid off factory workers are there? How many laid off software engineers are there? Phone support techs? Database Administrators? I have honestly never met a DBA who wasn't Indian. And I've met alot while working contracts. They are apparently all from India. I know they know their stuff, but damn we have no DBAs from Brooklyn or Chicago or L.A. or Miami or Boise even?
And, I'm not well off. I get work very sparingly. I have a specialized skill set in being a Linux Administrator. I haven't been able to find permanent employment since Clinton was in office. That's no exaggeration. I've been working contracts and handling my own customers since then. It's sparse. I have it very bad in fact. My contract pay is low and the hours are low. And some of the companies are grateful when you finish and others thank you by disabling your proxcard. I work in a city where a computer guy will charge $20 a hour for a service call. How can you compete with that?
Yeah, I mostly need to get the hell out of Miami. But that's not feasible right now. So, I'm learning spanish as fast as I can, but that's no guarantee. This market sucks for me.
I have never cause damage to company systems for being "disgruntled" I have too much professional pride to sink so low.
but again, I'm surprised at how little this actually happens.
The whole point here is, IT workers generally hold the keys to businesses and we're being dumped on.
A lot of people think that unionizing will send work oversees. For some that may happen. But I highly doubt that companies will send positions that require you to be in-house to India or China. Even if they do, the jobs will come back within a few months due to security breaches and different working hours. There are some jobs which can't be done overseas. Generally, IT support is one of those. Unless you're talking about data grunt work.
I say this is only going to get worse because I don't see a solution in sight. Business isn't taking steps to keep us happy workers.
Union workers get paid higher wages on average than non-union workers doing the same job. That's a fact. Granted, those costs eat into profits.
I say take that extra money from executive salaries. My father worked for a company where the highest paid employee couldn't get paid more than 7 times what the lowest paid employee made. It kept things honest and productive. Salaries were tied to results. The CEO didn't get bonuses for showing up.
Re:Why?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Everything just works . . . . . except users that lock their accounts or forget their passwords. Then they're pissed at not being able to find a site person to fix it RIGHT DAMNED NOW!
Re:Pussies (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly we need more regulation to protect employees from abuse. People are forced to work and often don't have the luxury of telling the boss to stuff it.
I never cease to be amazed at how some people's solution to a problem is "more regulation". Politicians pander to your type.
Re:Why?? (Score:3, Insightful)
The pressure to do more at a lower cost never does go away for any business. The question is whether managers understand the investments required to make this happen.
You can't squeeze blood from a stone, we all know that much. However, there is another way and it is quite evil. A perpetrator can trash the infrastructure while things keep moving ahead with deferred maintenance. However, by the time anyone discovers the missing maintenance, the perpetrators will have been through several promotions for their "good performance." They'll be in a fine position to fix the problems they made.
This is how __it happens in a utility. I wish it were legal to prosecute people for this kind of idiotic negligence. Instead, we give them lots of money so they can buy memberships in the premier country clubs, hobnob with other executives, and perpetrate this foolishness all over again while trying make excuses for why everything is falling apart all around them.
Re:This is only going to get worse. (Score:5, Insightful)
You responded to the strawman version of the parent's legitimate points.
For example, on the doctor argument: yes, ER docs have X hours on, X hours off requirements. But the doctors who actually make the 'big bucks' are people who paid for 4 years of college, 4 years of med school, worked 80+ hours per week (not including off-the-clock studying) for 4-8 years at $40k, and still work 60+ hours per week 'on the clock'.
The lawyer "argument" is likewise fallacious - fine, lawyers do nothing without getting paid for it; neither does anyone else.
In summary, you're not appealing to reason; you're appealing to emotion. I feel for you, but not at the expense of all of the other groups that your arguments slight.
Re:Firing someone? Let them get unemployment (Score:2, Insightful)
Good ole boys club? Sorry, I actually have self respect.
Last place I worked at ran this way, good ole boys club spent all their time learning from the people who actually made the place run and spent the rest of the time at happy hour regurgitating it to the higher ups all the while sticking knives in the backs of the people who had the misfortune of actually enjoying working with technology and spending less time schmoozing.
Yea, having a good ole boys club makes for a "Great Place to Work" for everyone else.
Remember this, being in that club will make you the last person out the door, but will also make you looking for a new job after all the real techies have already had to move on . . . . I can't tell you how many times I've had a new employer say "say, you worked with so and so, what did you think of them?"
What comes around goes around.
The Definition of Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
I can intellectually understand your post, but I can't wrap my head around it.
I read your description of the MBA thought process, and it comes across like those sad bastards who throw bowling balls into traffic from overpass bridges and giggle. Maybe it's the way I was raised.
I was brought up by farmers, mechanics, builders and engineers. I was taught that "You WILL go the extra mile on this brake job, 'cause you don't want it to fail and kill somebody. You will wire this correctly, 'cause you don't want it to fail and kill somebody. You will do this the right way, 'cause you don't want it to kill somebody."
"'Cause you don't want it to kill somebody," were words of power, God's Holy Truth. I was taught that when I had power over someone, I was responsible for them. I was taught that older should look out for younger.
I was raised to believe that what I did Mattered. Drive like an idiot and there will be some mother crying at a funeral. Pay attention, because that radial saw would be just as happy to cut through bone as wood.
I read your description of an MBA, and I know you're right. I've seen it with my own eyes a million times.
What I don't know is how these men sleep at night. How do they live with themselves? I don't know. Maybe they don't get it. Maybe they think it's all a game. Maybe they don't realize that other people aren't just sprites on a videogame screen. I've heard more than one psychology professor claim that psycho-and scoiopaths line our boardrooms. Maybe they're right.
Maybe it's time to bring back some of the old ideas like "blood money."
Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Politicians pander to the popular type. If libertarianism were more popular, politicians would (at least pretend to) pander towards that type much more.
If you think this is *at all* unique to IT (Score:5, Insightful)
...I've got some really bad news for you. Chefs sometimes spit in the pizza. Babysitters slap kids. CEOs steal money that could be used to save dozens of lives. There's good and bad everywhere.
Be reasonable, but not hysterical.
Re:Pussies (Score:4, Insightful)
I know for sure the company doesnt really give a crap about me. They make sure to tell you that now and then. You are completely replacable! They only care about the bottom line. Profit.
So i've adopted the attituded that i don't care about the company either. Only what value i can extract from that company by any means. Including theft of equipment. I am exploiting my resources to the maximum to gain the most value in the least ammount of time.
Mostly the disgruntled worker is a result of company greed. And now it is causing some worker greed.
The lesson was greed is good. Get yours while you can. The company will be broke tomorrow and you'll have to find another job. So get that cash while you can by any means! Greed is good!
Some people just take to it faster than others.
Re:Pussies (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, talk about bad advice!
"Need less stress in your life? Start your own business... it's EASY."
Please mod parent down.
Re:Try not being a dick to your employees (Score:5, Insightful)
They do say that "people don't quit their jobs, they quit their bosses."
I don't know exactly who "they" are, but they should still be modded insightful!
Re:Oh, how right you are! (Score:5, Insightful)
exactly, IT people are unique because we already know most of the story.... which means telling us up front what's really going on is the better proposition. Right now, my company is planning to move the main machine I manage to another new location... trying to be all secret about buying a new building for the bosses like anybody really cares. It's the playing favorites with information for no good reason... and IT typically knows about it before anybody else because we read the emails if only when we fix people's computers.
How much lying for the sake of lying goes on from most company managers is out of control and IT people are actually very normal people reacting normally to an environment of lies. Lies about profit, lies about sales, likes about layoffs... etc.
IT people know a lot of dirty laundry and that typically breeds resentment when WE act respectable rather than respect.
Uhhh (Score:4, Insightful)
"According to computer forensics expert witness Keith Jones, for every logic bomb on the network or Terry Childs case that makes it into the press, there are 98 other incidents of disgruntled IT pros damaging company assets that you never hear about."
Soooo, not that many?
Frankly, I think it's best to create an atmosphere of trust & openness. I don't know 100% of what happened yet in the Terry Childs case (I don't think anyone does), but it's fairly clear his bosses were a bunch of political asshats.
-Bill
Re:Firing someone? Let them get unemployment (Score:4, Insightful)
Excuse me? How do you get fired for shorting out a fucking power strip? During an emergency?
What bullshit.
Re:Pussies (Score:3, Insightful)
Guess what. Being a computer guy is the easiest fricking job there is right now, on the planet earth, that pays good money without too much in formal education
Well, I guess I won't be needing my degree & certifications anymore. I've got the easy job with no training!
A long time ago, someone in the guidance office at my HS said, "computer programming is like word processing". That was you, wasn't it?
Now, go write some navigation software for Boeing, make sure to use WordPerfect.
Re:Pussies (Score:3, Insightful)
being a "computer guy" is probably one of the easiest jobs indeed. being any good at it, however, is another thing.
Re:Firing someone? Let them get unemployment (Score:4, Insightful)
I've worked with a few geniuses that couldn't hold a conversation and were general pains in the ass. Work on your social skills and you'll probably have better luck... especially if you're one of those technically brilliant but interpersonally retarded people.
I'm just saying...
Re:Pussies (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not as funny when you don't post as AC.
Oh my, it appears that I'm a hypocrite.
Re:Pussies (Score:5, Insightful)
It's ironic that geeks are supposed to be the ones with poor social skills, when management treats IT workers as extensions of the machines they work with.
The whole MBO thing is a moron's approach to leadership. It's not that objectives aren't a good thing, it's just that the manager who doesn't really understand his people plugs people into the plan as if they were standardized parts. Geeks are different.
I've been in meetings discussing things like establishing bonuses for achieving certain objectives, and this is the point I always make: yeah, bonuses are fine, but if they really make a difference in performance you aren't going to get the best work. Guys who come out of sales just can't get their brains around anything more sophisticated than a financial carrot and stick, because they excelled in a game where it was grab the carrot and leave the people behind to deal with the stick.
If you really want to incent a geek, make this a project one where he can do his best work ever. Or make this a project where he can increase his skill level.
A geek wants to be respected for his skill and honored for his contribution. Yeah everybody does, just like everybody likes a nice bonus check, but it doesn't mean the same things grab everyone's attention. You take care of your geeks. You help them advance their skills. You give them room to do their jobs. You show respect by listening to their concerns and by owning your own mistakes when you have to overrule those concerns. Do those things and you'll be richly rewarded.
I find that often the problem in business is not what we don't know; it's the things we know on an intellectual level, but don't live by. Under stress, people fall back into actions that make them feel comfortable, rather than ones that address the situation. So managers who are in trouble don't communicate with their teams, they dump objectives on them. They don't work with their people to create a realistic plan, they dangle a carrot or wave a stick in front of them in hopes of producing a miracle.
The difference between people and horses is that people are much, much smarter. They can figure out how to get the carrot or avoid the stick without moving anything forward. You've got to make them want to go forward.
Re:This is only going to get worse. (Score:5, Insightful)
> We need to unionize
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO......
Remember the late 90's, when any monkey who knew how to click around in FrontPage was able to call himself a web developer? Remember how you always ended up cleaning up after him, or finishing his half-baked projects? There are far fewer of those folks around now, one of the perks of the bubble bursting.
Unionizing would protect these people. The incompetent boob sitting in the cube next to you, the one who uses you as his personal reference manual, would have nothing to fear. He would have no reason to get his act together and start performing - the union would protect his job. Do you really want that?
Three years ago, I left a job where I hadn't received a raise in 2 years, because I was already being paid the maximum for my job title. HR had the final say in all salary issues - they paid strictly based on job titles and charts. I left that place, going to another company with the SAME JOB TITLE, doing the SAME WORK, for $11K more per year. With the increase I received last year, I'm now making almost $30K more than I made at the previous place, doing THE SAME JOB. The job (at both companies) involves production support - I'm essentially on call 24x7. At the old place, if I got called at 2:00am, I was still expected to be in the office the next morning. At the new place, a call at 2:00am means I come in if/when I want to the next day, or not at all. The new place gets it, they understand and recognize the value of IT.
Unionizing would make issues like this more cookie-cutter, attempting to make things the same for everybody. Of the two scenarios that I just described, which way do you thing that "sameness" would go? We'd all end up punching time cards, tracking every minute that we work, with no flexibility. No thanks.
Re:Pussies (Score:2, Insightful)
I would never cause damage to my company's systems because my work ethic would not permit it, but what gets me going to the point of have to step away from my desk and take a walk to cool off is the the incompetent ass kisser that only keeps his job because he knows someone or is spending too much time on his knees under a desk.
Office politics are an unfortunate fact of life. Some days it takes a lot f fortitude just to keep from walking out. Some of you may say just find another job. That's all fine and dandy in a perfect world but landing a new job with a salary that even close to what I make now in this economy is not all that easy in my part of the country.
It is a shame that most management does not care about the welfare of their employees because they are so short sighted. Do they not know that turn over cost you more than retention.
I could be wrong but one of the keys to success would be to keep the brightest, replace the dead weight and treat their people like human beings.
OK, I feel better now, I will go and take my meds.
Re:What would an MBA do? (Score:2, Insightful)
My current employer lost this case in the 80s. The NM supreme court ruled that exempt employees are not slaves and could only be expected to work 10% over their 40 hour work week without being compensated. 44 hours a week isn't too bad. Now it seems that the corporate history has been forgotten. They regularly want us to put in more hours. I just point them to the state supreme court decision and they shut up. ;-)
Re:The Definition of Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
I read your description of an MBA, and I know you're right. I've seen it with my own eyes a million times.
What I don't know is how these men sleep at night. How do they live with themselves? I don't know. Maybe they don't get it. Maybe they think it's all a game. Maybe they don't realize that other people aren't just sprites on a videogame screen. I've heard more than one psychology professor claim that psycho-and scoiopaths line our boardrooms. Maybe they're right.
It's simple sociopathy. We've also had plenty of documented evidence that outright bastardry is always more successful than being the nice guy. More successful, mind you: nice guys can succeed at times but they'll never succeed as big as the bastards. The part about being able to sleep at night is why nice guys are happy with reasonable success.
I always see red when someone says "you have to pay top dollar for top talent" when justifying executive pay. What, are you saying that people you pay less are lesser people? Yes. Even though they're doing the work and the executard is just overseeing it, most of the time poorly, they're better people: they make more money than you do, you stupid sap, you fucking dickless wonder. Those obnoxious rants in the movies like Wall Street, Glenngarry Glenn Ross, "Always be Closing!" and shit? They love that. Normal people look at poisonous weasels like that and want to hit them with something but the sociopaths see role models. I saw this when I was at a brokerage.
The system self-selects for these kinds of individuals. Who do you see working the kill-floor at a slaughterhouse? People who don't mind the sight of blood, seeing animals in pain, don't get spooked by the smell of blood and shit. Anyone who couldn't hack it is gone the first day. So is it any wonder you find desensitized individuals on the kill-floor? The modern boardroom is the same way. Anyone with morals, with a conscience, he's not capable of stepping up to the task. This is about making money, fuck all those other fucks! Look at those Enron traders laughing about stealing from grandmothers.
I think the first thing we need to do to fix this Wall Street crisis is lock up the failed banks and fumigate the buildings, preferably before the management leaves.
The worst thing, the "people" get screwed. (Score:1, Insightful)
Since the topic has turned to bad management practices.
The worst thing about the whole practice is that once they've driven the good employees out, insane or to their deaths, is what happens to the company.
When I was young, several times I left ( opr was forced out ) of a company thinking my revenge would be their failure. Most times I was correct, not because I was so important to the company, but because they lost many others like me and replaced them with acceptable incompetents who ran the company into the ground.
It really gave me a lot of glee, but now that I am older I realize that all the jobs at the now defunct company are gone as well as the corporate taxes and employee taxes. To get whatever it was you have to go to a different company which probably has poorer employees ( and better managers ) and is therefore of lower quality and higher price.
Consider the Childs case. If the version that is most friendly to him is true, then what is the end result? They've lost the best network engineer they've had. They've probably lost others who leave fearing they would get singled out as the next Childs. Their network will eventually wear down and with the people they find to replace them, they will see the wear and tear really eatr into the performance. Who does this cost, the SF taxpayer.