- Feature Articles
- CodeSOD
- Error'd
- Forums
-
Other Articles
- Random Article
- Other Series
- Alex's Soapbox
- Announcements
- Best of…
- Best of Email
- Best of the Sidebar
- Bring Your Own Code
- Coded Smorgasbord
- Mandatory Fun Day
- Off Topic
- Representative Line
- News Roundup
- Editor's Soapbox
- Software on the Rocks
- Souvenir Potpourri
- Sponsor Post
- Tales from the Interview
- The Daily WTF: Live
- Virtudyne
Admin
blah blah something about the government blah blah who took my skittles blah blah java blah blah
Admin
Besides, your first and second points were covered in the first couple hours this story was reposted, not to mention the first time it was posted.
Welcome to the site.
Admin
Actually, I would bet that person would not be charged with murder. Probably more like reckless manslaughter.
Admin
SOMEONE had to pay the cost of the replacement of failed equipment. It was the taxpayer. Just because the fucktards that screwed up made a mistake doesn't mean they shouldn't have to pay it back.
Admin
The guy took actions based on an incomplete understanding of the situation - we all have to do it every day (or we'd never get out of the door), he just managed to 'perfect storm' it. Worse, he did it with good (if slightly pious/snarky) intent - save the state taxpayers some money and reduce polution.
It was demonstrably not a malicious act, so sacking/flaying/electrocution/laser sharks is disproportionate and would lead to employment tribunals/having to clean up after the sharks, costing even more money and frankly likely to find in his favour. Gross misconduct would be a tough one to call. If he really did resign, isn't that the gentlest way out for everyone to save face and not land the taxpayer with even higher costs next year?
Admin
...and that person should still lose their job. I wonder if they would keep their pension under government run health care?
Captcha = sagaciter = Ive seen this story before
Admin
Yeah, I never got that "Fun Sized" bullcrap they try to pull with candy. Twice as big as regular would be fun. Eight times the caramel or chocolate or whatever would be fun.
Just big enough that you can taste it is not a fun size. It should be called "Bullcrap Size".
Now hurry up and implement a mod system so you can mod this "off topic".
Admin
Isle of Man?? (I think that the Channel Islands are already covered, but I could be wrong).
Admin
We call this "Bias for Action" and in Seattle it's something you can get hired for not having.
Admin
I would certainly had written him up for a final warning however as the company I work for has done before - the person involved had no authorisation to access that area, and obtaining a pass with the appropriate rights from somewhere else is regarded as theft. It doesn't matter if it was on a table in plain sight, he knew he himself didn't have access, and so accessing that area using someone elses card is unauthorised access.
Hell, where I work they gave someone a "first and final warning" because he tried his access card on too many doors which he (apparently) knew didn't have access.
Admin
Admin
Ok, lets extend this analogy a bit.
If you get into a traffic accident, do you have to pay the cops salaries while they're handling your case? Repay for the light standard you knocked over, plus the salaries of the city employees to put the standard back up? The traffic court bailiff's salary?
This is all what you pay taxes for. People make mistakes. This person made a dumb mistake, and paid the appropriate price (either resigned, or was given a push). Sometimes that means public servants have to clean up the mistake. The only difference in this case was, it was the public servant that CAUSED the mistake.
Admin
The Isle of Man isn't technically part of the United Kingdom at all, though it claims the UK sovereign as its head of state. I think the term is "self-governing Crown dependency".
Admin
The facility manager should have lost his job for leaving the keycard there more then the smuck who didnt know what he was doing.
Admin
Admin
Also working for a state agency, and we had a similar issue...in our case the airconditioners actually went out, but we weren't notified of the outage. Why? Our facilities people, who have no fewer than 4 underfloor sensors in our server facility, didn't realize the area was important.
Admin
Your insurance would normally cover material damage, but if your policy doesn't cover it, you're liable for payment.
Aside from that, you can be charged with causing criminal damage that was the result of a road traffic accident.
And as a footnote to your "paid the appropriate price", that's "appropriate" as in what's considered appropriate by civil and criminal courts, as agreed upon by democratically elected officials. Individuals may disagree with what's appropriate; in fact, most people will, because a democracy is a compromise so that we can all get along socially. This is something libertarians and republican'ts don't get (respectively: you can't live unilaterally by your own fantasy rules, and you can't make everyone else live by your fantasy rules).
Admin
Admin
Okay, so let's throw down a couple of hypothetical situation, shall we?
I am a contractor (call it Lockheed, whatever) who builds tanks. I build tanks for 12 years, giving a healthy whatever-I-can-get-matched into my 401K. One day I come into work and notice that the A/C unit is on for some room and turn it off.
I am a state worker (call it Florida) who manages taxpeople. I have worked my way up over the last 12 years into management (six is the minimum required for pension in FL), paying my amount into my pension (non-optional). One day I come into work and notice that the A/C unit is on for some room and turn it off.
Both of these people get retire for political reasons (essentially) shortly therafter. 1 - Should the contractor get to keep his 401K? 2 - Should the government person get to keep his pension?
It is illegal to take the 401K from the contractor. It is illegal to take the pension of the government employee.
If they were fired, it would be a different story, like this: The contractor gets to keep his 401K. The government person MIGHT get to keep his pension (depending on reason for firing, type of offense, and quality of lawyers).
When you think about it, the government people already are getting a pretty lousy deal (non-optional, non-managed pension, which may or may not be inflation-adjusted, and which may be taken from them). The only compensation for that is the high-3 (which is federal only, as far as I know), or other scaling benefit.
Admin
Admin
"Early retirement" simply means he jumped before he was pushed. After putting himself in front of a train like that (entire system down for days, and here's the email of you taking credit for it), he'd be persona non grata. Might not be fireable (esp. since he'll start pointing fingers at IT and facilities to try and cover his butt), but he's not getting promoted again any time soon.
(Just another aspect of Worse Than Failure.)
Admin
Except it has bugs itself. The Isle of Wight, Scilly Isles, Anglesey, Skye, Lewis and Harris, the Orkneys, the Shetlands, and most of the other small islands are NOT Great Britain, yet they are parts of England, Wales, or Scotland. 'Great Britain' does in some contexts include those smaller islands, but not always.
Admin
I'm convinced that many residents of the british islands aren't quite sure precisely where they live.
Admin
Ah, but he took action without any need. Lets look at the the situation. The worst case of those machines running would have been wasting another 24 hours or so and people getting a memo "Is that necessary" the next day.
This reminds me of a "helpful person" who locked my unlocked car - my keys broke of in a lock - when I was away getting a 2nd set of keys. At 23 in the night. In a rural setting. A save rural setting, where people are known not to lock their front days.
Cost me about a $100 extra to get that lock repairs, while I could've repair it myself if that "helpful person" hadn't been there.
Admin
No, he shouldn't be charged with murder, because he wasn't intending to kill someone. Murder requires intent. Killing somebody accidentally is criminally negligent manslaughter, and the penalty significantly less severe than that for murder, for just that reason.
So, your analogy is pretty good, but the interpretation leaves something to be desired...
Admin
"...Tesco's, a supermarket chain in Britain (or the UK. Or England. Whatever)".
Those are NOT synonyms. Ask any Scot, Welshman or Irishman.
Admin
"Britain = The big island that includes most of Scotland, England and Wales, but NOT Northern Ireland... Great Britain = {Britain + the surrounding small islands} = {Scotland, England, Wales}".
NO.
Great Britain = The big island that includes most of Scotland, England and Wales, but NOT Northern Ireland - but NOT the surrounding small islands.
Admin
Exactly. I just love the way the other posters in this thread are suggesting that one guy - however idiotic - should be paying with his livelihood or life for something that happened to a bunch of /machines/.
The real WTF here is how the hell he was allowed access to the server room. I think the people who granted him access have more to answer for.
Admin
The only thing still called Great Britain is just a geographic region - the Island of Great Britain.
The Kingdom of Great Britain ended in 1801 when the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was formed. (later renamed to United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the Irish Free State (Now the Republic of Ireland) seceded)
Admin
However, there is an easy way to achieve true redundancy as you suggested - set the thermostats on the additional ACs to a slightly higher temperature. That way, they won't run their compressors unless the room starts getting warmer, which would happen if the first one failed. They could be rotated regularly so that each one takes a turn in being the primary cooler, to keep the compressor seals lubricated etc.
Regarding a car engine, each cylinder contributes to the work and gives the engine a higher torque and power output than a single cylinder would provide, as well as making the torque application smoother. Even though they're not redundant, if one fails, you may still be able to drive the car in an emergency (depending on the cause) to get it home or to a workshop or another suitable place, where the problem can be addressed.
Admin
He didn't screw up. Understand the difference between Britain and Great Britain:
Great Britain is a geographical term referring to the big island of England Scotland and Wales.
Britain is a common name for UK.
The British Isles is a geographical term referring to all the islands.
Captcha: ecce, Latin for LOOK!
Admin
Actually, he is creating a new instance of NationState, not comparing it to an existing NationState object. It should compile just fine.
Admin
It hit their tax servers, that's serious business. How are they going to get your money if those don't work?!?
Admin
Why single out the government? There is little accountability in the corporations too. Do you think the guys who ran AIG in the ground got punished?
Admin
OK, I'll buy that - we would know that you are lying if you said gov't worker
Admin
Now come on guys. There is for once an official who shows some initiative, works on the weekend, is environment conscious, and even tries to save some tax payer's money - and what does he (or she?) get from it?
Well... "competence", I hear you say? No. No such thing has ever been seen from any functionary.
As they say in Germany: "When God appoints an office, he takes away the wits!"
Admin
It might well be arguable that simply losing the job is not enough of a penalty in this case, that it is not "appropriate consequences" - but it's also arguable that it is. You and others seem to hold that it is not, and you might be right - but I don't think I've seen any arguments put forward so far which would support that position over the other, and I have seen a couple of things which look like arguments in support of the other position.
Admin
I remember this story from before it was originally put on TDWTF (from the original authors livejournal iirc). I am fairly certain that it was a private company and nothing to do with the government. There were no tax servers, the employee responsible was female not male (not that it makes much difference, but why change it?).
The original post was apparently deleted when the author got fed up with people crying BS but I've manged to pull up a copy of it and the dead servers were: "Exchange Server, Domain Controllers, a few Sun boxes that I'm not sure of the usage.". The culprit was coming in for a "meeting with a potential client tomorrow", not 'The State'.
The author gave a lot of extra (and fairly convincing) information on why security was a bit lax and there were no automatic alerts (from memory the facility was in the process of being moved and was very much a temporary setup).
Also the email was successfully sent before the exchange server died as the guy picked it up before going in on tuesday morning. Truth, consistancy and accuracy? Who needs it?
Admin
Now you're completely right about the benefit of such a system over an all or nothing system however it is not anywhere near an accurate statement to say that such a system in redundant.
Given that the email stated all three were running the entire time it would seem to imply that they needed all 3 to keep the room cool. To go to the engine analogy, when you lose a cylinder you could certainly continue driving to soccer practice, however if you're required to drive at maximum speeds (such as a race car) losing a cylinder means not being able to perform.
Either way I don't think that's part of the WTF. That's a simple low cost solution for (limited) recovery as opposed to a single unit. Single big unit fails over the weekend = fried hardware. One of three smaller units fails over the weekend = the room is above ideal or warm, but not at the point of failure.
Admin
As I said, maybe one unit does have enough capacity to cool the room, in which case the other two would simply reduce its workload, with some extra waste energy as no machine is perfect.
Since either scenario is valid and the story doesn't contain enough detail to reliably determine how their cooling system was running, we can only speculate.
Admin
One word: THERMOSTAT
Admin
Admin
That's the crux of the issue. Anecdotes are only interesting if they're true.
If the stories on this site are mostly true, then the site is interesting. If they're not, then the site is a huge waste of time.
Admin
should have...should HAVE!!! I still don't understand how it is that even if English is my 3rd language, you americans manage to fuck it up more than me.
Admin
Its their language so they get to fuck it up as much as they want to?
Admin
If memory serves, the AIG execs were punished by being forced to carry big honkin' bags of money.
Admin
I think the intention is the problem - if the power had been turned off by a well-meaning employee, that's one thing. I'd be amused, but not really pissed off. (I can't honestly say I've never done something that seemed like a good idea at the time).
When you attach the haughty email, now you're not helping the team/group/company/government, you're helping yourself. And since you expected to reap the rewards of your action, you should reap the punishment for your screwup.
Admin
4.5kg should be fun enough for anyone! (via Flickr)
Admin
Admin
Wow - Really WTF. Early retirement, is that what they call getting canned for being an idiot in government lingo