• Bittle Tobby Lables (unregistered)

    "We build the best comment forums. We don't allow anyone to post a 'frist'."

    "Come over here and I'll show you."

    "See, nobody can post a 'frist'. Oh yes, I see what you mean."

  • nobody (unregistered) in reply to Bittle Tobby Lables

    frist

  • Pabz (unregistered)

    So everyone involved in The Mega Bureaucracy is suffering from "sign-off fatigue" and doesn't actually bother to check anything?

  • Andrew (unregistered)

    "we built the best buildings, your expectations are wrong."

    I can't be the only one whose mind read that with Trump's voice, with extra wrong embellishments, of course.

  • my name is missing (unregistered)

    I worked in a place that required 15 signatures to update web changes even as little as 1 line in an html file. Oddly enough when something went wrong (often) none of the 15 signatories were affected...

  • MaxiTB (unregistered)

    There's a reason why the p-word is a forbidden word. This story is one of many and a constant reminder that as soon as a p-word is involved, solutions are no longer a priority but money wasting blame wars are.

  • network_noadle (unregistered) in reply to Pabz

    Signetic's 25120 is a prime example of this.

  • (nodebb)

    There was an interesting DEF CON talk about companies trying to use their elevator as part of their security system and how easy they can be for someone to bypass, for people interested in the topic with an hour to burn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHf1vD5_b5I

  • Mick (unregistered)

    Standard thing with corporate sign offs. The only one that matters is the first one, because everyone else signs off because they assume that’s OK to do so because he/she already did. Except that the first guy knows that his/hers signature is immaterial because bigger and bigger bosses have yet to sign. Masses of effort for no actual return.

  • Yikes (unregistered) in reply to Mick

    I've heard this was a major contributor to the economic collapse of the Soviet Union.

  • ZZartin (unregistered)

    There was an interesting DEF CON talk about companies trying to use their elevator as part of their security system and how easy they can be for someone to bypass, for people interested in the topic with an hour to burn

    A lot of areas have a ton of regulations regarding elevators due to fire code reasons, so access to them, how to get out of them etc..... that makes them a really poor choice for security.

  • Jeremy (unregistered)

    So Bruce got fired because he did not follow procedures and did not get the right signatures in time, right?

  • Thomas (unregistered)

    Three months? Three frickin' months?! THAT QUICK?! I was once involved in a SSO switch where we were the service provider and the client, big corpo, was switching their identity provider. Between them having meetings between themselves, signing off forms and searching for more people to sign off, us attending those meetings to assist them if we could (we couldn't assist in their own processes), meaning I spent 3 days total time in useless meetings, and then me spending a total of 10 minutes switching one line in config in our test and then production environments - the whole thing took 10 months from start to finish...

  • Fizzlecist (unregistered) in reply to Jeremy

    Sounds like the moral of the story to me. Bruce was clearly a reckless maverick, a loose cannon whose actions undermined The Process

  • (nodebb)

    So let me guess... mail is delivered floor to floor and station to station by an open basket cart.

  • markm (unregistered)

    I once worked for a defense contractor on a top-secret electronics system for Army helicopters. On the primary US base for this system, the Army had built a secure workshop for testing and repair of the modules for the system - a large windowless room in the back of a hangar. To ensure that no emissions from the unshielded (because partially disassembled) electronics could escape, it was covered on all 4 sides plus the top and bottom with 1/4" (6mm) copper plates welded together. Access to it was through the hangar, through the unit offices, and through a heavy armor-plated bank vault door in the rear of the offices, requiring both a key and a combination to open, or else quite a lot of explosives or a whole weekend working silently.

    Now, you might be thinking that it would be easier to cut through the wall beside the door, copper plate and all. I'm sure it would be, but that wasn't the real weak point. Fire regulations require a second exit. That was a regular steel door through the back wall of the hangar. As far as I could tell, this door had no alarm and could be forced with a crowbar. It opened onto a paved road running between the backs of the hangars and the base perimeter fence, which was ordinary chain link fence, easily cut and essentially unguarded. I'm sure an MP jeep ran down that road several times every night, but once you timed those patrols, you'd have an hour or more for a five minute break-in.

    Or if you preferred a daytime commando raid, when the shop was in use, usually that back door was propped open for better ventilation than the welded-in copper gratings provided.

  • (nodebb)

    My guess is that the main job of the mailroom is to deliver the paperwork from one signatory to the next. Nothing says "job well done" like a compactus full of project documents, each proudly containing the complete set of sixteen wet signatures.

  • MaxiTB (unregistered) in reply to markm

    Why does this sound very LHX to me? :-)

  • Robert (unregistered)

    Should have just built a wall in front of the lift door that wasn't supposed to open. Call it a hotfix and leave it there for years.

  • (nodebb)

    and elevator fire service phase 2 will bypass that keycard and the fire service key is an standard mandated key in lot's of states that is not that hard to get.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Robert

    My thoughts exactly. If people aren't supposed to go through this door, just wall it off. Easier to implement than elevator keycards (and if you feel the need to actually put a keycard reader, put it on the a door in front of the elevator, rather than the elevator itself).

Leave a comment on “The Mailroom Elevator”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article