News: 1616400913

Christ on a bike that's toxic.

Very, if that had happened to me, there would have been a surprise audit by the relevant regulating authority (usually central bank of the country) with the auditors going directly for the problems and other sore points.

And yes, I've worked at banks as programmer and experienced several audits.

So bad it's not even funny.

For the sake of this post, let's assume it was at another rather large bank: on call used to be paid extra per off-hours call out. It might have been some evil auditor's recommendation (not I!) initiating changing the incentives: after on call payment changed to a fixed sum for being on call, the number of off-hours incidents decreased dramatically to nearly zero.

...I noticed that they were paying for Citrix Subscription Advantage for products that Citrix themselves could no longer support, to the tune of over £150k per year.

And that of the 8 NetScalder SDX's several were on a shelf, turned off. Again over £120K of SA that they couldn't use and didn''t need to since they had plenty of spares.

Then there was the near catastrophic decision I averted for them when their EA almost pulled the trigger on Citrix Cloud licensing, under the mistaken belief that it included all the licenses required for OS's and clients - a near £400k cock up that would've put the company at real risk had it gone through.

Of course, as they say, no good deed goes unnoticed and the EA was a spiteful bastard that ensured my time there became limited due to my refusal to take his mistakes on as my own.

It’s amazing how many seemingly sensible people won’t listen when you point stuff like that out.

Significant savings to be had by just looking properly at what you’ve got.

When I was at the home office they eventually did an audit of by phone lines across all their sites, thousands of numbers with 0 calls where ditched. It was then brought to light that some lines used for WAN (early 2000’s here) for some micro sites where racking up thousands in call start charges. Idle timeout was too aggressive so the connection was dropping and starting several times a minute out of hours. Didn’t take ping to sort that out once it was known about. The main issue there was that IT never saw the bills and finance just blindly paid them.

"EA" means in this case??

""EA" means in this case??"

Enterprise Architect

I was working for a company that had made a data collection machine that they were selling worldwide, it used a stand-alone app that ran on MSDOS (this was a long time ago, MSDOS was new then) and I pointed out to them that we needed to include a license for MSDOS with each system sold. They told me that it was not necessary because their system didn't have a keyboard or monitor so nobody would know.

"checks". So, a USAian bank. That narrows it down. ;)

Or a USAian spell checker.

Or a bad fashion sense ...

If a foreign bank sends me money via the post, might my Czek cheque be in the mail? =-)p

"..If a foreign bank sends me money via the post, might my Czek cheque be in the mail? =-)p.."

You should probably check...

If sent to BoJo while in Buckinghamshire then it would be a Chequers Czek cheque check to see if it had arrived!

Don't know, you might have to double-check your Czek cheque

Edit: Ninja'd

There may be a reason for that, but there is no excuse for it. If something is done to make things work that goes contrary to internal procedures, either it must be changed or, if it is indeed critical to the functionality required, then it must be raised in a meeting and either the rules must change, or an exception must be made.

But it still has to be documented.

And getting someone fired simply because they changed a bit of "your code" ? That is petty and pathetic - not that those kind do not exist, I am well aware. That "senior" developer should have simply gone to her and explained what it is that she had done wrong and why. That's what you do when you are a professional and a team player.

That guy was clearly batting only for himself. I've met a few like that, and I always like leaving them behind.

The story is of events many many years ago. The mindset of that bank at that time fostered those views and attitudes. Laws have changed and companies have faced significant damages for discretionary behaviour such as retold here.

This kind of stuff definitely still happens but is likely far more subtle. Ever been given an impossible challenge at work and been castigated for failing? Or have you ever been given a task that once completed you realise it wasn’t needed or someone else already did it? There are ways of getting rid of people, make them want to leave or make good reason to dismiss them.

*Raises hand* I was given the impossible task & not told that someone had already completed it using non-traditional means.

I kept the emails regarding the assignment of, requirements of, & supposedly available resources for, said project. Because I've always done it to cover my ass. And good thing I did, too, for when the review team came down to demand why I was wasting time & company resources on a project "we don't need & have already paid for elsewhere", I simply printed out said email chain & handed it over with a smile.

You want to throw me under a bus? Don't be so surprised when I provide the proof needed to get you under there instead.

Dear Former Boss, yes I mean you. I loved the look on your ex-wife's face when I made it public that you were having an affair with the secretary & billing the company for MY pseudo-over-time pay to cover your expenses. I loved hearing that said ex-wife took your slimey ass to the cleaners & the secretary wound up hitting you with a paternity suit. Karma's a bitch, ain't she?

MUH Hahahahahhahahahhahahhahhaha...

"team member" my arse. Just another seatwarmer / timeserver who has hit on the brilliantly original innovation of keeping knowledge to themselves so that they seem indispensible to the equally self-serving and incompetent line managers that sit just above them in the corporate hierarchy.

Seeing someone become a rage filled vengeance monster because you turn up at a company and can do the work competently, showing them up as not the skilled expert they like to present themselves as, is an experience that you will probably have sooner or later, and when it happened to me, I learnt that getting out sooner rather than later is the only solution to this situation. There really are better places to work, and you'll be much happier there, especially when you think of those people probably still stewing in their miserable toxic atmosphere.

exactly which bank it is, having done work for them in the past (and have them steal it and claim it as theirs)- and no, I am not going to reveal which one it is.

I got caught by this one as a young teacher. I did a careful analysis of various assessment processes we were using and identified which were providing useful information, with what it told us. Gave it to my boss - 'cos I waned it to be seen and used.

Heard nothing. Until about a month later she asked me to summarise it because she'd been asked to present it to the Local Authority (but hadn't understood it herself).

Similar sorts of problems there as in the OP lead to me moving on to bigger and better things. Education rather than IT related, but similar in terms of events, practices being retained because it suited various senior people rather than doing good for the kids.

and as most of us learned the hard way, banks are very creative in converting your money to their money. (Read up on the last few financial crises if you need to.) Who would have thought that that creativity extends to the lower echelon of employees?

Truly shocked, am I.