Diligent developer courageously lied about exec's NSFW printouts - and survived long enough to quit with dignity
- Reference: 1684740726
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/05/22/who_me/
- Source link:
This week meet a programmer we'll Regomize as "Ron" who was hand-picked for his job at a family-run company. The CFO of the company, who did the hiring, we'll call "Jeremy" who seemed like a bit of a playboy but was essentially decent .
For the most part Ron found the company a reasonable place to work. The tech was maybe a bit dated, but everything worked, and the people seemed genuine. Still, Ron couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right.
[1]
Ron worked downstairs with a female-dominated team who ran the billing system. Their lair was also the location of the company's main printer. Upstairs, in the penthouse, the executives and sales people had their own printers. Everything was networked, of course, and a Unix-based printing system kept track of who printed what for accounting purposes.
[2]
[3]
One day, one of the women in the office came to Ron's cubicle looking sheepish and avoiding eye contact. "There's something wrong with the printer" she said, dropping a sheaf of pages before beating a hasty retreat. Ron said he'd look into it, and went to examine the pages.
Oh dear. Hardcore smut. Lots of it.
[4]
Of course it would be easy enough to trace who had printed it. Ron figured someone would be having a very uncomfortable conversation very shortly.
Then he discovered that it was actually Jeremy, the CFO, who had ordered the print job. Turns out Ron was the one about to have an awkward conversation.
Before he could think about what to say, he got a buzz on the intercom – Jeremy angrily demanded that he get himself up to the C-suite tout de suite . Flustered, Ron dumped the offending (in more ways than one) pages into a drawer and headed on up.
[5]An important system on project [REDACTED] was all [REDACTED] up
[6]Owner of 'magic spreadsheet' tried to stay in the Lotus position until forced to Excel
[7]Your security failure was so bad we have to close the company … NOT!
[8]Support chap put PC into 'drying mode' and users believed it was real
Jeremy was furious because his printer wasn't working. He'd printed some "important documents" but they had not appeared. He demanded to know what was going on. Now.
Playing along, Ron checked the print log. Sure enough, the CFO had printed some documents. Sure enough, he had sent them to the main printer downstairs rather than the one in his office with his name on it. This could all have been avoided – and so much less embarrassing – if Jeremy knew what he was doing. And maybe didn't do it with company resources.
[9]
Ron told him that the print job had been accidentally sent to the main printer queue, but had somehow been accidentally deleted. Perhaps try again, using the correct printer?
Jeremy was livid, and accused Ron of lying to him (which he sort of was) and said he must have stolen the printouts (which he sort of had, but what other choice did he have?).
After that incident, Ron began planning his escape. He upgraded some systems and trained a replacement, then got out. Sure enough, a few months later he found out the company was raided for various financial crimes including money laundering and embezzlement.
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/15/who_me/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/08/who_me/
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Presumably the CFO didn't notice any financial irregularities due to his advancing blindness
X-Rated Regomiser?
Ron and Jeremy. Nice choice for a pr0n related Who Me?
Re: It's always the boss
Lovely trip down memory lane.
Thanks.
"Ron" definitely missed a trick, I fear. When summoned by "Jeremy" to the C-suite, I'd probably have replied with a cheery and innocent: "No problem, we just accidentally got one of your printouts sent down here to the pool, the printer logs confirm it's yours, $FemaleEmployeeName has brought it to me, we'll bring it back up to you immediately."
And watch him squirm.
That sort of boss doesn't squirm, and such an act could have been literally suicidal
"That sort of boss doesn't squirm, and such an act could have been literally suicidal"
Oh, I don't know ... Back in my 9-5 career, I very much enjoyed thwacking manglement over the head (individually or collectively) with large piles of wet-ink paper-trail.
Until I discovered that I could make a lot more money doing the exact same thing as a consultant, with absolutely no danger of getting fired.
It's amazing how heavy even a signed post-it can feel when wielded appropriately.
> Until I discovered that I could make a lot more money doing the exact same thing...
I thought this sentence was going to end differently; mentioning things like blackmail, bitcoin and threats of public humiliation.
Perhaps I should have added "and without risk of going to jail here in the real world"?
I concur.
I was outsourced to a government department and suddenly someone high up decided we should record all network traffic. That would have been a massive headache and in those days it wasn't easy to do either, so we did a quick recce on what traffic flew past*, recording it for analysis so we could work out what exactly we'd be facing.
Let's just say that what we identified resulted in a reminder of the OSA, a supervised delete of that recording and that project being withdrawn at a speed rarely seen in civil service :).
* Before you draw the wrong conclusion, we actually knew beforehand that one division was about to do an investigation of such material so it was more a BOFH matter of timing than actual questionable activity. Sometimes the Universe is on your side :).
Sometimes it is better to take the blame and be employable still, than trying to force justice and be unemployable...
Absolutely. It's all about wining the war and loosing the odd battle.
Shared printers
Worked at a company many years ago where the sysadmin had a very 'liberal' policy with regard to what we were allowed to browse ie no restrictions *at all*. He eventually had to have a conversation with one of the senior devs (grandfather of two and a real pr0n hound). It went along the lines of: "[name redacted], you know I don't monitor your browsing and I don't really care what you look at but if you do print it out, ferrchrissake, TAKE IT OFF THE PRINTER!"
Re: Shared printers
What boggles my mind is why anybody would print it out in the first place. Makes no sense.
Not being a pr0n aficionado, I'm probably missing something ...
Upstairs, in the penthouse, the executives and sales people had their own printers
I this story's context, Penthouse seems appropriate
Well, yes. Of course.
Where do you think the magazine got the name?
...including money laundering...
Yes, because they already sullied printer paper. That is definitely not far from having to clean paper money accidentally entering the printer queue.