Is Most IT Really Corrupt?
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I think a point that is being made here, and one that was made to me offline, is that companies treat IT as unimportant, don't audit it, don't check into it and don't care what it does... so they pay badly, and are then stuck with people who can't do the job. I totally agree. Management has to be enabling corruption. But I don't think that that changes the corruption, only explains why it must happen. We don't pay enough for anyone to accept the jobs unless they are making money in some other way from the deal. So it is going to be expected. That makes sense.
But no one has to work in IT. It's just that management practically engineers a corruption scenario. I'm 100% on board with that logic. But I think it supports, rather than disagrees, with my hypothesis and observations.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
ir own businesses, some are managing hotels... but by and large, does raising the pay change the pool of talent? We are not talking about an individual business, but the entire field.
Well for starts having I.T helper can make documentation is easier and after I worked on project with ThoughtWorks, they pair up as driver technique, and 2 sit on one machine, 1 develops and the other helps to understand and document.
Documentation fights corruption cause it removes you out of the dark. and if I left the company I cant leave them hostage cause they have the docs which will allow another person to follow and understand.
Maybe I am not being subjective, but the thing what I am basically saying is the current model in SMB to hire 1 I.T person to deal with:
User issues and I.T Support
Handling of servers in the best way
And Printers of course
And add more responsibilities like developing new tools and solutions to help the org (XMPP Chat/NextCloud/osTicket/SaltStack/Intranet site/...etc)Is not the best way to go if they genuinely care about I.T continuous improvement.
AND I NEED RAISE PEOPLE
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I would tend to say because of the lack of oversight and review that IT personal become lax, and start to do things in such a way that makes "their lives easier" which in turn results in some sort of corruption issue.
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@msff-amman-Itofficer said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
ir own businesses, some are managing hotels... but by and large, does raising the pay change the pool of talent? We are not talking about an individual business, but the entire field.
Well for starts having I.T helper can make documentation is easier and after I worked on project with ThoughtWorks, they pair up as driver technique, and 2 sit on one machine, 1 develops and the other helps to understand and document.
Documentation fights corruption cause it removes you out of the dark. and if I left the company I cant leave them hostage cause they have the docs which will allow another person to follow and understand.
Outside documentation or review would provide this.
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@DustinB3403 said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
I would tend to say because of the lack of oversight and review that IT personal become lax, and start to do things in such a way that makes "their lives easier" which in turn results in some sort of corruption issue.
That's a very real thing. How many departments have so much opportunity to no longer do their jobs and have no one notice?
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@DustinB3403 said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
@msff-amman-Itofficer said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
ir own businesses, some are managing hotels... but by and large, does raising the pay change the pool of talent? We are not talking about an individual business, but the entire field.
Well for starts having I.T helper can make documentation is easier and after I worked on project with ThoughtWorks, they pair up as driver technique, and 2 sit on one machine, 1 develops and the other helps to understand and document.
Documentation fights corruption cause it removes you out of the dark. and if I left the company I cant leave them hostage cause they have the docs which will allow another person to follow and understand.
Outside documentation or review would provide this.
Or would at least help. Good auditing and oversight can go a long way.
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IT does give you the ability to commit crimes with much less of a chance of being caught. If I go to the local walmart and hold a gun to somebody's head and rob them for $23.45, the police will be called and a somewhat large effort will be put together to find me. On the other hand, if I do some online phishing and completely hide my identity and steal let's say $3,000. It's likely that no effort will be put in to track me down.
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Yh like someone will understand the mess that I create besides me.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
How many departments have so much opportunity to no longer do their jobs and have no one notice?
I'm sure there is enough opportunity to cause this to be common place, which is why it's seen so often.
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@IRJ said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
IT does give you the ability to commit crimes with much less of a chance of being caught. If I go to the local walmart and hold a gun to somebody's head and rob them for $23.45, the police will be called and a somewhat large effort will be put together to find me. On the other hand, if I do some online phishing and completely hide my identity and steal let's say $3,000. It's likely that no effort will be put in to track me down.
And that's not IT, just white collar crime vs. blue collar. IT takes it to a whole new level where even the people being stolen from generally cannot identify that theft has happened.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
@IRJ said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
IT does give you the ability to commit crimes with much less of a chance of being caught. If I go to the local walmart and hold a gun to somebody's head and rob them for $23.45, the police will be called and a somewhat large effort will be put together to find me. On the other hand, if I do some online phishing and completely hide my identity and steal let's say $3,000. It's likely that no effort will be put in to track me down.
And that's not IT, just white collar crime vs. blue collar. IT takes it to a whole new level where even the people being stolen from generally cannot identify that theft has happened.
You must know IT on order to be successful.
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@DustinB3403 said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
How many departments have so much opportunity to no longer do their jobs and have no one notice?
I'm sure there is enough opportunity to cause this to be common place, which is why it's seen so often.
Hard to want to keep doing the job you are paid to do if the management can't tell when you've stopped. And even if you cause the company to go out of business, the chances that you will still be around and/or that they can identify you as the problem are so low that it is a good risk to take if you are less than ethical.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
@IRJ said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
IT does give you the ability to commit crimes with much less of a chance of being caught. If I go to the local walmart and hold a gun to somebody's head and rob them for $23.45, the police will be called and a somewhat large effort will be put together to find me. On the other hand, if I do some online phishing and completely hide my identity and steal let's say $3,000. It's likely that no effort will be put in to track me down.
And that's not IT, just white collar crime vs. blue collar. IT takes it to a whole new level where even the people being stolen from generally cannot identify that theft has happened.
I would rephrase that, because if you notice that something is amiss then it wasn't a perfect crime.
"And that's not IT, just white collar crime vs. blue collar. IT takes it to a whole new level where even the people being stolen from generally cannot identify who performed the crime."
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@IRJ said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
@IRJ said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
IT does give you the ability to commit crimes with much less of a chance of being caught. If I go to the local walmart and hold a gun to somebody's head and rob them for $23.45, the police will be called and a somewhat large effort will be put together to find me. On the other hand, if I do some online phishing and completely hide my identity and steal let's say $3,000. It's likely that no effort will be put in to track me down.
And that's not IT, just white collar crime vs. blue collar. IT takes it to a whole new level where even the people being stolen from generally cannot identify that theft has happened.
You must know IT on order to be successful.
Not for phishing. Not for a lot of things. You can do that via paper.
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The things you listen are not necessarily because of IT. Other professions could do this to a business as well. This is just a moral issue related to the person not the profession. Because IT can make this easy to do, it attracts that type of person.
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@PenguinWrangler said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
The things you listen are not necessarily because of IT. Other professions could do this to a business as well. This is just a moral issue related to the person not the profession. Because IT can make this easy to do, it attracts that type of person.
Absolutely, 100% agree. But IT I think has loads more opportunity for this... much because IT has access to things and because IT is too confusing for most businesses to oversee and they just hope for the best, which makes a market ripe to be taken advantage of and attracts people interested in taking advantage of it.
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Worth noting, in case it is not clear, that a ton of the corruption that I see doesn't come from the people labelled as IT, but the people who are the actual IT decision makes, often people with other titles higher up the organizational ladder who are actually running IT, but not taking the blame or being overseen properly.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
@PenguinWrangler said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
The things you listen are not necessarily because of IT. Other professions could do this to a business as well. This is just a moral issue related to the person not the profession. Because IT can make this easy to do, it attracts that type of person.
Absolutely, 100% agree. But IT I think has loads more opportunity for this... much because IT has access to things and because IT is too confusing for most businesses to oversee and they just hope for the best, which makes a market ripe to be taken advantage of and attracts people interested in taking advantage of it.
It really is with jobs that give a lot of power, law enforcement, politicians, government bureaucrats, and now IT will attract bad people because of the power that is inherit in the position. I was a prison guard for the state of Missouri, I was the evening shift supervisor of the supermax unit at the prison I worked at. I saw it with officers who come in fresh and drunk on their power. I got some of them fired because they were going to get people hurt.
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@PenguinWrangler said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
@PenguinWrangler said in Is Most IT Really Corrupt?:
The things you listen are not necessarily because of IT. Other professions could do this to a business as well. This is just a moral issue related to the person not the profession. Because IT can make this easy to do, it attracts that type of person.
Absolutely, 100% agree. But IT I think has loads more opportunity for this... much because IT has access to things and because IT is too confusing for most businesses to oversee and they just hope for the best, which makes a market ripe to be taken advantage of and attracts people interested in taking advantage of it.
It really is with jobs that give a lot of power, law enforcement, politicians, government bureaucrats, and now IT will attract bad people because of the power that is inherit in the position. I was a prison guard for the state of Missouri, I was the evening shift supervisor of the supermax unit at the prison I worked at. I saw it with officers who come in fresh and drunk on their power. I got some of them fired because they were going to get people hurt.
You did what is right in that situation. I'd like to think that all of us here would report issues like this to the powers that be. Whether somebody drunk on their power, or just making bad business decisions.
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@scottalanmiller I think steering back to IT is a bit of an unnecessary turn away from the actual problem, which is the people. If the problem isn't IT, but that bad people are attracted to the power inherent in IT, then wouldn't a sensible approach be to attempt to both address the problem of how to screen for undesirable types in such roles, as well as how or why people are that way, and proceed from there?
We may not be able to do much about the latter, but it's still going to be a fundamental problem regardless. That would mean that there is no truly effective way to screen a good liar except by trying to prevent them from being developed in the first place, right? Maybe far more philosophical than most such discussions go, but I feel like that failing to include that in the considerations is a bit of missing the forest for the trees to a degree.
