My First Experience of the InternetWe remember when this was all fields, and lived a furtive life of dial-up modems and dodgy newsgroups. Tell us about how you came to love the internets.
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Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 22 Mar 2012, 11:56)
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Forward thinking.During my time with the DSS, I did a variety of jobs, one of which was a short stint in the stationery store. This was mostly dull and involved monitoring stock levels, dishing out items as required and sending off an order, once a week. This was done using a standalone computer system that was set up for the purpose of keeping a record of what forms were in stock and ordering stuff from HMSO. Nothing else; you couldn't do any normal day to day business stuff on it, it served a solitary function and that was it. This would have been around 1993 / 94.
At this point I got offered a temporary spell of promotion, so I could no longer carry out my duties as stationery Nazi. Instead, the department got a young lad in on a casual basis, and installed him instead. I showed him the ropes, and off he went. He'd done I.T. at college, was in the process of looking for work in this area and this job was a hopefully temporary stopgap for him. Noticing the somewhat rudimentary nature of the computer system he was using, he must have taken it upon himself to have a bit of a tinker with it. Not being an I.T. geek myself, I have no idea what he did, but somehow he managed to reconfigure the system to enable him to send emails to his girlfriend.
Management's reaction when they found out about this little bit of technical wizardry? Not "This kid's good, maybe we can find him a position where his expertise on something we frankly haven't got much of a grasp on ourselves can be fully utilised, perhaps even saving the taxpayer millions on an I.T. project that will ultimately be aborted because no-one has a fucking clue how to make it work". No, instead, they sacked him on the spot and frogmarched him off the premises.
I hope he managed to find something, and that the small matter of being possibly the only person in the civil service to be fired from a job for tampering with official equipment didn't blot his CV too much.
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Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Mon 26 Mar 2012, 10:38,
12 replies)
yeah, all organisations should definitely promote people who skive and don't follow the rules(, Mon 26 Mar 2012, 10:58, closed)
Not a surprise at all.What IT department, let alone one of the biggest in the country, would appreciate its users running riot and connecting their machines to unknown and unauthorised networks?
(, Mon 26 Mar 2012, 11:01, closed)
its almost as though Davros's Granddad is too stupid and unemployed to figure these things out for himself(, Mon 26 Mar 2012, 11:03, closed)
I'm not saying he wasn't more than a bit foolish in doing what he did.But with the benefit of hindsight he could have been an asset to the department.
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Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Mon 26 Mar 2012, 11:05,
closed)
I agree...I think he should have been given a warning, told to undo what he had done, and have his inititative considered in the future should any IT positions / problems become available.
Hoofing him out on his arse was a bit Rodney if you ask me.
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Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Mon 26 Mar 2012, 11:09,
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we need AB to sort this out
edit - found more
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ayhSx97tV4&feature
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enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Mon 26 Mar 2012, 11:11,
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Fourthed.(
Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Mon 26 Mar 2012, 15:08,
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Fifthed...There is something very wrong with me...I found myself watchng this over and over...far too long than could be considered healthy.
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Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Mon 26 Mar 2012, 15:15,
closed)
That bloke in the light blue shirtMust be dead hard, 'cos he keeps getting up every time that bloke jumps on him.
(, Tue 27 Mar 2012, 12:56, closed)
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