11 August 2010

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

| johnboy
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The Canberra Times has the intriguing case of Kieran Temple, an IT asset officer at the Attorney-General’s Department who has plead guilty of taking home the assetts and flogging them on eBay.

Temple’s solicitor, Peter Bevan, said his client believed the workplace was disorganised and badly managed.

”He says there was a culture of things being over-ordered and a culture of things walking out,” he said. ”If someone wanted a computer they took it from there.”

Temple told the court he had felt disgruntled because he had waited six months to be promoted out of his APS 3 job. ”I guess that was a bit of a revenge attack which was stupid and idiotic,” he said.

Suspended sentence, $1,000 fine and $6,661 repaid. (plus, hello google)

The next question is in how many other IT departments is this widespread?

(Confused by the headline? lmgtfy.)

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Whereas we have the opposite problem of not being ABLE to dispose of assets we’ve had for a decade, well past their end of life, because our organisation won’t allow us to flog them off. I don’t even care if it goes back into the main kitty, but PAYING for someone to take stuff away – and often no-one wants to, including the big IT vendors – galls me no end.

And thus we see the benefits of being the first one caught…

wtf 6 months for a promotion, could been the department head with a few more years commitment
(wanders off to look at the AG’s recruitment page)

Mothy said :

* Annoyed after 6 months without a promotion wtf???? I hear 6 months and am like “is that ALL?” Is there honestly an expectation that you only have to wait 6 months????

Old stats, but to illustrate the point. (1986 – 2001 APSC Graduate Entry trends)

75% of graduates promoted to an APS4 within twelve months. (1034 out of 1371)
54% of graduates in 6 months or less. (751 out of 1371)

Being promoted directly from APS3 to Exec is not unheard of, just highly unlikely (15 out of 2588, median of 2.5 years before it happened); doing it within three months is even less likely (but not impossible, with just the one case in 558 promotions after 3 months).
As most HR areas can tell you, Graduates are special cases, not the norm.
(There are only like, 80 at a time, iirc)

But with Kieran being a 33 year old Asset Management APS3, I doubt he’s a graduate.
By contrast to the rest of the Public Service, both the median APS3s and APS4s in the ACT have 3 years of service. (Pg 71 of 2009 State of the Service statistical bulletin)

Kieran has a powerful sense of entitlement, when really he’s just average.

However I’d be interested to see what falls from of an AG’s shakeout.

OMG, you speak latin?

No, wait, you’re just a geek?

Meanwhile – two things from the article;

* Annoyed after 6 months without a promotion wtf???? I hear 6 months and am like “is that ALL?” Is there honestly an expectation that you only have to wait 6 months????

* Seems he got off lightly for promising to help investigate further issues of same. Can’t wait to see what comes of that.

And we had staff using the Dept’s computers to run their eBay businesses. They then of course used the contract we had with AAE to send their goods all over the country.

while they weren’t stealing the goods to sell they were stealing bandwith, time and cash in the costs of the couriers.

Of course they weren’t sacked or anything – just told to stop doing it!….

JessP said :

Holy Cow! He used the Departments courier contract to deliver the stuff he stole and sold to punters on ebay!

Not sure if this makes him a legend or a bigger idiot.

No, actually it makes him a bigger idiot!!

I have never heard of this happening in any of the Departments I have worked in.

Happened quite a bit in Defence, I recall about 50 or so digital cameras being repurposed to better suit a pubes wallet.

Is it reasonable to assume he also got fired as well as the court imposed “punishment”?

I’d have thought theft warrants instant dismissal, but this is the public service we’re talking about

Never mind that – wait until NBN gets cranked up. Kierans ^6
His problem is he just didn’t ‘think big’ enough.
When the larceny is in the billions it’s called nation building.

JessP said :

Holy Cow! He used the Departments courier contract to deliver the stuff he stole and sold to punters on ebay!

Not sure if this makes him a legend or a bigger idiot.

No, actually it makes him a bigger idiot!!

I have never heard of this happening in any of the Departments I have worked in.

Well, I have heard of a guy using his department servers to run a pr0n sight staring his wife… But he got caught to. I have always witnessed a little greyness or bending of rules, but never seen anything that wouldn’t pass the “would you admit to it” test.

…felt disgruntled because he had waited six months to be promoted out of his APS 3 job.

So, he was frustrated that he was waiting the average time for a graduate APS3 to be promoted?

Holy Cow! He used the Departments courier contract to deliver the stuff he stole and sold to punters on ebay! Not sure if this makes him a legend or a bigger idiot.

No, actually it makes him a bigger idiot!!

I have never heard of this happening in any of the Departments I have worked in.

M0les said :

I’m considering doing the opposite at my workplace.

On my desk I have a Prescott P4 (That’s bad) with 1G of ram (that’s worse) our hell-desk provides to me. If I bring-in one of my old home computers, I’d have a significantly more capable system (Seriously – I wait for windows to redraw, it’s that bad).

I recall a couple of years ago my brother (working as a geologist), not being able to get a new desktops computer at work, while using the old crap one to direct people to undertake $10,000 a day worth of work.

I’m considering doing the opposite at my workplace.

On my desk I have a Prescott P4 (That’s bad) with 1G of ram (that’s worse) our hell-desk provides to me. If I bring-in one of my old home computers, I’d have a significantly more capable system (Seriously – I wait for windows to redraw, it’s that bad).

ConanOfCooma10:49 am 11 Aug 10

Wow, how dumb can you be?

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