Morally suspect help desk ticket I received

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Hawkwing74

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I am a business programmer, but our team also does level 3 help desk support for a few tickets a day.

I got a ticket today where a station manager was asking for the login frequency and other info, for a peer station manager. 24 years in the field and I don't think I've ever gotten a request like this. A manager may ask for such info on a direct report, to see if they're really working and what not. But this is the first request for a peer. I imagine there's some petty drama or backstabbing that I'm not privy to.

As moral issues go, it's pretty minor. I told him to get shared director approval for this action.

Have others in the IT field gotten morally suspect tickets or requests like this?

It makes me remember a time when a help desk employee was dating an operations employee and he started snooping on her email to see if "she was cheating on him." He was fired for that one.
 
Hawkwing74 said:
We did not get approval for the request yet, so my director assigned the ticket to herself. She doesn't want us in inter-department politics.
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Politics--another reason the human race is doomed!. :D
 
Hawkwing74 said:
I am a business programmer, but our team also does level 3 help desk support for a few tickets a day.

I got a ticket today where a station manager was asking for the login frequency and other info, for a peer station manager. 24 years in the field and I don't think I've ever gotten a request like this. A manager may ask for such info on a direct report, to see if they're really working and what not. But this is the first request for a peer. I imagine there's some petty drama or backstabbing that I'm not privy to.

As moral issues go, it's pretty minor. I told him to get shared director approval for this action.

Have others in the IT field gotten morally suspect tickets or requests like this?

It makes me remember a time when a help desk employee was dating an operations employee and he started snooping on her email to see if "she was cheating on him." He was fired for that one.
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Good on you. I have to wonder, how many other guys would simply have responded to the request with the info they wanted.
 
I am thinking the guy could have been full of you know what regarding having approval because, to my knowledge, we have still not received such approval.

I am guessing my director may let him "save face" and just drop the request.
 
Anyone asking about asking access for something they dont already have, is usually not for proper stuff.

When i was temp. covering IT in large gov store, anytime anything close to not being kosher, i replied "let me just check with OPS mng.."
Never gotten a follow up mssg, asking why they didnt get, what was asked for..
 
Waldorf Jr said:
Anyone asking about asking access for something they dont already have, is usually not for proper stuff.
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sometimes. but ive had to ask for plenty of access i needed to be able to do my jerb properly. i support all the online students. our access is based on our "home locations", so i can only access student info from 3 schools im assigned to, but our online students are registered under every school in the division. therefor i need access ALL schools. i laid out the reasoning, they went "shit, youre right" and poof, i got all access.
 
I wonder how much 'social engineering' type of pen testing is done for internal support networks. I mean if you know the inside you can do a lot of damage.
 
SamirD said:
I wonder how much 'social engineering' type of pen testing is done for internal support networks. I mean if you know the inside you can do a lot of damage.
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So I'm wondering, as a guy who worked with the IT department as a user/customer, in my job as product manager. But I never actually worked in an IT department, something that would probably have rounded out my career, but that's a different story. So I'm wondering, if you work in support, what kind of training do you get about responding to user requests that aren't about a password reset or a software issue? Are you trained to detect and reject bogus requests, like the one mentioned by the OP?
 
philb2 said:
So I'm wondering, as a guy who worked with the IT department as a user/customer, in my job as product manager. But I never actually worked in an IT department, something that would probably have rounded out my career, but that's a different story. So I'm wondering, if you work in support, what kind of training do you get about responding to user requests that aren't about a password reset or a software issue? Are you trained to detect and reject bogus requests, like the one mentioned by the OP?
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lol training... we just toss guys to the wolves and hope they make their best judgement. as for the op ticket, coulda said "that issue/request has to go through hr" and resolve the ticket. let them rat themselves out.
 
Hawkwing74 said:
It makes me remember a time when a help desk employee was dating an operations employee and he started snooping on her email to see if "she was cheating on him." He was fired for that one.
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So was she cheating on him or not?

Asking him to get approval makes sense to me. I don't see any reason to share that data without someone above him giving permission. Maybe their overall manager would want to see a report of similar behavior for all his direct employees if there's an issue with people not working / pretending to work? My rule of thumb is that peers don't get to unilaterally approve stuff between each other and would never be able to get data on each other like this. It always at least gets cc'd to their boss if they're working together on something together, if only to keep the boss in the loop about what's going on ("hey boss, I found this bug and need Joe's help to fix it, he said he can help me with it tomorrow. We're both ahead on our other work for the week so it should be fine." Sometimes there's stuff going on in the background that's undecided yet (maybe Joe is about to be moved to a higher priority project that's floundering tomorrow) and backdoor arrangements can screw everything up.
 
To philb2: At my shop, we watch some basic videos on ethics once a year. The training we get is pretty perfunctory. They seem more concerned with us giving our passwords to external actors rather than internal people misusing access. They test us that we don't click on bad links or suspicious links in emails.

To Andrew_Carr:
I never was privy to if she was cheating on him. On attractive scale, she had him way beat so I was surprised they were dating at all. On future earning potential, he was probably way ahead. Hearing other stories made me think they were not terribly compatible.
 
Hawkwing74 said:
To Andrew_Carr:
I never was privy to if she was cheating on him. On attractive scale, she had him way beat so I was surprised they were dating at all. On future earning potential, he was probably way ahead. Hearing other stories made me think they were not terribly compatible.
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Sounds more like "Days of Our Lives" than IT bootcamp. :ROFLMAO:
 
pendragon1 said:
lol training... we just toss guys to the wolves and hope they make their best judgement. as for the op ticket, coulda said "that issue/request has to go through hr" and resolve the ticket. let them rat themselves out.
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Truth! LG just did this at their national call center when I was there. Just keep throwing them at the wall and see which ones stick, lol.
 
Hawkwing74 said:
On attractive scale, she had him way beat so I was surprised they were dating at all. On future earning potential, he was probably way ahead. Hearing other stories made me think they were not terribly compatible.
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Office flings are usually just that. ;) But man they can make going to work a whole different situation--good and bad.
 
SamirD said:
Office flings are usually just that. ;) But man they can make going to work a whole different situation--good and bad.
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In my experience, both direct and second-hand, some companies are just rife with office affairs. The old Amdahl was probably the worse I ever heard about. "Everyone" is sleeping with "everyone else." Can create a really toxic environment for everyone involved. And sometimes you learn only years later about some of these affairs.
 
philb2 said:
In my experience, both direct and second-hand, some companies are just rife with office affairs. The old Amdahl was probably the worse I ever heard about. "Everyone" is sleeping with "everyone else." Can create a really toxic environment for everyone involved. And sometimes you learn only years later about some of these affairs.
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The early Apple was like this too from what I've read. They actually had to change the travel policy where differnet genders had to have different hotel rooms. :eek:
 
A friend worked in IT and his now wife in operations. They've been married probably close to 20 years with three adult kids. Someone else I knew was a manager of operations and his now wife was in sales. They are quite the power couple, he's now a director and they've been married close to 20 years. It can work, and I think it's a lot easier if you're not on the same team/department.
 
SamirD said:
They actually had to change the travel policy where differnet genders had to have different hotel rooms. :eek:
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Never heard of that before, but it doesn't entirely surprise me. I worked at a startup where several different VPs had "three hour lunches" with this striking blond woman. 15 years later, I'm at this new company. My former boss started working there and she brought me over at a nice raise and promotion in title. My boss was also a bit of a gossip. And guess who also was working there? The "striking blond," still dressing in stiletto heels and very tight skirts. I was very tempted, but never said a word to my former boss.
 
philb2 said:
Never heard of that before, but it doesn't entirely surprise me. I worked at a startup where several different VPs had "three hour lunches" with this striking blond woman. 15 years later, I'm at this new company. My former boss started working there and she brought me over at a nice raise and promotion in title. My boss was also a bit of a gossip. And guess who also was working there? The "striking blond," still dressing in stiletto heels and very tight skirts. I was very tempted, but never said a word to my former boss.
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When you've got it, you've got it. ;) :ROFLMAO:

There's a girl that works at the law office one level below my office that looks like Mila Kunas. She seems to have both brains and bod, but there's also an asian girl that drives a BMW suv way to large for her and is always dressed like a little tart--I don't think she knows a thing about law. ;)
 
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