Stupid ideas our companies came up with

[Alan]

I suspect you are using the wrong term. Absolutely everything a company or a third party has is potentially "discoverable" unless it is privileged. The question is fundamentally who pays the cost of searching. If it is records you use, the defendant pays the cost. If you don't use the records the plaintiff pays the cost.
pretty good piece at
http://www.craigball.com/What_Judges_Should_Know_About_Discovery_from_Backup_Tapes-corrected.pdf

Good article and I may have used the wrong term, but as of last year no judge had ordered that any back-up tapes ever be mined for data.

From the article, since the company has never used backup tapes for any reason other than a true catastrophe then this is the argument that has always held up in court. (see the first 2 points that a judge considers).

I know that for certain (all?) criminal investigations this argument would not be valid. eg if an employee was suspected of being a paediophile and being investigated by the FBI then all his e-mail and browsing history must be produced.

The court may want to inquire:​

• Does the responding party routinely restore backup tapes to, e.g., insure the system is
functioning properly or as a service to those who have mistakenly deleted files?​

• Have any of the backup tapes at issue been restored in other circumstances and thus
accessible as information in other cases or held by third parties?​

• Does the responding party have the system capacity and in house expertise to restore the data?​

Not everyone has the idle system resources or personnel required to temporarily restore a prior
version of the data alongside the current version.​

• Can responsive data be searched and extracted without wholesale restoration of the tapes?​

Emerging software and tape technologies sometimes make this feasible.​

• Have you compared your projected in-house restoration cost against the services of so-called
“tape houses” equipped to process large numbers of tapes at competitive prices? “Do it​

yourself” is not always cheaper.

 

[ls99]

I bet you're really gonna enjoy watching Honolulu build a light rail system...

Heh Heh, If you think a submarine is a money pit, wait for the light rail, the ultimate black hole. Well maybe a monorail would be close runner up.

 

[MikeD]

Heh Heh, If you think a submarine is a money pit, wait for the light rail, the ultimate black hole. Well maybe a monorail would be close runner up.

YouTube - the simpsons - monorail song

 

[Emeritus]

Good article and I may have used the wrong term, but as of last year no judge had ordered that any back-up tapes ever be mined for data.

ZUBULAKE V
Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, 2004 WL 1620866 (S.D.N.Y. July 20, 2004). During an ongoing discovery dispute in an employment discrimination case, the employee moved for sanctions against the employer for failing to produce backup tapes containing relevant emails and for failing to produce other relevant documents in a timely manner. See Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, 220 F.R.D. 212 (S.D.N.Y. 2003). In this latest motion, the employee contended that the employer, who recovered some of the deleted relevant emails, prejudiced her case by producing recovered emails long after the initial document requests. Furthermore, some of the emails were never produced, including an email that pertained to a relevant conversation about the employee. As such, the employee requested sanctions in the form of an adverse inference jury instruction. Determining that the employer had wilfully deleted relevant emails despite contrary court orders, the court granted the motion for sanctions and also ordered the employer to pay costs. The court further noted that defense counsel was partly to blame for the document destruction because it had failed in its duty to locate relevant information, to preserve that information, and to timely produce that information. In addressing the role of counsel in litigation generally, the court stated that "[c]ounsel must take affirmative steps to monitor compliance so that all sources of discoverable information are identified and searched." Specifically, the court concluded that attorneys are obligated to ensure all relevant documents are discovered, retained, and produced. Additionally, the court declared that litigators must guarantee that identified relevant documents are preserved by placing a "litigation hold" on the documents, communicating the need to preserve them, and arranging for safeguarding of relevant archival media.

 

[M Paquette]

Oh man....why didn't I think of doing stuff like that?

Corporate policies should always be examined for potential entertainment opportunities. It keeps the fun in work, and prevents most managers from taking themselves too seriously.

Left on the inside of the office door for the next occupant:

 

[clifp]

Heh Heh, If you think a submarine is a money pit, wait for the light rail, the ultimate black hole. Well maybe a monorail would be close runner up.

The monorail was one of the options that was being considered. LS what system did you work for? I am so not looking forward to paying for Honolulu light rail system.

 

[Nords]

I am so not looking forward to paying for Honolulu light rail system.

Technically we're already paying for it, and the only question is whether or not the EIS will ever enable one to be built!

I wonder if the $4.5B price tag (or whatever we're calling it this week) should be paid out to Honolulu's commuters, enabling them to ER and get their cars off the road.

 

[ls99]

The monorail was one of the options that was being considered. LS what system did you work for? I am so not looking forward to paying for Honolulu light rail system.

Baltimore. Some fun numbers: The original fleet of 18 cars, 1.8 mill per car, with options for an additional 20 or so at roughly the same price.

These are custom design wide body, with the then governor's lady companion choosing the decor.

Six months after the expiration of the option, the wise leaders decided to buy more. The new price? 2.6 million.

At the public planning hearings everybody lies about the real costs.

 

[Koolau]

Got a couple more if we're not tired of hearing how stupid our companies were (are?).

Division director steps up to the podium and begins a litany of cuts and changes "mandated" by our dismal couple of quarters. The usual: no travel (except for mgmt. types), no raises (except for mgmt. types) etc. etc. etc. (the "management types" language was left out but understood by all.) In other words, the usual suspects. Then the zinger. I'll try to quote but I'm sure memory fails.

"We're placing a log by each copy machine on which each copy made must be documented as to the person making the copy and the business reason for making the copy."

This little gem had never been instituted in past "down turns" and I'm assuming everyone of the 200 or so folks in the room thought it was some sort of comic relief after the "believable" but disheartening litany of cut-backs. The 200+ folks in the audience exploded in laughter and were nearly rolling in the aisles until they noticed that the director wasn't even smiling. It got very quiet. He was serious - and went on to explain how much we were spending on copies, blah, blah, blah.

The program lasted for several months until it was quietly discontinued. I'm sure someone determined that it was costing a lot more to document copies than to pay for the few extra "personal" copies that folks now documented as "spoiled"- the official speak for copies that didn't turn out.

Another classic not so company wide, this time. A couple hundred of us lab types got called into a room and were informed that we would all now be randomly drug tested because there was a potential for us to deal with controlled substances as a part of our jobs. This wasn't even close to true as the CS were handled by perhaps 5 of us under strict lock-and-key accountability following bonding, back-ground checks, etc. But that's not the crazy part. We were used to wastes of money for gnat/sledgehammer tactics such as this one. The rest of the story is a lot more interesting. The HR rep who was informing us all of the new testing program warned us in strictest terms to refrain from eating anything with poppy seeds in it as this would give a false positive in our urine tests and could lead to termination. About a week later the HR rep got back to all of us (by email - go figure) that only those directly handling CS would be in the random testing program. She never retracted the poppy seed admonition and I'm sure she was correct that most first-pass tests would pick up opiate traces of those consuming poppy seeds. Still, we had subsequently researched the issue and found that any urine positives would be followed up by more stringent blood tests with GC/MS confirmation prior to terminations.

From then on, the HR woman was known as "False-Positive" Mary. She was soon "promoted" to another company site.

One more.

No specifics (thankfully, I've forgotten most) but our performance appraisal systems were nearly always a (bad) joke, but at least they never got stale. The longest we ever kept the same system was 3 years. I was there so long that "old" systems were reinstituted as new, more fair PAs. We actually arrived at a system which I think was not only fair but even motivating to the employees. Middle management, line supervision, scientific staff and technical staff actually got with the program and supported it. Unheard of. It lasted 2 years and was replaced by a draconian "bell shaped curve model".

 

[donheff]

... our performance appraisal systems were nearly always a (bad) joke... We actually arrived at a system which I think was not only fair but even motivating to the employees. Middle management, line supervision, scientific staff and technical staff actually got with the program and supported it. Unheard of. It lasted 2 years and was replaced by a draconian "bell shaped curve model".

Alright, you peaked my interest. What sort of appraisal system was well received?

 

[DeborahB]

Anonymous evaluations. Everyone could evaluate anyone in the company - from janitor to CEO - anonymously! It was supposed to allow more candid evaluations...

Well, it turned into a big bash fest. People used the opportunity to settle scores, take pot shots at people and spread false rumors about their foes. It was ugly.

We only can evaluate our manager and other co-workers if asked. But it is theoretically anonymous, can damage our reviews (without knowing who/what context the issue came from) and oh yeah, they shred the evidence. I usually only give good reviews in this scenario, on the grounds that I want people to get raises.

 

[DeborahB]

I agree that it takes special talent to control IT people . Skill with a whip and a small handgun might qualify. IT people in general hate the idea that they are staff and not line and that they work for other people rather than the greater glory of the IT department. I conducted research for more than 20 years on the role of IT in health care. The same problems occur over and over and over again. Fundamentally in health care you have to keep the end users (medical types) happy, and you have to keep the system running properly ALL THE TIME. It is very difficult to find IT people who understand these concepts, much less how to do it. Add in the complex medical problems of "need to know" and patient privacy and you have an incredibly difficult task. Nothing in the training or experience of general IT people prepares them for the health care environment. Many Many Many companies have entered the field and failed dismally.

Actually, what I really hate is that the clinical people get the good tools and don't understand that IT needs money even though it's not a profit center. I find that the IT people here DO understand, but we get dismissive treatment a LOT by the clinical staff.

My "favorite" story is of a doctor who called the onsite help staff because his PC wasn't working. When told that someone would be there in 10 minutes (it's a very large building and long walk) he said "That's too long - I won't be here." Rudely.

 

[DblDoc]

Actually, what I really hate is that the clinical people get the good tools and don't understand that IT needs money even though it's not a profit center. I find that the IT people here DO understand, but we get dismissive treatment a LOT by the clinical staff.

My "favorite" story is of a doctor who called the onsite help staff because his PC wasn't working. When told that someone would be there in 10 minutes (it's a very large building and long walk) he said "That's too long - I won't be here." Rudely.

In my world (emergency medicine) 10 minutes is a long time. We spent 5 hours last night with part of our IT system off-line and the help desk "working on it". They finally gave up and said we would have to wait for the day crew. We limped to the finish line and exited with the comments that it is now a "DSP" (Day Shift Problem).

My favourite IT comment was when we were unable to print prescriptions one night because of a printer failure and were told that there is no one available to fix hardware at night. We were asked if we really needed to print prescriptions for patients "late at night" .

I do hear you though about $ support. Our hardware is outdated and overwhelmed. They are willing to spend money on software though - much of which works poorly. Oh and we will be "updating" to Windows XP service pack 3 mid-July .

DD

 

[Nodak]

The HR rep who was informing us all of the new testing program warned us in strictest terms to refrain from eating anything with poppy seeds in it as this would give a false positive in our urine tests and could lead to termination. ".

Don't know if you've ever watched "Mythbusters" but they proved this to be true and that the test would be positive for quite a few hours after consuming the poppy seed.

 

[Emeritus]

Actually, what I really hate is that the clinical people get the good tools and don't understand that IT needs money even though it's not a profit center. I find that the IT people here DO understand, but we get dismissive treatment a LOT by the clinical staff.

My "favorite" story is of a doctor who called the onsite help staff because his PC wasn't working. When told that someone would be there in 10 minutes (it's a very large building and long walk) he said "That's too long - I won't be here." Rudely.

Certainly Health IT costs money, lots of money, but as I said you have to keep the system running ALL THE TIME No, a doctor will not wait 10 minutes for you to show up. Even in the classroom IT system no one would wait 10 minutes for a tech to show up and start fixing the system. One way or another you have to keep the systems running and respond, in person or electronically much faster.

 

[Emeritus]

My favourite IT comment was when we were unable to print prescriptions one night because of a printer failure and were told that there is no one available to fix hardware at night. We were asked if we really needed to print prescriptions for patients "late at night" .
.
DD

I did a Sabbatical in health care information systems in the USA and Europe. Many software and hardware vendors are simply unprepared for an environment that simply will not tolerate the failures that are routine in other areas.

 

[Htown Harry]

Y2K training for every employee, whether they used a computer or not.

 

[Koolau]

Alright, you peaked my interest. What sort of appraisal system was well received?

Okay, maybe it wasn't universally well received, but relatively well received. Here's how it worked. Each director (whether he had 50 or 250 employees) was given a pot of money, based on the relative grade level of his employees and the number of employees. So, if he had mostly PHDs, he would get more money per head, but each employee got a "share" put into the director's pot.

Then each person who had reports (managers, dept. heads, supervisors, or scientists, etc.) had each employee fill out his own PA and submit it. Each PA would be discussed with its employee by his direct supervision. The 2 would come to some consensus on how good the year had been for the employee. Most "discrepancies" in performance were handled right then and there.

Only thing left to do was to see who got what share of the pot of money. Each "rank" (technician, scientist, staff person, etc.) was then evaluated in a group session and ranked against his/her peers. So, theoretically, all people of the same "rank" COULD have evenly split the pot. In fact what happened (I know, 'cause I was there fighting for my employees to get their fair share) was that each person in the room would discuss his/her reports and then all reports were literally ranked on a white board. The numbering system was arbitrary. It could be 1 to 5 or I saw 1 to 25 one time. You could end up with 7 5's, 8 9's, 2 10's, 11 13's, .... 0 25's, etc. The pot was then split based on the person's relative position. There WAS NO FIT to a curve. All could be high or all could be low or it could come out as a bell shaped curve. Each person who supervised had an equal vote (and responsibility to fight for his reports). I watched it all happen and with few exceptions thought it came out very well. Keep in mind that we all knew everyone who was being discussed and no one would stand for one person getting a very much higher or lower evaluation then was deserved.

I explained this system to my reports and others of similar "rank" and they were impressed if still just a bit skeptical that it would turn out. I heard very little complaining about raises during those 2 years. It was truly a thing of beauty because it was administered very well - forgot to mention that a manager (who also knew everyone's work) was the facilitator. He/she never let anyone get away with anything when it came to pushing one individual over another. It was time-consuming, but I think worth it.

 

[Koolau]

Don't know if you've ever watched "Mythbusters" but they proved this to be true and that the test would be positive for quite a few hours after consuming the poppy seed.

Missed that episode, but, yes, I was aware that poppy seeds contain traces of opiate derivatives. I think I mentioned in my post that gas chromatography with mass spectrometry detection was used for anyone who was found with a "positive" urine test at our company. So, poppy seed alkaloyds could be distinguished from, say, morphine or heroine, etc. No one, to my knowledge, was ever terminated under this program, though others were for using street drugs (but only after being tested "for cause" - not because of this program). Actually, alcohol was still our biggest problem.

 

[bssc]

I can sympathize with the stories. I worked as a programmer in a Biomed Shop. Hospital IT would not touch any computer hooked to a clinical device so we ended taking care of them. They preferred to work on billing systems and the like. So our group would get paged when clinical computers went down. I understand that this is no longer the case but on the other hand, my software I wrote 18 years ago, is still being used.

I also got sent to the Hospital safety committee meetings since everyone else was busy and the director wanted someone there to show the flag. I got to wear my lab coat and look knowledgeable. I learned the first year residents and the cleaning staff are dangers to themself.

As for ratings, the system was moved from 1 to 5 down to 1 to 3 with 15-20 percent being 1s, 75 to 80 percent being 2s and the remaining 5 percent being 3s. Oh well.

 

[Emeritus]

The 2 would come to some consensus on how good the year had been for the employee. Most "discrepancies" in performance were handled right then and there..

The academic merit pay system was very straight forward. Getting a merit raise required:

1) getting an offer from a peer university (anyone who would ever consider working at any other kind of institution was not considered a serious academic)
2) Being a person the management wanted to keep (in my shop that meant you brought in big government grants.)

This was called "matching the market" and resulted in vast differences in salary to people who were essentially doing the same work at the same level. People who were not "mobile" i.e. generally those with families who could not solicit a peer institution across the country were paid less. It also meant if the Peer institutions did not offer your field or were not hiring in your field your salary simply stagnated.
The management defended the system as being "objective" and therefore "fair"

 

[scrabbler1]

Don't know if you've ever watched "Mythbusters" but they proved this to be true and that the test would be positive for quite a few hours after consuming the poppy seed.

Don't forget about the Seinfeld episode where Elaine flunks a drug test due to her eating a poppy seed roll. Later, she eats another one but is tipped off to its effect on her upcoming retest and smuggles into the test the urine of Jerry's mother (who has osteoperosis) so she keeps her job but can't travel to Asia like she wanted LOL!

 

[Nodak]

Missed that episode, but, yes, I was aware that poppy seeds contain traces of opiate derivatives. I think I mentioned in my post that gas chromatography with mass spectrometry detection was used for anyone who was found with a "positive" urine test at our company. So, poppy seed alkaloyds could be distinguished from, say, morphine or heroine, etc. No one, to my knowledge, was ever terminated under this program, though others were for using street drugs (but only after being tested "for cause" - not because of this program). Actually, alcohol was still our biggest problem.

That episode of "Mythbusters" was from maybe the second season. You're right, where I worked alcohol problems were much more serious than any street drug. In my tenure a lot of people were disciplined for alcohol but I don't remember anyone for street drugs.

 

[brewer12345]

My recent fave was an initiative that was supposed to address employee concerns about how the place is run, culture, etc. They got a bunch of well-meaning dupes from the ranks to work up somewhat vague issues into concrete problems with proposed solutions. Said dupes then presented their findings at a division- wide meeting for comment and as a basis for further work. Right away, VPs stood up and started banging away at anything that was not complete pap. End result was that each of the teams of dupes were required to have a "sponsor" from senior mgmt who could more effectively gut what was supposed to be an employee-driven process. It continues today and every time they publicly present what they are doing it becomes more watered down. But they are "empowering" employees...

 

[zedd]

Annual employee surveys. A third-party comes up with 20 questions relevant to all but the actual worker bees. The results are compiled and lo and behold without fail lack of leadership and failure to communicate vision float to the top of the list as serious problem areas. So what does management do? They assemble a committee of worker bees to study the problem, non of whom have the authority to change anything.