12 ms·

So in addition to the criminal side of things I guess the ex-admin wants to work in manual labor or fast food. There is no way in hell he'd have the references

• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• whalesalad 9y ago
  We hired a guy once who, a few weeks after starting, had to take three weeks off to serve jail time for his 3rd DUI. Good times.
  • vkou 9y ago
    A little bit off-topic, but stories like this lead me to wonder why mandated ignition locks are not more prevalent.
    • jo909 9y ago
      And then we add a mandatory breathalyzer check to the remote VPN login. Because if people believe they can still drive, they might just believe they can still answer the pager.
      • madamelic 9y ago
        YOLO is not really a phrase you should use on-call. :)
    • beat 9y ago
      I once saw a pitch for Google VC by a company selling mandated breathalyzer ignition locks - and insurance. The founders were a criminal lawyer and an insurance salesman (brothers). Their angle was to get state legislation passed, and win per-state government monopolies on the interlocks - and then cross-market auto insurance to drivers who had to buy the interlocks, because most carriers won't insure drivers after a DUI. It was the creepiest, most cynical thing I've ever seen. Those guys are gonna be RICH.
      • bm1362 9y ago
        That's interesting. You can read it a few ways, one sounds like a company tailored to the problems of being a post-DUI offender. If the traditional systems fail you and you need a vehicle for transportation this might be a solution. The other is a company that has a captive market and squeezes them like the rest of the justice economy.
        • Dylan16807 9y ago
          It's not really two ways of reading an action. It's two separate actions. One is providing insurance to people with interlocks. The other is using a monopoly to promote that insurance.
          • nickpsecurity 9y ago
            In oligopoly form, it's exactly what the car insurance companies did paying off legislators to require their product, setting the standards for how the insurance is supposed to be done, selling that now-mandated product at nice profits, and then municipalities and states making nice profits off the tickets and fines (esp off poor people).
    • zhengyi13 9y ago
      Every time I've seen them discussed, I see brought up that they're not especially reliable. Denying transport to someone who's got a history of doing anti-social things behind the wheel seems reasonable. But making them required for all vehicles (if I'm understanding your intention correctly) seems likely to have undesirable results.
      • seanp2k2 9y ago
        FWIW Toyota had a drunkenness-sensing steering wheel at least in concept for ~10 years ago: http://www.autoblog.com/2007/01/03/toyotas-sweat-sensing-steering-wheel-will-thwart-drunk-drivers/ http://www.autoblog.com/2007/01/03/toyotas-sweat-sensing-ste...
    • loeg 9y ago
      They're very expensive and they're not especially reliable.
      • douche 9y ago
        Like, stupid expensive. Kids, don't ever put yourself in that situation. Call an uber/lyft/whatever.
        • loeg 9y ago
          Yeah, it's a seller's market. If you get a DUI and have to drive to get to work, you have to pay it. And the public is (understandably) largely unsympathetic to extraneous costs for drunk drivers.
    • moron4hire 9y ago
      There were a few guys at the bar I used to hang out at that had several DUIs, had the ignition lock, yet somehow seemed to get on the road after closing the bar.
    • ubernostrum 9y ago
      Breath tests are notoriously unreliable/inaccurate, to such a degree that in some jurisdictions the law is now phrased entirely in terms of a machine reading since it's been established there's no reliable relationship between the machine reading and blood alcohol level. Seriously, read up on the history of breath-test machines sometime. Everything from difficult chemistry to literal "oops we misplaced a decimal point in the software".
      • lancewiggs 9y ago
        Not for evidential breath testers used here by police in NZ. The blood tests always back up the breath test, and have done so for years.
  • Spooky23 9y ago
    I had a retail customer once (I sold pc stuff to SMBs in college) who made a big purchase via credit card. The cashier got a weird code, and got transferred to a person who asked for a supervisor (me), and then asked yes/no questions about the physical description of the guy. Then they gave me some code to clear the transaction. I was checking out the Sunday paper a few days later (this was the 90s), and it turned out that the guy was a fugitive who basically killed his wife and fed her to the fishes. Pretty freaky stuff.
  • valuearb 9y ago
    "We hired a guy once who, a few weeks after starting, had to take three weeks off to serve jail time for his 3rd DUI' You flunked your own background check.
• ugh123 9y ago
  >They didn't share what was in his check but it wasn't good. Always ask to see the background check details if you're the hiring manager (you should have the rights to see that despite what HR might tell you). Could be just a personal issue an HR employee might have with a former colleague. Or discrimination-based (happens).
  • yardie 9y ago
    Didn't know I could do that. I've had my own background checks in the past and no one has shared them with me. Speaking to HR, unless there is a negative item on your record they aren't required to.
    • marzell 9y ago
      If the background check was done on you, I believe they have to provide a copy of all the data they received if you request it.
      • twohlix_ 9y ago
        Depends on the state.
        • deleted 9y ago
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      • pionar 9y ago
        At least at the federal level, no they don't. Unless they decided not to hire you (or fired you afterwards). Then they only have to provide "a notice that includes a copy of the consumer report you relied on to make your decision" - https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publications/background_checks_employers.cfm https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publications/background_checks_emp...
      • yardie 9y ago
        I've requested it, just for my own amusement. They told me no. Unless they didn't hire me based on something from that background check they didn't have to give it to you.
• damm 9y ago
  Background checks don't stop things like this. The problem is you have to hire trustworthy people in these positions. Regardless of what crime they may (or may not) have made; you are looking for the person and what they do. Not what they did. This is a common problem; we look at the past a bias of the future. Life only works out that way if the person is too unwilling to change; and that again is something you should look for in the hiring process. Lastly; hiring ex-hackers isn't a bad thing. Caring about a background check when hiring an ethical hacker or someone who turned their life around; only shames them and pushes them back where they came. So be careful or you only end up criminalizing being a criminal.
  • yardie 9y ago
    Sorry. If someone intentionally destroys company property I would want nothing to do with them, ever. This isn't a simple b&e where the perp rarely knows the victim. He was given the tools to do his job and intentionally used them to undermine his company and colleagues. Also, he is not a hacker, just an asshole. Having the admin login and password doesn't make you elite. The only weakness he exploited was himself.
    • damm 9y ago
      Being a criminal or commiting a crime has nothing to do with destroying company property. That's the problem with asking for people's background. What they did; and more importantly have they recovered and not commited another crime of similar circumstances. P.S. I knew a kid when I was younger who helped an ISP start up in Colorado Springs in the late 90's... he got fired and he hacked them and spent 6months in jail; eventually they re-hired him after he got out of jail only for a repeat offense. There is a point; he did it twice. The first time they could pass it off as they didn't know; the second time they hired him they were legally liable. So this gentleman should spend some time in jail for what he did.
  • mdekkers 9y ago
    The problem is you have to hire trustworthy people in these positions Yeah, that. Also, secure backups and compartmentalized systems and data access.
• redm 9y ago
  I've encountered many companies that are scared of lawsuits from bad references so responses, mandated by HR, are often limited to employment dates, and other very generic information. The mentality is, that person isn't our problem anymore, let someone else deal with them.
  • damm 9y ago
    On this case the person's problem is law enforcement. Basically they just need to pass off details to the FBI / local police and have the ex-admin arrested and put on trial. What he did was a crime If a company walks away from this and doesn't take legal action; they should themselves get sued by their customers. Destroying company property is a crime; wether it's defacing a website or ... it's not your property; you are just hired to maintain it (in one shape or another)
    • rurban 9y ago
      They are based in The Hague Netherlands, so they don't want call the FBI for sure.
• MichaelGG 9y ago
  He had the references to get hired at this job, right? So just leave the job you screwed off the resume. A similar thing happened to a client. Sysadmin logged into GCP and Azure immediately after termination and just deleted everything. He was in the UK, we were in the US. Wasn't worth it to try to get someone to prosecute, and I'm sure we're not listed as references. Did get people motivated for a multifactor delete bucket for extra backups.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• alt2319 9y ago
  > I guess the ex-admin wants to work in manual labor or fast food You'd be surprised. I did something somewhat similar and was convicted of a federal felony. No fast food place or retailer would touch me with that record. But ironically I've found plenty of IT work with smaller companies.
  • douche 9y ago
    Ironically, we are much laxer on those with more responsibility. When was the last time a middle manager or senior executive had to pass a piss test to be employed? It's routine in blue collar work.
    • dataminded 9y ago
      That's a vertical thing. I've had two financial services employers require a drug test.
      • jon-wood 9y ago
        Do they fire you if you're not testing positive for cocaine?
        • nickpsecurity 9y ago
          Not in Wall St for sure. Or they make sure the "right people" know it's coming ahead of time so they can buy the right stuff to cheat the tests. Plenty of drug use by managers in a lot of organizations I've been involved in. None were ever fired for it. A few were fired for the damaging behavior that resulted from it.
          • Stratoscope 9y ago
            You missed a word in jon-wood's comment (emphasis added): > Do they fire you if you're not testing positive for cocaine?
• cbsmith 9y ago
  > HR told us in no uncertain terms to run the other way. They didn't share what was in his check but it wasn't good. I always have a hard time with those contexts. HR sometimes has the wrong idea of what is unacceptable and what is appropriate. There really isn't a good reason for them not to tell you. The only thing that would make sense is if they shouldn't know it.
• dsacco 9y ago
  Why didn't you ask to see details from HR? There's no transparency in their decision making - how do you know he was turned away for a good reason?
  • Ensorceled 9y ago
    HR's view point is that the candidate has a right to privacy and their personal problems are none of the hiring manager's business.
    • valuearb 9y ago
      Any HR manager with that viewpoint should be fired on the spot. They work for the hiring manager. The hiring manager is the only advocate the candidate has, certainly not HR which will only cover their own ass.
• 1024core 9y ago
  I had a manager who was consistently underpaying me, significantly. When I quit in disgust, he threatened me that he'd make sure I never got another job. He had been milking my success to get lots of bonuses and raises for himself, even though I did absolutely all of the work and he just "managed" (which meant, ignored me completely). So he wasn't happy that I was quitting, and though he could bully me. Luckily for me, I didn't have to use him as a reference, as 2 other PMs agreed to vouch for me. So, just because a guy has a bad reference it does not mean that he's necessarily bad.
  • mb_72 9y ago
    "So, just because a guy has a bad reference it does not mean that he's necessarily bad." This is so true. Years ago I was brought into a company specifically to improve their software quality process, but without being aware one of the company owners (of which there was two) was against be being employed for that purpose. I uncovered a lot of incompetence and outright corruption with some employees. The 'good' owner went on stress leave, and then pressure was brought to bear on me, resulting in me quitting on the spot one Monday morning; not my proudest moment, but I couldn't take the pressure any more, and my ally was no-where to be seen. Fast forward a decade, and I interviewed with someone who used to work at the same company; it turns out that my leaving had been framed as 'fired for incompetence', and word had been put around part of the local industry that I was hard to work with, unreliable, bad at my job etc. I laugh about it now, but at the time it really bothered me about the possible damage done to my career and reputation.
  • morganvachon 9y ago
    First, I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, just my own limited knowledge and experience. I don't know what country you're in so I won't speculate on what's legal or not in your area, but here in the U.S. it's illegal for a prior employer to provide false information to a prospective new employer during a background/reference check. If your former boss tried to blacklist you like that, he'd put his company at risk for a civil suit. And, while it's not illegal to truthfully say that a current or former employee is a bad employee, doing so rides the thin line of opening the company up to a libel lawsuit. Generally speaking, a company might "dish the dirt" on a former employee if there are criminal charges to back up the claims. Even then, legal and HR will likely frown upon it. Usually, when the new company calls the old company for a reference, the old company will say something like "Yes, $employee worked here from $startDate to $endDate" and refuse to divulge any other information in order to avoid any semblance of libel. Once again, this is my limited experience in SMB and government settings, I have no experience in mid-to-large businesses, Fortune 500 companies, and Silicon Valley startups. We've all heard stories about managers at such companies going around HR and discussing potential hires at the bar or on the golf course.
• therealmarv 9y ago
  Is this deep background check again a US thing? In Germany it's even unlawful to ask potential employees if they are pregnant. It's essentially discrimination. Maybe some HR will check your social media accounts and search on Google for you but generally police records (at least my experience in IT) or even health records are not requested (or against law!) unless it's a high responsive job like e.g. becoming a police officer or maybe military.
  • Zak 9y ago
    Asking potential employees if they are pregnant, married, plan to become pregnant, have children already, etc... is illegal under US law as well. Common German practices like asking for a photograph on an application or CV or asking about a prospective employee's religion are also usually illegal in the US, as it's pretty hard to think of non-discriminatory reasons an employer would need that information. Asking previous employers about their experience with an employee, however is not illegal. It's usually not illegal for them to say something negative if it's true, though some businesses are conservative about what they will say out of fear of being sued for slander. Accessing public court records or news stories about criminal cases and using that information for employment purposes is usually not illegal. Asking prospective employees if they've been convicted of serious crimes is usually not illegal.
    • germanier 9y ago
      Who asks for a prospective employee's religion in Germany? Apart from church affiliated positions this is illegal here as well.
      • Zak 9y ago
        I think I may have confused it with Ireland or Northern Ireland where there's a legal mandate to keep track of it for anti-discrimination reporting. It does seem to be conventional to include one's photograph, age, sex, marital status, children or lack thereof and place of birth on a CV in Germany. It's not clear to me if it's actually problematic to exclude those, but it's my impression that not following conventions tends to not go over especially well in Germany.