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| Non-WTF Job: C++ Developer at Good Grievance (Ronkonkoma, NY) |
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| Non-WTF Job: C++ Developer at Good Grievance (Ronkonkoma, NY) |
| « 1.5: The New Contractor | Do You Sure? » |
After a few years at a large, soulless corporate conglomerate, "Henry L." needed a change. Since his skills were in high demand, he had no trouble lining up interviews at several other large, soulless corporate conglomerates. He'd grown tired of working at such large companies, though, and started looking into some smaller businesses.
After scrolling through a few pages of job posts, he found one that sounded perfect. "Small firm in the financial industry seeks skilled, motivated developer." Henry took a deep breath and called the number.
"Hello, Tilde Financial Services, this is Gary."
"Hello, my name is Henry L., and I'd like to speak with your human resources department regarding the open develo-"
"Oh, you've got the right guy! I'm the development lead. Can you come in for an interview today? I'm free around 2:00."
Henry was stunned. "Do you want to review my resume fir-"
"Yeah, we'll go over it when you get here." Gary talked really fast — like he was either really smart, really busy, or should've been doing Micro Machines commercials.
Henry hung up the phone, still stunned. At his last job, he didn't hear back regarding his application for a month. Then he had to go through two levels of HR, three separate interviews in five weeks, on top of spending a night in the haunted house, which apparently all of the other employees had to do too before getting an offer. And here he was, calling the general line which was answered by the lead developer, who had just scheduled him an interview in... crap, 45 minutes!
Henry scrambled to get ready, printed out a few copies of his resume, and headed out the door. When he arrived, he was immediately greeted by Gary who politely, though rapidly, introduced himself. The interview went well, though Henry got the sense that he was talking too slowly for Gary. While Henry was driving home from the interview, Gary called him with an offer. Henry accepted, and would start the following Monday.
When Monday came, Henry arrived to his brief orientation session, in which the other 11 people on staff halfheartedly introduced themselves before returning to their desks. Henry was led to his workspace and told to wait for Ernie to set up his email account.
After a few hours of arranging his desk, trying to remember his coworkers' names, and committing the food-marking policy for the company fridge to memory, Ernie showed up at Henry's desk.
"All right, you're all set now! Your login is henry.l@tildefinancial.com and your password is T9s6-uYS." Ernie handed Henry a Post-It with the information, as well as instructions for remote access to his email.
"Great. Is there a password policy I need to follow? Should I change it right away?"
"No, no, no. Definitely not. Do not change your password unless I tell you to."
"I'm sorry; why am I not supposed to change the password?"
Ernie rolled his eyes as if Henry just had asked what letter comes before "B." "Because," Ernie explained, "we all share the same password. It's so we have access to all the email, even if you leave." Henry got the feeling that the date that he'd leave had just moved significantly closer.
"But then... after I left, wouldn't that mean that I had access to everyone else's email with this remote login information?"
"Well, uh, yeah, I suppose. Don't do that, though."
Henry didn't stay long enough to see how well their honor system-based IT security policy worked for them.
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Ah the good old days... My interview at new media company about 7 years ago comprised being shown my desk and where the kitchen was :)
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Having been part of several small start ups, I'm definitely familiar with this story. I am a bit disheartened that the reaction of the writer was to leave. To believe that a small shop would be implementing every aspect of their business (finance, HR, security, etc.) to the level that a large soulless company does is unreasonable. If you bring an ability that can could help (the ability to increase the security model or even the ability to help point it in the right direction) then I would think you would be well served to do so. There are a lot of minuses to working for a small company but they are usually outweighed by the pluses. To each their own.
-cheese |
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While sharing a password is an extreme example, a lot of small companies can get away with lax security standards. I don't know if it's exactly "security by obscurity" but basically "no one really cares about us". An example would be giving admin rights to everyone. They just "know" what they should and should not do. Just to save time creating groups and administering that side of the fence.
Whereas larger companies take security to the other extreme. At my former employer laptops are mandatory. They started encrypting everything on laptops. Smart idea... except they picked a crappy supplier and the encryption service blue screened everyone's laptops at least twice per day. Just imagine the lost work of 50,000 laptops getting blue screened every day. |
| « 1.5: The New Contractor | Do You Sure? » |
