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Curse thee to hell ethics!!!
In my new job, it is a lot like my old job, we're "tech support" but one of our primary obligations is inventory, inventory management and loss prevention. Here I am one of the worlds tightest inventory control tight-asses. If something goes missing then I went out of my way to find out where it is and who did it and made sure it was reported if it was actually missing and not just misplaced.
When I came onto the tech team, there were two people in the office but both had been too busy to really keep up with it and neither of them are inventory geeks like I am.
I'd like to say I did a hostile takeover of the inventory management (under my team lead's watchful eye) but there was no resistance from the other two. Also since I've been on the team 3 weeks now and know the basics of the system I figured it was a good time to straighten out the inventory in the tech room.
Can I say that was a big mistake unless I'm a masochist and don't even know it. Also, mind you all of this training is done though MSN chat since my team lead is a 4 hour drive away. OK, so I'm a double masochist and don't even know it.
I'm going over the list and let's just say most of the stuff is missing. Computers, laptops, parts, and so on. I'm willing to bet MOST of it is in stores just hasn't been documented in the system yet. We also had many "loose" parts (hard drives, PCMCIA slots, power supplies, keyboards, mice, docking stations etc.. like any established tech room would have. This stuff technically doesn't exist, it's not there we have it so our clients don't have to wait for replacements to come in (how productive can you be if the hard drive in your laptop is bad?).
Then, things got scary and my ethics got in the way.
Let me repeat this, if it is not in the inventory system, it DOES NOT EXIST THERE. You could take it and no one would know or they could track it. Every major piece of equipment has a serial number tag on them so the company can keep track of them (so Employee X has laptop serial#, monitor serial#, printer serial# and so on). Smaller things, hard drives, keyboards, mice do not have serial numbers.
I see a laptop that has been sitting there since I started. I look up the serial number. It was reported as missing 4 month ago. This serial number is not in our inventory (repeat the last paragraph). I report it to the team lead and she tells me how to fix it in the system and pray this doesn't happen too much (hint hint). I am looking around the room more and I notice a new computer. Guess what? That serial number was reported as "missing" 3 months ago. I run it by the team lead again, and I can tell she's annoyed at it.
I open a box and this is where my ethics stepped in line. Inside it was a brand new, never been used (other to install company software) laptop. This is the newest one that we use. I could have very easily put that in my laptop bag (I could fit two laptops in there if I wanted to) with the power supply and no one would have known. Of course, being IT I could have just walked out of corporate with it in broad daylight and no one (maybe except the other IT guys) would have questioned it when I put it into my car. But my ethics got in the way. I reported it and put it back into our inventory to use at a later time for an exchange. My team lead is not happy.
Today, I open another box and inside it is a brand new computer, the one the store techs use for their high demand applications (not a bad machine) and wouldn't you know it, the serial number came up as "missing" and was adjusted as that about 2 months ago. It is now sitting under my desk because I think the team lead will blow a gasket if I report this one. I was speaking to a friend of mine on the phone and he said he knew a lot of IT people and a lot of times it is easier and less stressful to just take it home. Of course, I am not going to do that.
I decided to walk around the room to see what else we had:
This is not including about 2 dozen mice, 3 dozen keyboards, countless RJ-45 cables (1 foot, 3 foot, 10 foot, 25 foot, 50 foot), dozens of 6-10 foot fiber-optic cables, 15-20 2.5 inch hard drives (ranging form 20GB to 60GB) for laptops, phones, about 5 dozen laptop power supplies, and so on.
If someone unethical came in they could set their house up with one sweet network system at no cost.
On a good note I learned how to punch-down phone lines in the PBX today!
In my new job, it is a lot like my old job, we're "tech support" but one of our primary obligations is inventory, inventory management and loss prevention. Here I am one of the worlds tightest inventory control tight-asses. If something goes missing then I went out of my way to find out where it is and who did it and made sure it was reported if it was actually missing and not just misplaced.
When I came onto the tech team, there were two people in the office but both had been too busy to really keep up with it and neither of them are inventory geeks like I am.
I'd like to say I did a hostile takeover of the inventory management (under my team lead's watchful eye) but there was no resistance from the other two. Also since I've been on the team 3 weeks now and know the basics of the system I figured it was a good time to straighten out the inventory in the tech room.
Can I say that was a big mistake unless I'm a masochist and don't even know it. Also, mind you all of this training is done though MSN chat since my team lead is a 4 hour drive away. OK, so I'm a double masochist and don't even know it.
I'm going over the list and let's just say most of the stuff is missing. Computers, laptops, parts, and so on. I'm willing to bet MOST of it is in stores just hasn't been documented in the system yet. We also had many "loose" parts (hard drives, PCMCIA slots, power supplies, keyboards, mice, docking stations etc.. like any established tech room would have. This stuff technically doesn't exist, it's not there we have it so our clients don't have to wait for replacements to come in (how productive can you be if the hard drive in your laptop is bad?).
Then, things got scary and my ethics got in the way.
Let me repeat this, if it is not in the inventory system, it DOES NOT EXIST THERE. You could take it and no one would know or they could track it. Every major piece of equipment has a serial number tag on them so the company can keep track of them (so Employee X has laptop serial#, monitor serial#, printer serial# and so on). Smaller things, hard drives, keyboards, mice do not have serial numbers.
I see a laptop that has been sitting there since I started. I look up the serial number. It was reported as missing 4 month ago. This serial number is not in our inventory (repeat the last paragraph). I report it to the team lead and she tells me how to fix it in the system and pray this doesn't happen too much (hint hint). I am looking around the room more and I notice a new computer. Guess what? That serial number was reported as "missing" 3 months ago. I run it by the team lead again, and I can tell she's annoyed at it.
I open a box and this is where my ethics stepped in line. Inside it was a brand new, never been used (other to install company software) laptop. This is the newest one that we use. I could have very easily put that in my laptop bag (I could fit two laptops in there if I wanted to) with the power supply and no one would have known. Of course, being IT I could have just walked out of corporate with it in broad daylight and no one (maybe except the other IT guys) would have questioned it when I put it into my car. But my ethics got in the way. I reported it and put it back into our inventory to use at a later time for an exchange. My team lead is not happy.
Today, I open another box and inside it is a brand new computer, the one the store techs use for their high demand applications (not a bad machine) and wouldn't you know it, the serial number came up as "missing" and was adjusted as that about 2 months ago. It is now sitting under my desk because I think the team lead will blow a gasket if I report this one. I was speaking to a friend of mine on the phone and he said he knew a lot of IT people and a lot of times it is easier and less stressful to just take it home. Of course, I am not going to do that.
I decided to walk around the room to see what else we had:
- 2 Cisco 24 port 10/100 switches
- 1 HP Scanjet 6100
- 2 D-Link 32 port routers
- 2 Inten Xenon servers (estimated 2 GB ram and 150-200GBHDD)
- 2 21 inch CRT monitors
- 3 T1 servers
- 1 8 port KVM (Keyboard - Video - Mouse) switch
- 8 older PCs (not too old, BTW)
- 8 HP Jet-Direct printer-network cards (about $400 each)
This is not including about 2 dozen mice, 3 dozen keyboards, countless RJ-45 cables (1 foot, 3 foot, 10 foot, 25 foot, 50 foot), dozens of 6-10 foot fiber-optic cables, 15-20 2.5 inch hard drives (ranging form 20GB to 60GB) for laptops, phones, about 5 dozen laptop power supplies, and so on.
If someone unethical came in they could set their house up with one sweet network system at no cost.
On a good note I learned how to punch-down phone lines in the PBX today!
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