Why Dark Manager's Shouldn't mess with a Geek

Hacker Disables More Than 100 Cars Remotely

• By Kevin Poulsen
• March 17, 2010 |
• 1:52 pm |
  

More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments.

Police with Austin’s High Tech Crime Unit on Wednesday arrested 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez, a former Texas Auto Center employee who was laid off last month, and allegedly sought revenge by bricking the cars sold from the dealership’s four Austin-area lots.

For the rest of the news: here

Getting Subordinates to do more than expected

Last week I was asked how on how I'd manage a situation where the manager has assigned an R&D duty to a staff that has never done that before.

First off, I inquired as to whether she accepted the task or not; and the answer was yes. Well, that means you have there is a person with good attitude who willingly accepts "challenges". However, I was enlightened to the fact that she does not even know where to start & the manager didn't bother to check on her leaving her to gripe to this friend of mine.

Which brings me to the conclusion that :-

1. She's an excellent Dark Management candidate for accepting "challenges" beyond her abilities.
   
2. The manager is fucked

Primarily "because" she has such "good" attitude, the subordinate will probably not tell the manager that the task can't be done until probably the final 2 hours. And secondly; the manager assumes that by divesting responsibility the problem lies with the staff.

As a dark manager I'd apply Principle 5 from "Your First Day as a Dark manager" where you load up your most capable staff to avoid the situation in the first place. Unfortunately; this manager is now forced to apply the methods in what to do when the shit hits the fan.

How to handle Dumb and Dumber

A friend asked; what do I do with staffs that are just too dumb to be any good. To be honest, all the training in the world is not going to change him/her because "dumbness" is an attitude; not a skill deficiency.

It's like a sense of initiative or curiosity, it is not a condition or an affliction, but a state of mind. So a Dark Manager will take one of the following options

a) Assign him to the most mind numbing task possible, as typically folks at the shallow end of the IQ spectrum have a high threshold for boredom.
b) Give him a glorious commendation to be transferred to another department.

Either way, out of sight, out of mind.

Seriously though, dark managers love dumb resources because it's the few people in the world that can withstand the dark manager's ingenuity (note: sarcasm).

When you work with stupid people

The hinges to my notebook starts giving way and I mistakenly approached the peons instead of working my way down from the department head. So this is what I got

"According to our record, your notebook will be reaching its leasing maturity period in less than 3 months from now. So, if the current one still can be stretched for this period of time, we will be very grateful for your understanding. Should the notebook fails completely, then we will assist to find you a replacement unit, though it may be a challenge as we do not keep any spares"

Try replacing that email with a doctor patient scenario:-

“I am sorry, but your pacemaker is up for renewal only in 3 months time, we know its faulty now; but hopefully it will last that long… but if it kaputs on you we will try to find a replacement pacemaker… and I hope you understand that it’s really hard to find a replacement when it breakdown too, cause we don’t keep spares… ”

Which brings to mind Carol:-

2 weeks on the Job, inflicted by Selective Amnesia and the making of a Dark Padawan

40 hours a week, 80 hours into the job; there’s bound to be a management instruction (from you) causing outages or impact to the customer. Compounded by your desire and haste to win brownie points from the CEO and “Platinum Level Customers”, the order was executed without proper change management procedures or fall back plans.

Principles of Selective Amnesia

• Never leave any written proof of your instructions.
  That means no instructions over email. It should always be verbally communicated. Email and sms is one sure way of being reminded of the instructions which you have conveniently repressed.
• While explaining the situation. Never provide instruction details
  Keep it high level, with a solid, almost impossible dateline. I want the VP to have the new spanking Outlook/Exchange email by lunch (This is after the team has spent 32 hours hacking the smtp file to setup the exchange server in the first place).
• When shit happens, start the interrogation first; practice this hard as you need to be an Oscar level actor
  Look at your no.1 guy straight in the eye and ask him calmly.
  
  “Do you know anything about the exchange server going down during lunch time?”, in which case, the ever zealous newbie will reply,

“yeah… we tried to provide email to the VP …” and your stoic answer would be an almost awed and surprised.

“Oh (eyes wide, mouth opened), I didn’t even know about that, this shall be investigated (squeeze your brows together) and we’ll have to report the person that did this to the CEO”. A short, snappy and stern display of amnesia.

The colour of your staff will turn pale now, and at the slightest hint of indignation or a comeback, quickly exit the conversation. But not before sneaking in

“Prepare a report for me and we’ll see the CEO together”

Here’s the takeaway, your staff will potentially be pretty pissed cause you’re the one that issued the instructions, however, he can’t do anything, as by admitting the act, he’ll stand out as the perpetrator.

The duality of the situation will be so divisive that eventually, the answer in the report will be a story about how the server suddenly reboots itself before the team could even do anything.

Alas, you have created a disciple, truly, one who is capable of beguiling himself and you of the real incident. Indeed, you are one step closer to become a Dark Management Master.