The mind BOGGLES.

[no-smorking.livejournal.com]

Long time lurker, first time poster. I work in a corporate IT department for a large non-profit org. The EVP of my department has a particularly obnoxious assistant. She constantly violates guidelines and policies, but she's untouchable - even a group of the IT managers have complained about her, to no avail.

Today marks the most bizarre thing I can remember her ever doing.

Apparently at some point yesterday she called the helpdesk and inquired about ordering some additional equipment - a USB drive, an extra battery, etc. As is our (not new) policy, we request some additional information, like - what's the model laptop you want to use this for? what's the budget number? All stuff she's had to give us plenty of times. The helpdesk agent (we'll call him J) keeps the ticket open in his own queue pending the additional information.

This evening I get home and check my email. Oh, joy! I'm the lucky recipient of an email from the EVP's assistant! Except, I open it, and I'm *not* the recipient. It's addressed to J. I've apparently been BCCd for some unfathomable reason. Oookay, not the first weird thing she's done, but it's not my problem.

I'm doing a little bit of work when I happen to come across this open ticket in J's queue. I peek at it since I'm there, and I see that ANOTHER agent (M) has pasted the mystery email in the activities.

Evidently, this woman has sent J an email and BCC'd my ENTIRE GROUP.

Who *does* this??? I can only imagine the fun and games when everyone else gets in tomorrow morning and has no idea why they have this email addressed to J.

Meteorology as a career is looking better and better.

Comments

[jecook]

Oy vey, and a half.

Has anyone in the Food chain talked to the VP?

[jecook]

Oh, and welcome aboard.

[no-smorking.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the welcome :)

Actually, a group of IT's managers talked to the EVP en masse. The problem is that he only reports to the CEO, and he thinks his assistant can do no wrong. So we are basically stuck with her until she screws up something so big she can't possibly blame it on someone else.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Heh. Don't do meterology. It's still shift work for crappy wages without the benefit of getting around corporate firewalls.

If the chain of command won't do the trick, it sounds like you need to start implementing BOFH policies with this assistant to get the point across. Things that will make her an embarassment to the EVP in such a way that will make the problems take care of themselves.

Just my dos centavos.

payback

[tecie.livejournal.com]

There are subtle ways to torture problem children, depending on your level of admin access. For example, if it's an AD and you have admin access to the AD console, nightly lockouts seem like a good idea. And of course don't forget to give her a hard time each time she calls, attempting to verify her identity in the most courteous way, perhaps lacking something like her real information.
Escalate it to her manager. Daily.
Subscribe her work email to lists that aren't work safe. Catch her, and get offended.
And just for fun, sign her up for lots of free samples. By lots, I mean make a night of it. Have a couple of friends over, connect to your neighbors open access point (we all have one...) and spend an hour or two looking for things like free preperation H, and whatnot.
I'm sure you can be much more creative then me... but these should get you started :-)

Re: payback

[no-smorking.livejournal.com]

This... is a great idea. I am in fact *the* admin. I'll have to think about this and see what I can think up for her...