Being relatively new to full-time working life, would you guys say scapegoating is a common occurrence between middle management and the workers when shyt hits the fan?

Here's the backstory: a coworker of mine is a working grunt like myself. We use laptops for work and his job requires him to transport his work laptop to/from various locations. On one trip, the laptop was stolen from his car and it may have contained valuable, proprietary data onboard. Upper management is steaming right now over the potential monetary risk and middle management blames my coworker for the loss, claiming that they were "unaware" he was transporting such data. There's no written policy about this particular matter and it was more of a verbal order from mid-management to lug the laptop back/forth. Mid-management seems to be using my coworker as a fall-guy to cover for their lack of written policy and to save their own asses.

Lessons to be learned perhaps being: don't trust anyone to fall on their sword if you can be thrown down instead, always ask for things in writing if it seems shady/risky, and don't do anything shady/risky to begin with....

(and really this isn't mine on the line, so feel free to speak ur mind)

hmm that really is the shitty end of the stick, I do the same with all of our clients data, the application Truecrypt is a free and handy thing to have installed

a sad fact is that he can prove he was following orders and a non-protocol but the working atmosphere is not going to be the same again, does he still want to work for these dickheads?

Maybe this will help...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG0_05Udm2U

Sounds about right, its not that they are that cunning and want to use him as a scapegoat they just want to put their hands in the air and say we had no clue, which is why they are middle management, accountability is not their strong suit. According to my work policy we arent supposed to have any type of hardrive device at work, camera phones, ipods, laptops, SD cards, Blank CDs etc etc unless company issued. At the same time with what I do, we need to be multiple places during a project, and sometimes rarely at our desks for extended amounts of time, other areas or even off site. We need cellphones period, yet seems the powers above only can entrust middle management with these types of things, which then inturn forces our hand in carrying our own phones, we actually use them openly. The problem, we could at any time get called on this fact and basically canned on the spot. Quite a card to carry when you want to get rid of someone and dont need a real reason.

Echoing a lot of my thoughts here. Dougle, my company's unwillingness to invest in adequate securityware is grossly apparent so the wake up call is plenty fair. And easze, the way the modern world works, we just can't operate successfully w/o mobile tech. Nothing like getting fired or punished for trying to your job. I almost think the guy should leave on principle for greener pastures. Quite a dilemma since he had hopes of moving up the ladder eventually but I think that's a lost cause at this point.

Lol great vid too! Actually that truecrypt looks pretty interesting. As cheap as they are, maybe "free, open source" will sound appealing enough. The result of this whole mess is that things are going Code Orange over here with management who don't know shit about tech security making up new half-baked protocols.

You Gen-Y's need to man up a bit and shoulder the blame yourself instead of being spoon fed bloody everything. Just because it is not written down or "company policy" does not mean that common sense should not come into play. I mean seriously, if you leave a laptop in the back of the car I would not expect to see it there later on. Scapegoat, c'mon he f@cked up and should accept the consequences.
The company I work for is currently drafting a work instruction on how to deal with Gen-Y employees, you know give them a hug before work, let them have a lie down on the bean bag and play the PS3 after lunch, WTF.
If I was his boss I would sack his arse give him a box of tissues and call his mum to come and pick him up.

Said like a true Gen A piece a work

Good points tho and lucky for him his level of experience saved his ass from getting tossed outright by not being easily replaced. Also, I'm sure the last thing my mid-managers wanted to say was "Fire 'em" cuz they know it's their asses on the line as well for not putting better protection policies in place to begin with....you play w/ fire (no pun intended) you'll get burned.

mate im a gen y er and im doing 50 to 70hrs a week depending on how much goes wrong.

being an engineer in the coal industry (was oil and gas) keeps you very busy. Although if i were to lose my laptop for some unseen reason i would get a slap over the wrist and a new lap top within the day.

although i would smack myself in the face if i lost it... all backed up on a server anyway. Nothing that matters too much if someone gets hold of it

Its not the laptop that is the issue its just the fact that everyone and not just Gen-Y must accept the consequence's of their actions and not try to blame it on the fact that "I wasnt told" or "Its not company policy". I'm sure lots of companies have data that they do not want to leave the confines of their offices and that the perpetrator should accept the fact that he f@cked up and try not to punt the blame on the system.

Touché

BTW PBRnr isnt Bonzai a very small form or horticulture practiced by the Japanese?

Fair point but we all know that sh1t flows downwards.

get used to it mate, it's a dog eat dog world out there and if anyone can duck shuffle responsibility or blame they usually will. i work in the electricity distribution industry, extremely safety orientated with tons of paperwork to be completed, letter perfect, before any actual work can be done. ALL this paperwork is for one reason only, to allocate blame, the company says they trained us just cause we sign a sheet when we have a team brief, we then sign on to a risk assessment, when shit happens the company is free and clear, it's all on the field crew, regardless of outside influences because "we were trained" and our licence says we're responsible.
golden rule, CYA, cover your arse! don't leave yourself open so other people can take advantage of you, if you stuff up take responsibility for it, if you're asked to sign anything ask for it to be explained to you first.

paul.

hey hey, i'm a yankee, we don't have a king (barring elvis of course)...plus tiny trees are really cool

yeah but can you catch flies with chopsticks?