Friday 7 August 2009

The Rules of Work

I'm starting a new section called "The Rules of Work". My ideas and advice on how to flourish in an office environment, accumulated over the last decade and a half (almost) of working in offices in the UK - in banking, insurance, the Metropolitan Police, local councils, charities and IT departments. I've been around a bit ;)

Here are some rules to get you started:


Look Busy. When you walk somewhere in the office – to another part of the building, to the photocopier, to have a chat with your friend about anything – always carry file conspicuously held in your hand or tucked under your arm. If not a file then a notepad or a bunch of papers. Take something with you on every trip you make. It makes you look professional, like you have a purpose and are a dedicated guy who is focussed on their work and not an idler who is loafing around. Of course, you are focussed on your work. I know that, and you know that. But even if you’re going for a chat about what your friend did over the weekend, always carry your file with you; you always want to look busy.

If you make a mistake, for goodness’ sake don’t try and cover it up. Ever.

If it’s your fault apologise. Don’t try and qualify your apology, deflect blame or justify yourself. If you do it will be easy to spot and your apology will be ignored; in fact people will regard you worse than they did if you hadn’t apologised at all.

· When you write an email, put together the text first; add in the name of the addressee afterwards.

· Never write anything personal about anyone in an email. Ever. No matter how much of a git they are. Anything you type on a keyboard remains in cyberspace FOREVER and can come back and haunt you. IT departments are rubbish at most things but strangely are very good at keeping things that can damn you.

· Never badmouth anyone, even in private. You think it’s safe by the water cooler, but it’s not. For a start you can (and probably will) be overheard; but even if you’re not, your co-conspirator only needs to tell one person they think they can trust and the dominoes will start falling – a chain reaction which will lead inexorably to someone who will hear that you have been badmouthing their best buddy. Oops. If you really have to, criticise their work, never them personally. That way you have something to back yourself up with.

· Try and keep your private life out of your work life. Especially relationships.

Extradite Gary McKinnon

Always be suspicious when has-been ‘celebrities’ join forces with politicians to campaign for something. Especially when the something in question has been reduced to a black-and-white, good versus-evil protest with political agendas thrown in. Enter Gary McKinnon.

GK has admitted hacking into Pentagon computers and the US authorities, not surprisingly, want to try him for it. He's been fighting extradition. Not because he didn't do it - he's admitted that he did - but because (a) he doesn't think he can handle a long stretch in the clink and (b) he says really didn't mean it - he was looking for aliens, you see.

Now I don't know the full facts of the case. And neither do you. But neither, more importantly, do Boris Johnson and all the other media whores who have jumped on the McKinnon bandwagon. None of them know the full facts. But they are quite happy to prefer not to hear them in a court of law because it means they can use this case as a political football.

Boris Johnson's argument is that McKinnon is a 'classic British nut-job' - and so should not be tried on that basis! I didn't know that being a nut-job determined the validity or otherwise of an extradition request. Don't judge people by your own standards, Boris. The Daily Mail wants another stick to beat the Government with and so has championed his case. Gary McKinnon's mother is deluded in the way that only the mother of a criminal could be - 'not my boy!' is her argument.

There is a familiar narrative of self-pity in this tale. Our culture's first priority is to look for victimisation - either find it, or perpetrate it ourselves. So this story of an alleged crime and possible trial has instead been transmogrified into a pantomime story of victimhood: one of our boys being bullied by the American military; a poor hacker faced with oblivion by a faceless prison-system. No-one actually claims he didn't do it. It's just that his supporters don't want him to be punished; or more specifically, they don't want the Americans to punish him.

If McKinnon had hacked into the American branch of Stop the War, Save the Burkha, or The Campaign Stop the American Military Whilst Spreading Love and Happiness these protestors would swivel 180 degrees and be releasing albums urging he be packed off onto the first jet to the US.

Anti-Americanism. Again. Don't these people ever get tired of it? It's so passé. You can bet your bottom dollar - or British Pound - that if the situation were reversed and an American geek had hacked into the Ministry of Defence's computers and potentially compromised or endangered 'our boys' in the military then the Daily Mail would be screaming for his extradition to Belmarsh.

And then there's a political point that people who don't really care about McKinnon have been pushing. That the extradition treaty between the UK and US, signed in haste after 9/11, is unfair and biased towards the US system, they claim. And maybe it is. But so what? Argue about the treaty, don't have a hissy fit and say "That's it, you're not having this hacker now". The terms of the treaty are clear. If you want to abrogate the treaty then do so - but do it for everyone.

The last argument is a relatively new one in this case. That Gary McKinnon 'suffers' from something called Asperger's Syndrome. Apparently it's a form of autism that, according to the National Autistic Society's website can cause difficulty with social interaction, social communication and social imagination.

Nothing about distinguishing right from wrong. Nothing about being compos mentis. Nothing about being fit or otherwise to stand trial. It's just not relevant.

McKinnon knew what he was doing. He knew that his excuse that he was looking for aliens was hogwash. He just dreamt that up when he got caught, and celebrities-without-a-cause bought his line and signed up to his defence without the slightest clue about what they were doing.

He's as guilty as sin. Think I'm jumping the gun? Fine, let a jury decide. The House of Lords and the European Court have all agreed to his extradition. None of their eminences have agreed with his mum that he faces an unfair trial, that he is unfit to stand trial, that the offence is not serious enough - in other words they have thrown out all the excuses Gary McKinnon has come out with.

So off you go to America, Gary. If you're clever enough to crash Pentagon computers then I'm sure you'll have no problems at all in a court of law. If a jury agrees that you're a harmless fantasist you'll be back home for tea and biscuits. If not, then I hope you like prison food. :)

Thursday 6 August 2009

A Little Wit

"Can I ask a stupid question?"

"Yes - better than anyone I've ever met".

(Golden Girls, TV Show).
Love this one. I gotta remember it!