Avoiding Liability While Fixing Employee PCs? 121
ellem asks: "The upper management team of my company has made a decision that the IT department will work with employee's home computers and laptops. Despite every possible explanation of liability and the loss of proprietary information, the decision was made in order to satisfy a 'need' that the employees have expressed. Many of our employees are, in fact, independent contractors and could go elsewhere with little impact to themselves. Upper management feels offering this service to our employees will separate us from our competitors, and is so committed to this that they have allocated a special budget for tools, software and new hires to handle this particular segment of IT. However, I am still rather worried about general liabilities. While I can keep the network relatively safe and guard against certain types of file transfers, the fear I have is a tech wrecking an employee's home machine/laptop - whether they actually do or the employee perceives that they did. Are any of your shops offering this type of extra service? Do you have any policies in place to protect your company from liabilities that could spring up?"
A couple of points. (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, you may want to have the aforementioned lawyer draft up a legal-looking piece of paper that says "In the event my computer or data is hozared by incompetent employees, I agree not to sue The Company..." bla bla bla.
I think you probably should look at the technical aspects, too. Establish rules for the fixit shop, such as "Never plug an employee's home machine directly into the company network." Your service shop should have a firewalled safe zone that can get to the internet, but not to your internal network.
Bring in an experienced repair shop manager. Get someone who knows how to set up and run a safe workbench, and who knows how schedules, policies, etc. work. Have them run as an independent agency inside your company. He doesn't have to turn a profit (duh) but should be responsible for maintaining service levels, providing estimates and setting prices (you're not GIVING away brand new replacement 512MB nVidia cards, are you?) and have purchase authority.
Re:A couple of points. (Score:2, Funny)
is this new!?!?
was there a warning somewhere?
and most importantly: can I sue someone now that I know this?
Re:A couple of points. (Score:5, Funny)
You posted a(n)
Your question deserves one or more of the following replies:
In addition, you are:
Re:A couple of points. (Score:1)
>>
>> * [ ] foolish
>> * [ ] a troll
>> * [ ] pedantic
What if I'm shallow and pedantic you insensitive clod?
Re:A couple of points. (Score:2)
Now are you happy? :-)
Re:A couple of points. (Score:2)
[ ] If you were competent at your job then you'd know the answer already.
[ ] If your company needs someone who knows this, hire someone. Don't settle for a half-assed guess from someone on Slashdot.
[ ] If you'd checked on Google first, you wouldn't have needed to ask this.
The number of "Ask Slashdot" topics that fall into these three categories is frankly amazing.
Grab.
Re:A couple of points. (Score:2)
Re:A couple of points. (Score:2)
Re:A couple of points. (Score:2)
Re:A couple of points. (Score:2)
As the "hardcore" technical guy in my department, I get to help managers out on occasion when their kids open up the firewalls, enable sweeping ranges of port forwarding, and proceed to make the house
Re:A couple of points. (Score:2)
Re:A couple of points. (Score:2)
Re:A couple of points. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A couple of points. (Score:2, Funny)
Waivers anyone? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Waivers anyone? (Score:3)
As I understand it waivers are useless if it actually comes down to a lawsuit. You don't get to have a sheet of paper say your not responsible for something if you're incompetent.
As you are doing under the instruction of the company you work for, in most places, you can't be individually sued unless you are acting outside your duties. So really, the only thing that has to worry is the company. And likely they are prepared to eat the cost of a motherboard, or hd once in a while. (hopefully, not often).
Re:Waivers anyone? (Score:2)
Special liability of these PCs? (Score:3, Insightful)
What liability is there that is greater than an retail Computer fixit shop?
well, lets say they repair a laptop (Score:2)
and next week the employee is let go
Re:Special liability of these PCs? (Score:2)
-Eric
Re:Special liability of these PCs? (Score:1)
Eric, I already know about your midget porn.
And stop touching yourself.
-God
Re:Special liability of these PCs? (Score:2)
-Eric
Re:Special liability of these PCs? (Score:1)
Re:Special liability of these PCs? (Score:2)
Because. If the corporate IT guy fixes the corporate computer, and it dies, the corporation will need to buy a new computer and get it up and running again. If the corporate IT guy hoses too many computers, you might need a new corporate IT guy.
If the corporate IT guy hoses YOUR computer, and says "whoops!", that's gonna cost you, co-workers of corporate IT guy get pissy.
This is easy... (Score:5, Funny)
2. Get a good disk imaging program to make a full backup before any work is done.
3. ???
4. Have updated resume listed on all major job search websites.
Re:This is easy... (Score:3, Funny)
No, 6 is profit (Score:1)
3.5 is harvest the individual porn pictures off the computer using a custom script you wrote which accepts no
5 is sell your buddies a "subscription" to this ever enlarging database of files
6 is PROFITs-ah
Re:No, 6 is profit (Score:2)
My 2 Megapixel camera takes pictures that are ~750 KB each. If you don't include that then you're leaving out all that home made pron that employees have on their home computers.
It would be much cheaper... (Score:1)
it is secure and the corp can control the software.
what will happen when your tech 'fixes' an old PC and it electrocutes the cat?
Re:It would be much cheaper... (Score:3, Interesting)
In an average corporate deployment the software licenses exceed the cost of the computer. Depending on the area you work on this factor is anything between 2 and 10 times for a desktop. The cost of maintaining a windows machine in man-hours per year depends on the number of machines and tools in use but it is pretty much close to the cost of the computer (once you add up AV, Anti-Spyware, etc). So on, so fourth.
It is not worth i
Re:It would be much cheaper... (Score:2)
Despite every possible explanation of liability and the loss of proprietary information, the decision was made in order to satisfy a 'need' that the employees have expressed.
Apparently the decision has been made.
Upper management feels offering this service to our employees will separate us from our competitors, and is so committed to this that they have allocated a special budget for tools, software and new hires to handle this particular segment of IT.
Apparently they realize it wi
Easy... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Easy... (Score:1)
Done all the time! (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that there are lots of people who actually do what you are describing for a living, right? One upon a time about 10 years ago I managed such a shop. Your resistance to the feasibility of the idea seems to argue against you considering that all you are doing is basic PC work, just like lots of other people in your town do every day. There's nothing special legally in this case about the fact that you have an additional contractual relationship with the people you are doing the PC work for.
Re:Done all the time! (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that if you work on a machine and the customer has more political clout than you do within your company, no matter what you say is going to save your ass, right? I can assure you if even a mid-level exec takes his freshly loaded PC home and little Johnny Turnipseed loads CoolWebSearch v113.8 and the machine crashes, if that exec says its your fault, it's your fault. You can do forensics all day long to prove your point and it won't matter.
With a proper contract your personal liability is likely (IANAL) not at stake, I'll grant you that. Your job is. Piss off a politically connected computer illiterate in your company by working on his home machine and having him/her fuck it up in rapid succession and you'll be pounding the pavement for a new job.
We've been doing this sort of support where I work and it generates nothing but bad karma with the computer illiterates (yeah, we've tried training them). In many companies it will not be the same as running a standalone shop. You get to look at these people every day in the office and the cafeteria after they've dumped their Quicken data and somehow now it's your fault. Don't give them that out.
Re:Done all the time! (Score:2)
Like many things, karma flows both ways.
Ever rescue your boss' home computer for her? That's the kind of kar
Re:Done all the time! (Score:2)
Re:Done all the time! (Score:2)
I'm in retail, so yes, we're in completely different sectors. Although I have to admit I've spent the last four weeks working with our corporate legal team.
And I wear it only on *very* casual Fridays, like the Friday before Easter when it's a ghost town around here.
But you're right -- cherry picking your customers doesn't hurt, although I really don't discriminate. I'll
Re:Done all the time! (Score:2)
I'd be more uncomfortable if I had to see the bible-thumper from the company softball team in the cafeteria after stumbling across his barely-legal porn stash and his bookmarks full of Scientology websites.
Re:Done all the time! (Score:1)
It's not done all the time...*sigh* (Score:1)
Re:It's not done all the time...*sigh* (Score:2)
"major spyware/virus problems will ha
Re:It's not done all the time...*sigh* (Score:1)
Also, most repair shops don't waste their time with troubleshooting and repairing spyware/virus/software issues. The most that they usually do is save critical data and format/reinstall.
Re:It's not done all the time...*sigh* (Score:1)
Just posting back fyi, we actually do attempt to (we let the customer know in advance, based off their description of whats going on, what their chances are of removeing the virus) remove virus/spyware if the customer really wants us to, of course we charge a premium for doing that kind of thing.
And yes, those pollicies ju
Re:First things first: (Score:2, Funny)
1 create the image
2 check it into a forensic quality workspace
3 do your scans
4 forward the evidence to
CHAIN OF CUSTODY MUST REMAIN INTACT
Re:First things first: (Score:2)
...using military-grade cryptography...
Re:First things first: (Score:2)
What constitutes a "forensic quality workspace"?
Simple legal disclaimer should work (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, just get with HR or whomever is in charge of personnel and have a simple disclaimer written up that states that anyone who takes advantage of this waives all rights to sue for damages. Make sure that it covers both the company and the individual contractor performing the task. Include this in the employee handbook or in the information packet that is given out to people when they are hired.
Simple Answer... (Score:2, Interesting)
And rememind the contractors BEFORE they bring in their pc's that illegal adult materials must be reported to the FBI for persecution.(so if they have a kiddie porn collection dont bri
Punt! (Score:3, Interesting)
And this doesn't answer your question, but, seriously: WTF?
How sadly misguided is this? If they want to give employees and contractors perks, how about something with a little more common sense. Like healthbenefits (for contractors) or gas/travel vouchers. Both are something people would be glad to have and have tax benefits to the company. Or how about spa gift certs or something where there's little liability.
Alternately, they should subcontract the work out (Clearly they have no problem doing that). Get GeekSquad or something out there to do it for you. Sure, the liability is a headache for you, but I can't believe that any marginally responsible company would take on the infrastructure to do something like this. Maid service for all employees would be cheaper and have less overhead. And I'm sure would be a nice perk.
Liability (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't take liability for spyware accidents etc (Score:2)
Data loss of someones crap rewrite of someone else's SF short story or angsty poetry badly written in a hurry will be seen as priceless - let alone anything else of more value. Some maladjusted person could attempt to get very large amounts of cash out of your personal hide unless it is made clear that either there is no liability or the company pays (and gets reimbursed from insurance possibly years later).
It was bad enough keeping things going i
Re:Don't take liability for spyware accidents etc (Score:2)
Somehow, I've always avoided problems with spyware and viruse
Run far far away (Score:5, Insightful)
Then they'll wonder why they can't get connected to their cable modem. Guess who will be driving out to their house since you can't troubleshoot that at the office? Yes, this actually became the expectation where I work. IT makes house calls. I wondered if they asked Buildings and Grounds to mow their lawns for them.
Next, what kind of liability are you going to run when the employee blames you for deleting (really really super important file)? Yes, I know you had nothing to do with the hard disk crash, but tell the CEO's son that when he just lost the first draft of his novel.
In all seriousness, here are a few suggestions
Good luck. You'll need it.
Re:Run far far away (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks. As the senior net tech for an ISP, I really appreciate you dumping these people my way. As if I didn't have enough "Your damn Internet service caused my Microsoft Word to have weird font problems" issues.
Actually, you had a pretty good post and the feature creep issue is very serious. Best of all, your mention of the 5% troublemakers is dead on.
We're a smaller non-incumbant broadband provider with 2500 subscribers in a portion of our state. We struggled with growth at first but discovered that by isolating the loser customers from the winners (and encouraging the losers to go to the DSL competition), it totally freed us up to take care of good customers.
I still get the occasional nasty emails from customers who threaten to leave us because we won't go solve their complicated VPN issue for free or rid their Windows 98 that never saw an antivirus package in its life of great malware nastiness for free. The great thing about my job is that I have the liberty to make the judgment call. I'll actually give the losers the phone number of Qwest or Direcway and tell them I'll even waive the early termination penalty and help them go to the other provider. The shock I get from them being shown the door is incredible. Some quiet down and become more realistic in their expectations, but the majority of that dead-weight 5% storms off and becomes someone elses liability. If you troll the business shelves in Barnes and Noble, you'll find quite a few firms (like Nordstroms) known for exceptional customer service that quickly separate the winners from the deadbeats, and show the latter the door.
My recommendation to every slashdotter: Ask yourself in every situation you are in as a customer if you are a good customer or a liability to that firm. They have to make at least 12% to 15% on you to pay their creditors, shareholders, the tax man and stay in business. I've left extra money on the table many times to make sure my vendor stayed around and didn't think of me as nothing but a drain. Don't ever be a parasite! If your vendor doesn't do know how to separate good from bad, they're destined for failure.
*scoove*
Re:Run far far away (Score:1)
Amen. (Score:3, Insightful)
OT, just two random stories... (Score:2)
Story number 1. My Verizon DSL modem one day refuses to sync up. No signal. No connectivity. Only light on is the power light. I call Verizon. They give me an trouble tag number. Three days later: still dead. I call them for an update. They insist that they have no record of the number. After many call transfers I am told that they simply cancelled every trouble report received during a two-day window, bec
Re:OT, just two random stories... (Score:2)
see: Computer Store (Score:2)
No worries... (Score:1)
Re:No worries... (Score:1)
An employer is not liable for a tort committed by one of its employees if the injured party was also an employee of the same employer who was also acting within the scope of his or employment at the time the tort occurred. (This is the fellow servant doctrine. It is an exception to the normal rule of respondeat superior.)
Seems to be common, at least for a small shop (Score:2)
I never really worried about liability. I just assumed that it was part of my job (after all, my boss's computer was one of the ones I'd occasional
You're kidding right? (Score:2, Interesting)
Pardon me but it sounds like you're pulling excuses out of you ass because this is a job nobody in your department wants to do. Your execs see it that way too, most likely.
Seriously, what if (during a normal days work) your tech dropped a pc on somebody's foot... you'd be liable for that too, do you bring up the concerns about carrying pc's to managment also?
The company is liable, not the employee... they're obviously willing to accept the risk, so stfu and do your job. Not trying to be an ass, but stil
Flee! (Score:2)
Everything that goes wrong after you (or a tech) touches the machine is going to be your fault, whether it is or not. At some point, you are going to be asked to help someone with a lot of internal clout, this will come to pass, and you will b
Re:Flee! (Score:2)
Don't you have some functioning labour laws in USA? Fireing an employee because he is doing his job?
Re:Flee! (Score:2)
Re:Flee! (Score:2)
> employee can terminate the relationship at any time with no
> penalties.
And that is as it should be, since in every state the employee can always terminate the relationship at will with no notice and no penalty.
If you don't like at will employment negotiate a contract.
Re:Flee! (Score:2)
Re:Flee! (Score:2)
> powerful entities.
"Overabuse"? Abuse is permitted, but overabuse is not?
Anyway, organize a union. Unions have done far more for working conditions than government has.
Re:Flee! (Score:2)
Re:Flee! (Score:1)
I bought a CD player at Best Buy and told them to fit it. Went to pick up the car and it wouldn't start: absolutely dead. (The car was 3 years old and had never had a failure to start.) I assume they had zapped or just reset the ignition electronics. They refused any responsibility and said I had to communicate by mail with some outfit in another state. Tow, repair. Bux.
Outsource (Score:2)
Your department isn't set up to service home computers with all the complexities, upgrades differing hardware & software environments, etc. Call some local Mom & Pop organizations, tell them what you want (try to recover, clean & reinstall, helpdesk, etc), and let them deal with the hassle. You might need to give them some internal software, etc to install, but that's what NDA's are for. This also pre
Re:Outsource (Score:1)
I'd suggest that you form a partnership with a local computer service where you agree to send these machines to them for fixing. Your responsibilities will be getting them to fill in the 3rd party forms, packaging the computers, getting them to and from the service centre and monitoring the status of the jobs.
I'd suggest that this would reduce co
Data Privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't be comfortable having access to that data. You might not be personally liable for damages but if a fellow employee makes the case to your employer that you have abused their trust you could soon lose your job.
Backup. (Score:2)
You say I wrecked it? OK. I'll put it back the way it was.
Roger.
Re:Backup. (Score:3)
Outsource IT (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead of running this home computer program in-house, why not just outsource the job to a local or national computer repair shop? That way, you can let someone else worry about the liability issues. As an added bonus, any standard computer shop will have far more experience in dealing with the kinds of problems that home computers typically encounter than you might have. That fact alone could easily make outsourcing a cheaper proposition then running the show on your own. It's definately food for thought.
In addition to these obvious advantages, outsourcing also allows you to accurately track the costs of the program and draw your budgets accordingly. You and your boss can sit down and allocate each employee a certain dollar amount of gratis tech support, which will avoid the problem of Sue in Accounting bringing her desktop computer in every day for a month so you can wipe out the latest spyware her son aquired while searching for Internet p0rn. Also, you can offer special services with an outsourced program, like in-home system repair for CEOs or, if you work with a national chain, remote repair services for the sales team.
Finally, you should consider the tax issues you could run into if you keep the program in-house. Technically, the type of program you describe could be seen by government tax collectors as employee compensation. That means someone is going to have to track who receives what services, because the government is surely going to want its cut too. With outsourcing, you sidestep all of these problems and are left to concentrate on your primary mission -- maintaining the corporate IT infrastructure.
Beware of Software Licensing Issues (Score:4, Insightful)
BOFH (Score:1)
File security... (Score:2)
Opinion from an Independent Contractor (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, it sounds suspiciously like the first steps from management to get employers to use their own machines for work - a big no-no.
Furthermore, if your management wants to retain those employers that are both highly qualified and highly mobile i suggest flexible working hours, little or no overwork (or maybe pay-per-hour), a location that's easy to access via both car and public transportation and a proper work environment (3-6 persons rooms, no cublicles, plenty of elbow room).
If you're hiring contractors and then sending them to work at the customer's site there is little you can do to retain them - it doesn't take long for a contractor to figure out that they're best served by removing the middleman.
Beyond that, i know for a fact that one of the most important ways of streamlining the systems administration/support group work is to standardize the work machines (both HW and SW) so that for example, fixing a HW problem is just a question of backup/change-machines/restore. Doing that is simply not possible when it comes to maintaining the employer's personal machines.
If they're really keen on wasting money in this half-baked idea, they should outsource repairs/support of personnal machines to a company that's speciallized in selling those services to the general public.
Just do what big corp IT shops do internally (Score:2)
Keep track of time spent (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad idea (Score:3, Informative)
We already do this... (Score:2)
Re:We already do this... (Score:2)
I'm completely baffled.
Computers are cheap (Score:2)
The better solution would be to just bite the bullet and issue company standard laptops / desktops to your telecommuters. You retain complete control over the software and configuration, and can just offer them a replacement if they screw something up rather t
Home Machines (Score:2)
We started a program that offered pptp access for users.
With one caveat: People had to have permision to obtain a company laptop for travel or remote use.
No WAY are we touching home machines.
A few busers were really easy to identify and deal with because they don't work here anymore.
But for the most part, no problems with the machines after people found out what happens when they load porn and software on the machine by breaking the rules.
We are up to about 2
Couple options (Score:3)
2, Virtualization is an option. Use a Xen, VMWare, or Virtual PC solution and you can just put out minimum requirements for a user's home machine, and you get your management to agree that the IT shop only supports the virtual box.
3, Get creative about ways to accomplish management's objectives without saying "No". Maybe you can limit your scope of support to company provided applications and get a statement signed by each user that they're responsible foreverything besides applications x, y, and z. Or maybe you can limit support to web-based apps that you guys host.
4, Find a different job. No, seriously. It sounds like there's someone in the company with a job title of CxO that isn't listening to the managers who work under him/her. If that person or people aren't listening to you on this one they likely won't listen anytime you give them advice. Not a good corporate culture, imo.
Good God!! (Score:1)
First of all, the upper management of your company is a confederacy of morons. They face the potential of opening a Pandora's Box of both legal and economic chaos. This situation is typical of the "act now think later" mindset that seems to be the MBA's strong suit. I hope your ICs have good lawyers, they may well need them when the liability buck gets passe
Re: (Score:1)
Don't do it. (Score:1)
Company should issue out laptops to the contractors, laptops which give the contractors standard user rights while logged on.
It's something that once you start supporting, you will not be able to stop. You fix Candy's machine and Sam's, then your company decides to pull the plug on this. But Sara starts whining because she was next in line because of some StarForce driver f'ed up her CD-ROM. "Well, just this once, then we'll stop this policy." says the suits. (Y
My solution (Score:2)
I try to wait till they are desperate. Before this I will just give them suggestions that they can try on their own. By the time the problem is really big, I will just tell them I will do my best, but I can't guarentee
Taxes (Score:3, Interesting)
i have seen the commercials for this (Score:2)
Do you guys get to wear the slender black neckties, white short-sleeved button ups, and drive Volkswagen Beetles to work? Hmmm... [geeksquad.com]
Re:ellem (Score:1)