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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ulfr on 2023-10-25 03:02:32.
I'm working on a little bit of a nightmare project at work. It's an absolute dumpster fire of a project for a plethora of reasons, but only one of those reasons just got his comeuppance and left me with a dangerously acute case of smug.
This project will have a large number of users who should have access to certain areas only. Corporate Espionage is a very real concern here, so the people paying for the project have very, very strict standards when it comes to access control.
I've been trying to work with someone from that other company for months now. His job title is Data Compliance Engineer, and he is managed by a Data Compliance Manager. They share the same last name.
At first I thought this guy was busy, but as it turns out he really just doesn't like to actually do his job. You can email him as much as you like, no answers. But when big names are in the CC field of the email? He's all smiles and cooperation. You probably know the type.
Our job is to figure out what I need from him in terms of data, then his job is to get a big list of users to me, I then feed that list into my magical script and people have access. Happy days, right?
Wrong.
The first test run was a couple hundred people. I get the list a week late and the data is just... horrific. There's missing data, corrupted data... just an absolute steaming pile of crap trying to pass itself off as a data set. Takes me almost 6 hours to clean it up so I can even get the script to run.
I keep track of the errors and then give that list to Mr Data Compliance Engineer, who astonishingly replies within minutes. "The data is good enough! Make it work!"
So that's how it is? Alright.
Each run gets larger and larger as time goes on, and the amount of time it takes me to clean everything up gets longer and longer. My attempts to get anything fixed falls on deaf ears. Data Compliance Manager is protecting the Data Compliance Engineer, and the company they work for will believe their own employees over someone from outside.
I tell my management what's going on. And then I tell them I have a plan.
Earlier today the plan yielded it's delicious fruit.
I got the actual production run a week late (again) and was supposed to have it all finished up for two Fridays ago. Finished cleaning and got it running at 4pm last Tuesday.
At 430pm that Tuesday there was a big conference call at the request of the people actually paying all of us to do this. On that call? Me, my boss, several members of the C-suite from a multinational corporation, and the Data Compliance Manager.
They want to know why there's been a breach of contract. Do we not understand how important the deadlines are for this project? Please explain to us why we're paying you all of this money for something that's consistently late.
My manager, adhering to the plan, absolutely throws me under the bus.
"I don't know why things are running so far behind, Ulfr, would you care to explain why you're not meeting deadlines?"
Sure thing boss, you got it.
I've actually prepared a literal powerpoint presentation of what's been going on.
Slide One: My email, filtered for communications between me and Data Compliance Engineer. 100+ emails to Data Compliance Engineer, and 10 coming back from him.
Slide Two: His little gem of a response to my polite request that he makes sure his data isn't garbage.
Slide Three: Snippets of data I found particularly entertaining, including what looked like a spot where he just opened the file in notepad and started smashing his keyboard.
Slides Four through Seven: Comparisons of different files he's given me, which are not garbage in the same way.
Slide Eight: The obvious conclusion from different versions having different garbage. He was sabotaging the files before sending them over.
There's a moment of silence on the call, and you can see the Data Compliance Manager open his mouth several times and just closes it again. The CEO of the company thanks me and then drops from the call. Almost immediately everyone from the other company follows suit.
Last Wednesday bright and early I got an email from a new Data Compliance Engineer, who has thus far proven to be a DELIGHT to work with. Couldn't be happier.
The fruit I mentioned before?
I replied all on an older email thread about something that had come up. Got two out of office replies. One from the old Data Compliance Engineer and another from the Data Compliance Manager.
Both of them had opted to take an extended leave of absence and if any Data Compliance issues are urgent, please reach out to the new guy.
I made it work!