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Luke James Social Links Navigation Contributor Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist. Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.
Li Ken-un a routine familiar to many in the modern workplace: unlocking encrypted drives, signing in through multi-factor authentication, connecting to a VPN, and launching business-critical applications. According to the filing, these tasks could take up to 30 minutes each day and were required before employees could access the company’s timekeeping system to clock in. I am extremely amused. Someone routinely taking 30 minutes to start a computer and log in sounds like a serious problem to be investigated. And depending on the results of the investigation, either BoA or the employees could be at fault. Company-issued workstations actually take tens of minutes to boot and start software → BoA at fault Authentication/VPN/application systems actually taking that long to load → BoA at fault General computer illiteracy, practice of looking up passwords in a handwritten notebook of credentials → employee at faultIf there are enough employees suffering through this to start a class action lawsuit, BoA is either running IT on a shoestring budget or systematically hiring incompetent employees. Reply
Dr3ams I've worked at two jobs that required security logins…Lufthansa and Deutsche Telekom. As soon as you step in the building you slide your card into a reader and your chipped ID card logs you in. You are now on the clock. Reply
Notton Li Ken-un said: I am extremely amused. Someone routinely taking 30 minutes to start a computer and log in sounds like a serious problem to be investigated. And depending on the results of the investigation, either BoA or the employees could be at fault. Company-issued workstations actually take tens of minutes to boot and start software → BoA at fault Authentication/VPN/application systems actually taking that long to load → BoA at fault General computer illiteracy, practice of looking up passwords in a handwritten notebook of credentials → employee at faultIf there are enough employees suffering through this to start a class action lawsuit, BoA is either running IT on a shoestring budget or systematically hiring incompetent employees. It's the BoA. It's gonna be shoestring budget for IT security, commit wage theft, and screw customers every chance they get. Their overall service reputation is around 1.3~1.5 / 5. Normally that kind of rating would be grounds for getting fired, but it's an American Bankster. Reply
Savage1701 I think this is a problem at many companies. There are expectations that employees will read company emails or perform daily EOD computer tasks on their own time. I’ve seen it. On the flip side, I had a family member who worked in an Amazon fulfillment center. They witnessed a team lead bark at an off-the-clock associate to put on a vest before they walked across the floor to clock in. The team lead got an immediate dressing down from a manager for telling someone to perform a work function while they were off the clock. So there are at least some companies that are cognizant of this. Reply
Sluggotg I worked in Nuclear Power for decades and retired a few years back. Before we get paid we had to: Wait in line a the road block, then show our Key Card, (possibly get a random search). then head to the parking lot. Go inside the access point, wait in line, go through the metal detector, then go through the Explosive detector, then use your security card and place your hand in the Hand Geometry reader to open the Turn Style. Next you go to one of the plant entrances and select an electronic dosimeter, put it in the holder connected to a computer, then bar code your key card and bar code in the Rad Work Permit. Go get your hard hat, place the electronic dosimeter into a reader to unlock the turn style. Take the elevator to the Main Control Room, (or where ever you work out of), use the Portal Monitor to check for any contamination, then use your Key Card to unlock the door. Then comes the Turn Over. You walk down the panels with the Off Going Watch and read through the turn over sheet. Basically going over everything that has happened since you were last on watch, the status of all equipment. Such as on going maintenance, testing, etc. Depending on what watch you are on they can take from 15-45 minute in the Main Control Room. Some watches only take 10 minutes to turn over. Then we were considered on the clock. My Friend filed a grievance. Our union, (IBEW) got together with the company and said "this grievance is closed". IBEW is primarily a maintenance union so they don't care about Us Operators, or Chem Techs or HP Techs etc. My self and a hand full of others filed a complaint with the State Labor, who forwarded it to the Feds. The Feds responded quickly and sent us letters saying we were absolutely correct they have to pay you for your time at the plant. The company goon and our useless IBEW rep came after me the next day claiming I had no right to question them and that they were still working on the grievance. I showed them the Grievance cancellation they had both signed and they left if a huff. The company was forced to pay us for our time and they had to pay 2 years of back pay for our turn overs. (BTW the De Minimus was $1.00 per week at that time). I had only been working there for about 5 years when that happened. The company and IBEW were much better in that later years of my time there. Sorry about the long rambling post, I just want people know they can win against companies demanding "Free Work" from their employees. Reply
King_V Li Ken-un said: BoA is either running IT on a shoestring budget I'm not a betting man, but if I were, my money is on this, hands down. Reply
Firestone Good. Make them pay. Our company has been slowly increasing security and now we have to transition through three separate accounts to get fully logged in before you can do any work. First log in to your company employee account with MFA. Then log into a password vault to retrieve more credentials. Then use those credentials to log into another account, which has a different MFA. Then use that account to log into your cloud account, which uses yet another MFA. Then use that account to access the company resources you need to work on. In between all of this the IT Dept has started rolling out mandatory forced computer reboots; if you don't reboot every couple days an IT Dept pop up will come on screen and force you to reboot no matter what you're doing, this resets all your active logins. They do the same for your web browser, forcing you to restart your web browser every couple days, this also resets all your active logins. You're blocked from installing any web browser that would circumvent this. Finally you are also forced to install OS updates pretty much immediately after they're made available by the IT Dept; if you don't, your MFA stops working and you simply cannot log in to anything at all until you install updates and reboot – this could take upwards of 30-45min. When you get your computer started back up of course all your logins have been reset and you have to log in to everything over again. And of course, each separate company internal web page (HR, employee resources pages, ticket tracker, etc) requires it's own MFA. So on a given day, you are likely to have to login 6-12+ times, each with MFA, and might even have to spend 30+ min applying security updates. This is all paid time, as it should be. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/bank-of-america-sued-over-unpaid-boot-up-time#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.