Most likely the details of the comment outlined specifically what you posted. Caveat utilitor.

Mod parent up.

Yes, according to the poster, it was not used for anything. However, the one that requested the report has not spoken as to its utility. All we have as proof of it being used by the manager is the word of someone who admitted falsifying reports. Granted, the admission was meant to be commiseration, so the act of falsifying reports may have been overstated, but the act was stated nonetheless. And as I said in this thread, the report has many uses, some of which are meant purely for the report producer.

And even if the report were truly not being used for anything at all (the employee being in no position to judge), that does not grant the employee the right to go maverick. One works for someone or one works for oneself, not both.

I read the post, yes.

I outlined the utility of reports.

If his boss was wasting peoples' time he should have went to his boss's boss. What he did instead was lie. Lying is bad. By falsifying data in the report, whatever utility in the report existed is gone.

I have assigned reports as a task to ensure that the task gets done yes. I find it reasonably effective, especially when I don't have the time to do my own day to day inspection of work. I myself have also found problems when I have produced reports that I know will likely not be viewed. But I did find problems. And this was entirely due to having done an actual inspection that was required by the report spec.

I don't really consider myself a techie, that is true. I began programming around 1980 on a TRS 80 model 3. I wrote video games in basic. I didn't get back into programming until the early 90's doing database stuff in Paradox for DOS. My latest IT job has been intranet programming in Perl, and MySQL.

I also have an MBA in Entrepreneurship, with a Certificate in Business Ethics. My focus was on ethical strategies for new business development and re-engineering. I'm the turnaround guy that can come into a company and tell you what is going wrong, provide you with a new business strategy, and give you a list of the people you should hire and fire.

The report may have been pointless. However, it was not for the one producing the report to decide. It was between his boss and his bosses boss. If there was a problem it should have been made known to upper management so they could remove the report.

Management may have been incompetent, but this was malice. This was intentional deception of management to serve a personal interest.

No, good day actually. How about yourself?

It's a backronym. It was Perl first and then later Practical Extraction and Report Language.

Often times, the request for a report is not only just for the upper management, but is also for benefit of the one from which the report is requested. The management wants *you* to know about your job and wants to ensure that *you* know of the status of that which you oversee. While the manager may not know the specifics of your job, he will still need to ensure that you are doing your job and may also want to educate himself on the particulars of your job. The report does this. By providing false data in a report, you did not educate your boss. By providing false data, you did not allow your boss to make informed decisions. By providing false data, you implied that you were the better decision maker. I do hope that when you say "managed to get out of that company" that you were fired for that incompetence. Your actions do nothing but serve as an embarrassment to those of us in IT.

The original mail system did charge the receiver of the letter, but no one would pony up to receive it. They then decided to charge the sender to send, so they would get their money up front.