My vocations in life were
two-fold: several years as a teacher in
elementary schools and several as a real estate sales representative. These
many varied experiences...humourous,
exciting (and even a few unpleasant) evolved on almost a daily basis. Hence, it was an ambition of mine to write
mini-books about...”Life as a Teacher” and later “Life as a Sales Rep.”
Others might write about their
vocations such as Life as a Doctor, Life as a Psychologist, as a Nurse, Factory
Worker, Dentist, Carpenter, Architect, Lawyer, Engineer, etc. These I would assemble and have printed for
reader enjoyment.
Recently a family
relative wrote the ensuing article concerning inside knowledge
about specialized
computer technicians...which I happily share with you.
I once read a
computer book that “Assembly Language” was a 'black art'
suited only to
hackers and wizards.
While Assembly
Language doesn't show up much these days
(I myself haven't
had use for it in over 15 years),
the term is rather
novel.
I work as an EDI Specialist,
and quite often, given its cryptic-looking nature, EDI is thought of as a
'black art'. All too often, even in
major companies, EDI is delegated to one specialist who is known as the “EDI
GUY”. Sometimes such a job is known as a “lone wolf”.
And typically, this specialist
has absolute power over the server and data under his control. Companies typically forget just how much
highly sensitive data is at the mercy of the EDI Guy. Not only does the EDI Guy have access to all their
Purchase Orders, all their invoices, all their Shipment Manifests, which
includes their main customers/supplier base, but if it is Health Insurance EDI,
he's got arbitrary access to claimant's health care records. (No wonder there are strict privacy laws for
this!)
One firm where I used to work
wanted to get an archive of all their production data for the past year on a
dvd. I said to them, “You do understand
what you are asking for: you need to
keep that data encrypted, or in a very safe place.” When I handed them an unencrypted dvd, I stated to them, “Think of this as 'life
blood'. Critical information about your
main supplier base and your purchasing deals, all of your invoices and even
payment transaction information is on this dvd.
An unscrupulous competitor would pay very handsomely for a copy of this
dvd.”
And the thing is, it's a
difficult thing even for a well-meaning company to police. Not only does the EDI Guy have free access to
all this information, but he knows how to interpret it and is responsible for
translating it to alternate formats.
Because of the high cost of
trying to maintain controls and the tremendous breakdown of efficiency that
such controls would impose, the most practical solution is just to give the EDI
Guy absolute trust. Oh, there are
privacy and security contracts that he signs, of course, but that is just a
legal threat for retaliation. It offers
no protection if said person is determined to compromise the system. So, I often say that the EDI Guy has to be one
of the most trusted people in the IT department.
On the up-side, it is just data in a computer, but it can
have tremendous value to the party using it.
I had a situation in a job a
while back where payment transactions to a bank in Hong Kong were held up
because some encryption keys were soon to expire, and the new keys were not
compatible with the bank at first; it took a few day to figure out what needed
to be corrected. But the payments were
needed to pay Chinese New Year bonuses to factory workers, who badly needed
them. I got online very late at night with the data people in Hong Kong and the
off-shore support team in India
whereby we temporarily switched the keys back
for an hour to get the critical transactions over, holding up other partners
in a harmless retry state. They were so
thrilled that they got their payments out on time. And that's where you stop to think of what a
wide-spread blessing a bit of system manipulation can do. Or on the down-side, what chaos it can
cause. Now if the system had been
over-policed with controls, that might not have been possible. All too often, an IT Admin has to jerry-rig
something to get around a temporary problem.
Now I'm looking at an opportunity to finally work on
Health Care Claims EDI. I'm willing to
do health care data, but I wouldn't
touch the biological aspects of it.
I figured that if I was going to do health care, (and I hate biology), I would be
a veterinarian. Animals don't have all
the gross self-imposed problems that people do, unless people have done
something gross to them. If I was going
to work on people, I would be a pediatrician.
I would rather work on kids, who for the most part are not as polluted
as adults. For now, I'll try to get my
feet wet with all the icky data.
“Pearl of Wisdom”
(from Dale Carnegie)
“There are four ways
and only four ways
in which we have
contact with the world.
We are evaluated and
classified by four contacts:
what we do...how we
look...what we say...how we say it!
Merle
Baird-Kerr...written October 23, 2012
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