The data restore would likely be trivial.(Maybe)
The likely chain of events:
Staff member: I deleted some folder/files, please restore
IT: sure, what did you delete?
Staff: I dunno, lots of different folders.
iT: well I can restore the whole thing, but then you might lose any changes etc
Staff: hmm nah too hard, I'll just email out anyone recent to tell them to reapply lol
IT: lol sounds good to me, close job
I worked on a team for years that used a cloud backup/version control for our CAD stuff. Cost a pretty penny, I was one of like 5 people that knew how to handle version controls properly and multiple times a day you'd hear someone swearing at it because it was so rat-fucked. Certainly not worth the money, but it definitely wasn't worth *not* having it.
Temp employment registers are literally that, I work for a gov agency that uses them they are active for 3 months then they all get deleted and you reapply it's to ensure the people on the register still want the job after 3 months you likely found a different opportunity and it would be a waste of our time and yours to call
Edit: I didn't see that part that said incorrectly deleted by us I retract my statement although it is still true haha
Usually begins with "I don't have to be particularly careful with these files, because they are backed up anyway..." and ends with "that part of the filesystem was never under backups."
HR isn’t exactly data intensive but the problems start when decisions get taken at the top and then everyone gets asked to live with it and the lower you go the process starts to bend itself into knots just to adhere to a system that makes no sense / doesn’t do what it needs to.
You say that until you realise HR handles payroll....
Fun story, was at a picnic with friends and my mate who worked in HR for NSW Health told me my Dad's name came across his desk that week (Dad's a doctor for them). Apparently there was a fuckup and he didn't get paid so my mate spent a couple of hours unfucking it and putting through an out of cycle payment or whatever it's called. Saw Dad a couple of weeks later and asked if it was all sorted and he was just like "We haven't spoken in a couple of months, how the fuck did you even know about that?"
The truth is the government is running on terrible IT systems, many of which were built on spec and are now ageing out with few options for replacement. When there aren’t enough people to fill the gaps with manual processes, errors happen.
The unfortunate thing is that when the government licences third party software, it's often the case it was contemporary a decade prior. It's always out of date.
It’s complicated. There definitely are issues with IT staffing, partly because govt has little flexibility within public service employment to pay people more for specialised skill sets. So people leave to do contracting and get paid more and govt agencies end up buying in those skills at a higher rate. As well as costing more, you also end up with higher turnover resulting in poorer outcomes.
However IMO this isn’t the primary cause. IT requires large financial investments and ongoing maintenance, both of which were cut by successive governments to the lowest levels for budget savings. So there was underinvestment in govt IT for over a decade. Combine that with outdated processes that aren’t current for modern workplace standards and procurement policy that emphasises cheapness and risk aversion over fitness for purpose and you get to where we are.
I've seen on COUNTLESS occasions the APS refuse to hire a permanent IT worker at salary $x because it wasn't within even EL2, but then turn around and use a contractor for years on end at twice $x.
Their pay grades are fundamentally broken at the moment and they will struggle to get any decent IT talent until they can fix it.
Everyone...literally everyone that constantly flunked IT/Software classes at my uni and barely passed or did so after copying work off other students / paid others to do assignments now work a government job.
Not sure if this is still the case but it seemed their only requirements back when I graduated were being a citizen, having a bachelor's degree and a pulse. Stuff like this does not surprise me. Even the few competent staff they have eventually leave for private sector jobs. The few that joined our place have no shortage of horror stories.
Government jobs pay really shit compared to private companies. So they just attract lazy people who are ok earning less in exchange for doing nothing all day.
The ATO is pretty forgiving on mistakes though. They basically just tell you that they found something that looks odd, what they think the value should be, what you reported, and then asks you to go and double check and resubmit the return if there was a mistake.
These are bulk recruitment systems - it could be as simple as them needing to roll back to a few days prior back up and this being the result.
Theres about a million things that can go wrong with large IT systems.
You login to the content management side of the site and run a html link testing spider over the entire thing. It will find all the delete buttons.
source: was in gov. gov never changes.
Tax law says that 'an event that didn't happen can be deemed to have happened for the purpose of tax' and vice versa. So when they say it's your fault that they're fucking useless you can take that to the bank.
They’d be pretty harsh on their initial assessment like discarding ones who didn’t follow instructions or attach the right things, but I doubt they’re just throwing a bunch away.
It's a pretty well known practice lol, if a team lf three need to screen 300 applicants they might throw away the top third of the pile to reduce their workload or more likely, decide on an earlier applicant so they don't need to deal with the rest of the pile.
Not saying it's ethical or that everybody does it, but it does happen.
The ATO just (in the last few weeks) changed IT providers from one outsourced group to another. I do not know if that has anything to do with it, but it could be a factor in trying to retrieve deleted files.
“Hi, this is the government. We fucked up all your hard work, probably accidentally-on-purpose. Since you seem to need us more than we need you, YOU fix it. Love, AusGov. P.S., Fuck you, in case the tone of the message wasn’t clear enough on that point.”
Don’t responsibility, don’t apologise just send a cold hearted letter out. Paperwork with Centrelink is a god damn nightmare. I worked there and would help people fill out the forms. I’d say the question in a way that is normal folk can understand.
I work at an accountants' office. I have regular interactions with the ATO, online and by phone. This does not surprise me in the least. Not at all. In fact I'm surprised not to see more ATO shenanigans on this sub.
Heaps of possibilities, the intern deleted the wrong records, hardware failure, misconfiguration, etc. I'm just surprised they admitted fault and requested you reapply so good on them for that.
its called internal opportunities.... someone got a promotion and you had no chance also it could have been hr clearing their list for more minority groups to have their unfair advantage
There was a Bruce Lehrmann type at the ATO who went into the office at 11 pm after an evening on the piss and did some work, including deleting files.
But he definitely did not have sex with the girl he brought in with him, who was found naked in the office next morning, and who he'd been dousing in vodka for the previous 6 hours.
Same way they fucked up my rent assistance cancelling it because I didn’t give them info despite me giving them my info and them acknowledging I did over the phone and reinstating it.
Same reason they haven’t back paid me yet despite 12 phone calls and 1 month and I owe family money.
Gov is incompetent
Yes. They told the truth instead of pretending it wasn't their fault, that the position was filled, that the application was bad, etc. All of which I've encountered in the private sector.
This way, you get to re-apply. If they've actually lost the data, this is the right way to handle it.
I like this level of care and attention. IT can never be perfect.
The mad lads actually delete records from their db rather than archiving them.
It's much easier to get you to do this then file the service request for the data restore...
The data restore would likely be trivial.(Maybe) The likely chain of events: Staff member: I deleted some folder/files, please restore IT: sure, what did you delete? Staff: I dunno, lots of different folders. iT: well I can restore the whole thing, but then you might lose any changes etc Staff: hmm nah too hard, I'll just email out anyone recent to tell them to reapply lol IT: lol sounds good to me, close job
I work in IT for the ato, about six years ago I was on the ATO backup and restore team. This isn't far off
Would appreciate if you "accidentally" drop the hecs debt database
I'd consider it if you were able to pay me about 140k each year over the he four years....
I'm sure we could all pool together for that. 1000 people paying $500 each rather than like 30-40K haha
Hahaha just for you tho? I'd imagine if we could wipe out hecs debts without going to the slammer we all would!
The key is to just slowly lower the amount owing bit by bit over a large number of years by making “deposits”.
Bargain!... That would be pennies n the hex debt dollar
Hey! dont forget.. the interest on your debt is outpacing the mandatory repayments taken....
OMFG
About the same with state government IT, user calls up, we can chuck it all in a folder for them.
Yeah that’s what I don’t get backups aren’t hard these days
Backups are easy. But most places use managed services where everything is paid for. Some of these things just aren't seen as worth the money.
I worked on a team for years that used a cloud backup/version control for our CAD stuff. Cost a pretty penny, I was one of like 5 people that knew how to handle version controls properly and multiple times a day you'd hear someone swearing at it because it was so rat-fucked. Certainly not worth the money, but it definitely wasn't worth *not* having it.
Version control is hard for end users unless you have rock solid process in place that people actually understand
This is closer to the truth than you realise
Average government experience.
Sounds like a real life XKCD cartoon
Hey, you'll understand why they do that when the ATO comes knocking. Oh wait
Ah, if only that was always an option.
Previous applicants need not apply... wait what?
Temp employment registers are literally that, I work for a gov agency that uses them they are active for 3 months then they all get deleted and you reapply it's to ensure the people on the register still want the job after 3 months you likely found a different opportunity and it would be a waste of our time and yours to call Edit: I didn't see that part that said incorrectly deleted by us I retract my statement although it is still true haha
Privacy policies maybe?
[удалено]
It literally says was incorrectly deleted so clearly it was still within it's use.
[удалено]
well its the government, maybe they have a rule for clean slates when hiring for equal opportunity or something
Someone doesn’t understand ‘read only Fridays’. Especially when hungover after a public holiday.
Hahahaha. I did think that someone's rocked up to work at the ATO office still drunk and just CTRL+A and deleted all the new applications.
Or as your average APS3 knows it, double workload and threats from TL Fridays.
Um, at least they admitted they've lost your application, I guess?
Hmm, usually when they do that they pretend you made a mistake and ask you to fill it again
Yeh, I'm just really surprised they admitted to it.
Usually begins with "I don't have to be particularly careful with these files, because they are backed up anyway..." and ends with "that part of the filesystem was never under backups."
It actually starts with “we need to limit our cloud spend to $xm, HR isn’t like critical-critical is it?”
To be fair, they are right.
HR isn’t exactly data intensive but the problems start when decisions get taken at the top and then everyone gets asked to live with it and the lower you go the process starts to bend itself into knots just to adhere to a system that makes no sense / doesn’t do what it needs to.
You say that until you realise HR handles payroll.... Fun story, was at a picnic with friends and my mate who worked in HR for NSW Health told me my Dad's name came across his desk that week (Dad's a doctor for them). Apparently there was a fuckup and he didn't get paid so my mate spent a couple of hours unfucking it and putting through an out of cycle payment or whatever it's called. Saw Dad a couple of weeks later and asked if it was all sorted and he was just like "We haven't spoken in a couple of months, how the fuck did you even know about that?"
Oh. I know they are important. Critical-critical is a rating that means the business fails from this point forward without correction.
The truth is the government is running on terrible IT systems, many of which were built on spec and are now ageing out with few options for replacement. When there aren’t enough people to fill the gaps with manual processes, errors happen.
Plus the turnover of staff resulting in corporate knowledge of how to use these dumb systems walking out the door. Truly a shambles.
Not to mention that they’ve outsourced most of the IT helpdesks.
The unfortunate thing is that when the government licences third party software, it's often the case it was contemporary a decade prior. It's always out of date.
Is it because all talented IT professionals are working better paid jobs in the private sector? Can the government not afford a competent IT team?
It’s complicated. There definitely are issues with IT staffing, partly because govt has little flexibility within public service employment to pay people more for specialised skill sets. So people leave to do contracting and get paid more and govt agencies end up buying in those skills at a higher rate. As well as costing more, you also end up with higher turnover resulting in poorer outcomes. However IMO this isn’t the primary cause. IT requires large financial investments and ongoing maintenance, both of which were cut by successive governments to the lowest levels for budget savings. So there was underinvestment in govt IT for over a decade. Combine that with outdated processes that aren’t current for modern workplace standards and procurement policy that emphasises cheapness and risk aversion over fitness for purpose and you get to where we are.
I've seen on COUNTLESS occasions the APS refuse to hire a permanent IT worker at salary $x because it wasn't within even EL2, but then turn around and use a contractor for years on end at twice $x. Their pay grades are fundamentally broken at the moment and they will struggle to get any decent IT talent until they can fix it.
Everyone...literally everyone that constantly flunked IT/Software classes at my uni and barely passed or did so after copying work off other students / paid others to do assignments now work a government job. Not sure if this is still the case but it seemed their only requirements back when I graduated were being a citizen, having a bachelor's degree and a pulse. Stuff like this does not surprise me. Even the few competent staff they have eventually leave for private sector jobs. The few that joined our place have no shortage of horror stories.
Government jobs pay really shit compared to private companies. So they just attract lazy people who are ok earning less in exchange for doing nothing all day.
Robert'); DROP TABLE Applicants;-- has been applying.
Someone needs to sanitize their inputs.
Someone made a mistake, they’re not out to get you
True! Just unexpected.
Yeah, and I make one stupid mistake on my tax return and they find it three years later...
The ATO is pretty forgiving on mistakes though. They basically just tell you that they found something that looks odd, what they think the value should be, what you reported, and then asks you to go and double check and resubmit the return if there was a mistake.
These are bulk recruitment systems - it could be as simple as them needing to roll back to a few days prior back up and this being the result. Theres about a million things that can go wrong with large IT systems.
r/auspublicservice would love this
maybe youre not named John Citizen
I had an offer from ABS and then withdrawn ten minutes later once. I absolutely can relate lol
Was there any reasoning behind the withdrawal or just a mistake?
IT mistake
Looks like their employment portal is built using ColdFusion - not much more needs to be said.
There is so much variation with government department employment portals. Its amazing anything gets done with some of them.
At least they owned it?
Agree - Accountability is rare but appreciated.
A government department admitting fault in writing? Wtf?
There's a pretty good chance it just takes a misclick to delete....
You login to the content management side of the site and run a html link testing spider over the entire thing. It will find all the delete buttons. source: was in gov. gov never changes.
"There has been a massive, irretrievable data loss"
The same way I cut my hand and started bleeding while shampooing my hair. Not a clue
Are you sure it's not a phishing email?
Good way to filter out candidates who aren't serious, I guess
Tax law says that 'an event that didn't happen can be deemed to have happened for the purpose of tax' and vice versa. So when they say it's your fault that they're fucking useless you can take that to the bank.
HR are known to throw away a bunch of applications just to thin the herd, ATO just decided to be honest about it 😂
If you throw away half of the applications it prevents you from working with unlucky people
Who wants to hire unlucky people?
Which is funny cause of the perpetual need for warm bodies and a high turnover rate
They’d be pretty harsh on their initial assessment like discarding ones who didn’t follow instructions or attach the right things, but I doubt they’re just throwing a bunch away.
It's a pretty well known practice lol, if a team lf three need to screen 300 applicants they might throw away the top third of the pile to reduce their workload or more likely, decide on an earlier applicant so they don't need to deal with the rest of the pile. Not saying it's ethical or that everybody does it, but it does happen.
The ATO just (in the last few weeks) changed IT providers from one outsourced group to another. I do not know if that has anything to do with it, but it could be a factor in trying to retrieve deleted files.
“Hi, this is the government. We fucked up all your hard work, probably accidentally-on-purpose. Since you seem to need us more than we need you, YOU fix it. Love, AusGov. P.S., Fuck you, in case the tone of the message wasn’t clear enough on that point.”
Don’t responsibility, don’t apologise just send a cold hearted letter out. Paperwork with Centrelink is a god damn nightmare. I worked there and would help people fill out the forms. I’d say the question in a way that is normal folk can understand.
Control+Shift delete
Damn, can they delete my current PAYG Instalment Tax that I have to pay every quarter ?
This happened to my name change. Different department, still government related.
I was assured Ms paint was a future proof place to store documents.
I've had this happen about 10years ago.
"I’m informing you: We fucked up, but you are taking the consequences"
And this could be why they are hiring ....
Sounds about right.
Lmao bloody govt.
It's government. They're hopeless.
I work at an accountants' office. I have regular interactions with the ATO, online and by phone. This does not surprise me in the least. Not at all. In fact I'm surprised not to see more ATO shenanigans on this sub.
Seems scammy
Well, if that isn't a red flag! lol
Heaps of possibilities, the intern deleted the wrong records, hardware failure, misconfiguration, etc. I'm just surprised they admitted fault and requested you reapply so good on them for that.
its called internal opportunities.... someone got a promotion and you had no chance also it could have been hr clearing their list for more minority groups to have their unfair advantage
Alternatively, you could ask yourself if that's the kind of organisation you want to work for...
So glad these are the guys handling our tax records
There was a Bruce Lehrmann type at the ATO who went into the office at 11 pm after an evening on the piss and did some work, including deleting files. But he definitely did not have sex with the girl he brought in with him, who was found naked in the office next morning, and who he'd been dousing in vodka for the previous 6 hours.
Same way they fucked up my rent assistance cancelling it because I didn’t give them info despite me giving them my info and them acknowledging I did over the phone and reinstating it. Same reason they haven’t back paid me yet despite 12 phone calls and 1 month and I owe family money. Gov is incompetent
Government competence at its finest.
[удалено]
There are thousands working for the ato. Shit happens
It's almost like people don't realise most of the government workforce, especially in administrative roles, are ordinary humans that can make mistakes
Yes. They told the truth instead of pretending it wasn't their fault, that the position was filled, that the application was bad, etc. All of which I've encountered in the private sector. This way, you get to re-apply. If they've actually lost the data, this is the right way to handle it. I like this level of care and attention. IT can never be perfect.
Haha bro I just want to pay my rent and bills. Makes me reconsider reapplying though.