The first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem. I think the fact that they're so honest and willing to do so bodes well for their likelihood of fixing whatever error caused this to happen.
In places I've worked, this is easily the direct cause of 75% or more of operational errors (including my own), and an indirect cause (e.g. via outdated or inadequate documentation, poor labeling, etc.) of most of the rest.
I've heard of occasional case studies along these lines, but I'm wondering what direct research is out there about the psychological factors that lead to bypassing normal processes and procedures.
I agree. I find most of my own mistakes are from a sense of urgency, and find I work better when I put intentional effort into laying things out ahead of time. The psychological factors would be interesting to know, I agree.
Would say more, but got to roll out some changes to our production environment and need to be focused on it so I don't do something wrong. :)
Not to excuse the error, but one can argue that at least it was just names and emails and not something more sensitive. For the best part unscrupulous firms you've signed up to at one point or another have already sold that email on to dozens of third party marketing firms. Or it's been leaked by others that haven't taken steps to protect their data. Or otherwise the company requesting your email has taken the liberty of spamming it with unrelated guff you're probably not interested in (music industry mailing lists are great for this).
The only real protection against it is to keep cycling your email address so the old ones become invalid (to you at least).
It's an odd mistake to have been made though, but without the details of that it's pointless to make assumptions about their system.
That was a surprisingly honest & straightforward article for The Register. Hopefully they'll embrace this style in the future once in a while instead of leaping head-first into click bait rag territory as usual.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 40.2 ms ] threadIn places I've worked, this is easily the direct cause of 75% or more of operational errors (including my own), and an indirect cause (e.g. via outdated or inadequate documentation, poor labeling, etc.) of most of the rest.
I've heard of occasional case studies along these lines, but I'm wondering what direct research is out there about the psychological factors that lead to bypassing normal processes and procedures.
Would say more, but got to roll out some changes to our production environment and need to be focused on it so I don't do something wrong. :)
The only real protection against it is to keep cycling your email address so the old ones become invalid (to you at least).
It's an odd mistake to have been made though, but without the details of that it's pointless to make assumptions about their system.
You should email them.
Note to self: When in hurry, don't do any important tasks.
http://www.ico.gov.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Commissioner%27s_Of...