IT, operations and politics in The Wire

29 December 2006 by Rod McLaren

The operations, usability, resilience, trust, engagement and politics challenges in field operations and inventory management neatly illustrated courtesy of The Wire season 2 (2003) episode 5, 0:46:50:

[Port authority employee] Sobotka: In a nutshell, what this shows is the Aqua Verde at berth four. The plan calls for 85 moves. That’s cans, containers, coming off the ship and others going back on. Now, you look at the screen, you see that every time a can goes on or off, the computer creates a record and puts it in the permanent database.
[Police detective] Bunk: Well, he was sayin’ that the computer makes it hard to steal off the docks.
Sobotka: Did our illustrious port manager tell you that right now, we got 160 boxes missing off the Patapsco terminal alone? Or the last time we inventoried the truck chassis, we came up 300 light? No, I suppose not, that’s management for ya.
Bunk: 160, huh?
Sobotka: Not that all of them are stolen. ‘Cause you can lose a can by accident, no problem. For one thing, these handhelds use radio waves. And with all the equipment and container stacks out there, sometimes them waves get knocked down. That happens, a can don’t get entered. Or, just as easy, a checker makes the wrong entry. Either ‘cause he’s lazy, he’s sloppy, or he’s still shitfaced from the night before. Or, simpler than that, you got fat fingers, no offense, so imagine February on the docks. You’re wearing Goretex gloves, tryin’ to punch numbers on that thing.
[Police detective] Russell: You’re sayin’ that’s what happened to the can with the girls in it?
Sobotka: Beadie, darlin’, I don’t know what happened there. I’m just sayin’ if you go by the computer, it might look like there’s some kinda dirt goin’ down, when it’s really just a glitch in the system.
Bunk: The customs seal was broke on that box. Shouldn’t that get noticed?
Sobotka: You’re off-loading a ship the size of a small town, you might notice a broke seal, you might not. Look, you wanna keep pullin’ our chain, you can. But it ain’t like it’s just that one box that went missing. We lose them son-bitches all the time.
Port Manager: Frank give you everything you need?
Russell: He did, thanks.
Bunk: They’re playing us.

This and the following episode also show how any system risks being used negligently or being gamed maliciously, but also hints how the gaps in the system that make such misuse possible are also used to provide small, informal fixes for those problems.

Our view tends to be that, if you can guarantee the quality of the reporting and compliance outputs, previously existing local solutions should be respected in any new IT or process, and there should be as few barriers as possible to new solutions and practices being developed informally.

The Long Now of government IT On handing over the app on the devices for testing