I lost a client: Trials and Tribulations of IT consulting

I lost my biggest (and for all intents and purposes last) IT consulting client this week.  

Now truth be told I wasn't making all that much there but it was better than nothing and to me it was an investment.  One made with the prospect of more hours as their business grew and more referrals.  I'll cut to the chase.

You roll the dice on any investment and this one didn't pan out.  Revenue went down instead of up, the client downsized and the one referral I got from them stiffed me for a grand in billable hours.

The writing was on the wall long before the sad email I received this week, however, and I'd been expecting a development like this for awhile.  

Slow payment, resistance to new projects and curt communication are all signs that you're on the way out and lately they were happening more often.

The relationships I build with clients are both blessing and curse.  A blessing because I get the benefit of the doubt and continue the relationship.  A curse because I'm expected to suffer the consequences of any malady that occurs along with them.  That means discounts, free work and in some cases a zero sum game. 

Even then sometimes it's just not enough.  In this latest case the client figured that a relative could do what I was doing for free.  I can't compete with free and won't try.

That said, this client was no different than any other long term engagement in that I had an intimate relationship with their business.  I knew more about where my money was coming from than most in my position would.  That's not by accident either.  The cornerstone of my business is knowing how my client does their business and doing whatever I can to support that.

It's simple, if they make money I make money.

After nearly two decades of IT consulting I've lost three clients.  Two including this most recent were due to budget issues and one was pure politics.  I've had other short term and what I call "hit and run" clients over the years but those never appealed to me.  If I can't build a relationship and instead get treated like an appliance repairman then I'm not interested in sticking around.  

Saying, "I lost the clients." is a bit harsh, however. As none of those exits were on bad terms and all of them were after at least a five year stint.  Even the so-called political exit was nothing more than getting caught up in the fallout from events that had nothing to do with me.  I worked for them for over ten years by the way so do with that what you will.

Personally I believe you have to be doing something right to stick around that long when your services are always at the top of the bean counters cost-cutting list.  That and the longer you can stay away from on-demand clients the better.

I've never been a big fan of "Hit and Run" IT mostly because it never pays well and you end up fighting for every penny.  All the while losing your shirt in the process.

Ultimately you end up hating the people you're trying to help which is an internal conflict I'd rather not have.  So I look for longer engagements. There's a price to pay for that when you're on your own, however.   I keep my active contracts limited to no more than 3 as any more means I can't provide the level of service a long term relationship demands.  

That also limits a fallback position which is where I'm at now.  You don't have much of an opportunity to scare up leads if your phone is constantly ringing.  Worse if those clients aren't generating any referrals you're trapped.  Which gets you to...here.
I'll be honest, I just finished an online application for Autozone right after filling out one for an IT manager with a fortune 500 company. 

At this point, whomever calls first wins!

Yeah, it's that bad....

There's both wisdom and foolishness in the way I operated my consulting business and I've been called on the carpet for it more than once by my consulting peers.  They say I get too involved and care too much when I should just be focusing on extracting as much money as I can.

They want me to be like them, appliance repairmen.  Sadly, they may be right as they're usually puling down 6 figure incomes while I'm living on 40 cent Burritos.  A tech martyr was not what I was going for....

I've mentioned before that I had a sense of activism when it came to IT.  It's what drove me to getting into the field as I didn't care for the bad (and deserved) rap it got for being full of ego maniacal jerks. 

 I wanted to change that perception through my own actions and for awhile it yielded positive results.  As time wore on, however, I found I really wasn't reaping all the benefits I'd hoped for.  While I truly loved all my clients I knew that at some point they were going to take advantage of my good nature.  

You sleep in the bed you make and if your client relationships are built on more good will on one side than the other then you're not leaving yourself much leverage to change them when the time comes.  

Let's face the reality.  There's a sense of organizational narcissism that pervades the corporate space that only respects a similar narcissism in their business relationships.  It doesn't matter how large or small, it's always there.

That's because nobody really has the time to think about the human condition when they're trying to run a business.  Rather, they want definitive answers that can easily fit into the bean counters spreadsheets populated by well defined metrics and "milestones."

Even if that isn't realistically possible or fair that's just how business is done.  It's Texas Hold'em and somebody's got to pay the blinds.  As a consultant, they'll try to make sure it's you.

Which is why instead of success I end up a martyr.  

I seem to keep making the same mistake in choosing my causes.  

IT is a cold calculating field by it's very nature and the most successful in it are similarly defined.  That's not going to change anytime soon.  In fact that's what's expected and any departure while initially welcomed ultimately turns out badly for the pseudo-activist.  

I do the same thing with video games.  On my other blog I constantly rail against the injustices of big video game publishers and the relative blindness of their consumers that pump billions of dollars into inferior products.  

Nobody cares about making the world right for patrons of computer support and video games.  

But don't get me wrong, I'm no sucker.  Well, at least not willingly.  I just have an overheated sense of fairness.  

So what do I do now?  Does Don Quixote stop poking at windmills?

Yes, yes he does...

Look, don't get me wrong.  I love tech, I love IT, I just can't stand most of the people that work in it.  Most of them are with very limited exception the very stereotype of the narcissistic, egotistical IT jerks.  As far as I'm concerned they're all in dire need of a fat lip which I'd dearly love to provide.

Over and over again...

But on to more productive thoughts...

My only hope is to either get out of this masochistic madness or do what I initially set out to do and get into higher levels of IT management leaving the hands on drudgery to the ego maniacs. 

It's the reason why I have sixty thousand in student loans and spent Twenty+ years in the field even when it was probably wiser to get out.  If I can't lead from the trenches maybe I can lead from the mountain.  I certainly couldn't do any worse than the inept morons I've met with who currently occupy those positions.

I don't hold out much hope of that, however.  The most likely outcome for my future is pushing alternators and car batteries for a living.

I say that because I've interviewed with many of those whose jobs I'd ultimately seek to occupy and found them to be largely unimaginative, unimpressive and inadequate.  Meaning nothing has really changed in the world of the IT professional if it this is what business is looking to for leadership.  

So I suppose I can't really blame the lower level IT guys for being such jerks when lead by such uninspiring folk.

As such, the landscape being what it is, that door will likely never open to me.

That's OK.   I've liked cars far longer than computers for most of my life.  So long as the bills are paid I can take those well honed customer service skills and apply them to a field where they can be put to better use.

Will I continue IT blogging?  Probably, if I find something interesting to share or if my IT fortunes improve.  

Right now, however, I'm feeling very jaded.  I look at IT like an Ex-spouse with whom the divorce was amicable and without drama.  I may like her but it's unlikely we'll get back together unless something extraordinary happens.

The Truth about IT

I'm going to let you in on a secret...

If you're in IT nothing you do really matters.  At least not in the sense  of doing anything the world cares about.  I've said it before, IT exists to service people who actually create something.  It's a classic service industry job no matter what your title and that puts you right up there with the plumbers and auto mechanics. 

Plumbers don't get their names on monuments.  Neither do cab drivers, doormen or IT pros.  The world becomes more inconvenient without them but in the end they only exist to make someone else's life easier. 

I suppose that's why there's so many certifications for the profession now, assuming you could call it a profession.  It's not good enough to just be competent, now we need a governing authority to validate us.  A governing authority that's built a multi-billion dollar business out of our own insecurities.  As though we needed another reason to doubt our own abilities.

Even worse, validation from these governing authorities is suspect.  They exist less for the advancement of knowledge than their own revenue.  Why for instance would I need to not only carry a certification for Network knowledge but also specific product knowledge?

If I've been building networks for 20 years who cares if I have a Network + , A+ or ITIL anyway?  Those are supposed to be vendor neutral.  Surprise! network + was primarily developed by Cisco and A+ was written by hardware manufactures like HP, Dell and IBM.

 ITIL was written by masochists.

I've actually been disqualified for entry level tech jobs with (at the time) a decade of experience because I didn't have the right certification.  Never mind that on top of the experience  I had an electronics engineering degree, actually know what to do with a logic probe and was trained to troubleshoot PC's at board level. 

Because I refuse to spend $110 on an exam to see if I know which pin of a Molex connector is ground I can be denied a job I could do in my sleep because somebody thinks managing IT is all about the right certification.   If I've been working with networking  and computer equipment for most of my career why is it important what brand names were on the faceplates?

I know why and so do you, the people you're talking to don't have a clue about the department they're managing or worse don't really care. 

What's really sad is that your choice to work in the field means you have an 8 in 10 chance for having to work for them.

Here's a newsflash for the uninitiated, In the IT space everybody has to play by the same rules or nothing works. 

Do you really believe that the whole world runs exclusively on Cisco, Juniper, HP or 3Com equipment? 

Then it might surprise you to know that two brand agnostic organizations (IEEE, IETF) make the  Internet and networking in general possible.  They could care less whose brand is on your router so long as it plays by the rules they make. 

It's a perfect example of how useless vendor certifications are and an equally perfect indicator of a broken IT organization should it subscribe to another useless certification, the ITIL.

If you see a job description that demands a specific brand certification or worse the dreaded "familiar with ITIL methodology" you're likely dealing with a hiring manager that doesn't understand their own department.  A hallmark of an ITIL organization shows itself when ability is defined only by plug and play solutions no matter how ineffective.  They're not looking for ability, they're looking for the status quo even if it's dysfunctional.

I'm not against education or training, I'm just against the commoditization of it.  I'm also against lazy management practices based on buzzwords and fads.  Effective IT managers know at least something about the nuts and bolts of their department and can lead from experience.   

Ineffective IT managers are just waiting around till the next seminar on their way to their next job.  They rule by edicts lifted straight out of the framework of the dogma they've embraced and then slam the door on your way out. 

Good managers lead from experience not seminars.  You have to know what's right to know when things have really gone wrong.  You also have to give a damn or you're useless. 

That can be a tall order considering how neutered the IT function has become in the last decade.  IT budgets are strictly administered (usually by someone other than IT) and organizations don't have the latitude they once did.

If you're unlucky enough to be working in an organization that's fully embraced the ITIL construct you can expect to be constantly swimming upstream.  ITIL demands that technology and technical concerns take a back seat to the every whim of the user base.  

Yes, IT is a service profession but constant pandering leads to sloppy IT organizations and eventually to another tenet of ITIL, workarounds.  In other words, band-aids and bailing wire take precedence over actually fixing the problem.

Everyone demands zero downtime but refuses to do what it takes to achieve it.  IT professionals are expected to be on-call 24/7 for a wage that doesn't compensate them for that commitment.   Lest we forget the hardware to make it happen.

You're a fool if you accept that but most fools in IT do. 

If you care about what you do you then you don't mind the crazy hours but I can count on one hand the number of people I've met who were doing more than going through the motions.  Here's another newsflash, they weren't working 9 to 5.

We've come full circle.  The cold hard reality is that IT is a service profession and doesn't lend itself to rigid schedules and the meaningless busywork. 

So what can you look forward to if you happen to land that "dream?" IT job.  Maybe you're the new System Admin or IT manager.  Good for you.  Now that the pleasantries are over it's time to figure out if you'll be around long enough to wear out your office chair.

Let's play a little point/counterpoint framed in the context of questions asked in the average IT interview...

Why do you want to work in IT?

Point	Counterpoint
I love technology and I want to help people make the best use of it.	Technology makes the world go round and it's better than flipping burgers for a living.  But not by much.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Point

Counterpoint

Hopefully in a management position so I can help further business goals using IT.

Probably in management because the last 2 IT managers quit and I managed to not get fired.  However, I know I'll be burned out because nobody is willing to do what it takes so I'll just bide my time.  I'll probably attend a lot of seminars looking for a way to make my life easier and do the bare minimum.  I'll hire lots of people with letters behind their names to make the department look good till I move on to my next job.

What is IT's function?

Point	Counterpoint
To further the organization's goals with the services I provide.	To keep the executive suite from complaining too much and maintaining the status quo because nobody really gives a damn what I do so long as they get their email and can play Farmville on their IPAD.

What's the value of IT certification?

Point	Counterpoint
It shows a commitment to continuous improvement and allows me to keep up to date with the latest technology.	Nobody cares about my MBA so I better have some more letters behind my name if I want to keep my job.

What's more important, Technology or customer service?

Point	Counterpoint
IT is a service industry, our users, customers or whatever the label, come first.  They need to feel confident in the resources we provide	IT IS a service industry and you shouldn't be in it unless you understand that.  However, if you don't have the resources to do your job properly and decisions are made based on price instead of value (there's a difference) then you're never going to achieve customer satisfaction.  That is unless they're satisfied with you constantly saying "I'm sorry"

Ok, so the counterpoint looks like someone you wouldn't want within 100 miles of an IT department.  Here's the rub, the Point column is largely BS and everyone in the field knows it.  It looks good on glossy brochures but you can't get blood from a stone. 

Most IT departments are lucky to get new patch cables let alone the resources they need to meet user  demands.  The "Counterpoint" side is sadly closer to reality than anyone wants to admit to.  It's why I personally prefer contract work because I'd rather not waste time spinning my wheels and going nowhere while the rest of the department struggles for legitimacy that the field just can't provide.

IT can be rewarding but not when it's treated like the accounting department.  Truth be told if technology was forced to evolve in an average IT department, we'd still be using Motorola Dynatacs and dialing up to AOL for email on 28.8K modems.

The problem with corporate IT management methodologies is that you have a lot of people sitting around just waiting for something to happen.  When you are busy it's generally because one of the band-aids fell off the server and the CEO is screaming about how he can't get to EBay because of it.

Lets' face it, we're the plumbers, electricians and architects of technology.  We know what to do and how to do it (Hopefully?)  The best measure of success is that things work when they need to and that's the only goal that matters.

 We do what we do because we care about our life's work. (Well, at least first before we get jaded.)  Thing is,  that much ambition doesn't get you too far in most corporate IT departments.  Too much passion scares corporate types which means you either get shown the door or you just trudge on and abandon your soul.

Where a real tradesman is looked upon as the authority in their profession, IT is frequently seen as a necessary evil.  It's hard if not impossible to meet the demands of an organization when your hands are tied by corporate dogma. 

It's not that I'd advocate IT having no oversight but when you have to pass every decision through the  corporate litmus test, the result is going to be mediocre at best. 

Thus we have the "standard of mediocrity" ultimately resulting in IT pros clutching at straws to appear relevant.  That feeds my earlier assertion of how IT certifications prey on your own insecurities.  If you really care about the field and really want to effect change then you have to be brave enough to not just suffer in silence or load your resume up with worthless certifications.

The best known figures in technology didn't hide behind their cubicles hoping for someday.  Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs  of Apple would have never survived in the average IT department.  Hell, they couldn't even stand college where at least there was beer and girls!

So why do we expect people who thrive on technology to function like accountants?  Would it be reasonable to expect an auto mechanic to fix your car in your bathroom? 

Well, I'm sorry to tell you, that's the reality of IT more often than not.  Unless you can make a go of it with the feast or famine cycle of consulting (as in independent not Robert Half) you're stuck with it. 

Of course, If you're more into the management track or the cubicle lifestyle I suppose it can work for you but I can guarantee I won't at least not as your employee.

IT Legacies or IT Curse: Epilogue

IT legacies: Epilogue

So what happens when you're the guy tasked with fixing the mess someone else left behind?  In my case the best course of action was to take it one step at a time.

In the precursor to this post, IT Legacies, IT curse, I described an IT organization focused heavily on data but blind to the fundamentals of networks and Windows servers.  In the succeeding weeks since I wrote that article I found a multitude of evils compounded by daily demands that only served to highlight the tasks before me.

There was no area of IT that I didn't have to address but  for now I'll focus on what I found to be one of the most serious issues.

One of my first tasks was to straighten out the Windows domain.  Any admin worth his salt knows that the decision to use Active Directory(AD) automatically invokes the prerequisite of having a second Domain Controller (DC) somewhere in the organization.   Reason being, a second DC allows authentication tasks to be balanced across two servers and ensures you're not relying on one copy of the AD database for your entire Windows network. 

It's common sense if you understand how AD works.  In short, if your deployment doesn't merit a second DC then you don't really need AD.  It's that simple.  Think of it as a the law of AD regardless of the version of Windows Server you're running.

That said, I knew a lone domain controller in an organization of any size was asking for trouble.  Worse the one I found  was seemingly deployed as an afterthought.   On reflection, it probably was.

If you're going to run a Windows AD DC (I know a lot of acronyms) there's going to have to be a DNS server somewhere and with one DC on the network it wasn't a stretch to figure out where it would live. 

Remember that Active Directory is heavily dependent on the information contained within DNS.  If we accept that DNS functions as a kind of phonebook to allow easy lookup of the information contained within the AD database then we begin to see how critical it is for it to be functioning correctly.

Imagine my surprise when my investigation into the DNS information living on this solitary DC found that it was not being integrated into AD at all.  It's a basic configuration step requiring little more than a checkmark on a properties page of the DNS zone's configuration. 

I was mystified at this which led me to investigate why someone would choose to depend on an easily corrupted  text file to store critical information when it could be safely stored within the AD database and replicated at the same time as other AD data. 

Well ok, that's assuming there's something to replicate to.  I began to doubt my own procedures for a moment.  Perhaps there was something special going on that I just didn't understand.  Perhaps some weird 'Nix server had a problem with AD integrated DNS zones.  Perhaps the moon was in the 7th house and Jupiter was aligned with Mars...

I found nothing, so if for no other reason than to comfort my own ego I turned to Technet for validation of my own beliefs. 

In the end my convictions were vindicated.  There's nothing that precludes an AD integrated zone from interacting with other non AD DNS servers or clients.  I really do try to keep an open mind but when we stray into the ridiculous my verbalizations immediately become colorful and it's best not to be around me.

By the way, at one point there actually was another DC in the domain but it disappeared into the ether well before I arrived.  I never did figure out where it went.  Perhaps this was why the DNS zone wasn't integrated into DNS although that would solidify my belief that the previous IT team didn't know what the !&@*! they were doing. 

Considering the existing non-Ad DNS zone was still referencing a now absent DC it's apparent the removal wasn't graceful.  In fact the event log was filled with failed messages about replication.  Perhaps the DNS server complaints in the event logs caught the attention of someone on the former IT staff and their solution was to rip DNS out of AD. 

Now remember, the second DC should never have gone AWOL in the first place but if you're going to take it out at least do it right.  They didn't...

What I was left with was a server that had been searching in vain for a companion that hadn't existed for at least a year or more.  Considering this lone DC had a full office 2007 installation and two different resident user applications running that no longer served any purpose it was no wonder that this server would sit at 99% CPU load for hours on end. 

It was a DC that was treated like a workstation managed by an IT team that didn't have a clue.  It's really that simple.

The net effect were logon times that could take minutes in an organization where there would never be more than 10 simultaneous logons ever.  Logon scripts frequently failed, mapped drives disappeared and resources would remain inaccessible to users for up to 15 minutes after logon.

So, in my second week I began scrounging for parts and built a second DC out of cast off hardware.  That was the easy part.  Getting an operating system on it, however, was no easy task.  I can build Windows servers in my sleep but only if I have access to the necessary resources.  Of course with this client, I didn't.  Nobody knew where the server licenses were let alone the installation media yet I knew they had to exist because at some point there was at least one more DC. 

That led to a weeklong treasure hunt that was only partially successful but highlighted another issue with the IT organization.  I ultimately came up with a legal but kludgy solution that I won't go into here.  Suffice it to say that Peter was left the poorer for Paul's needs.

That was pretty much the order of the day during my tenure and was a necessary modus operandi if I wanted to get anything done.  As bad as it was, however, every upturned rock was an opportunity to change things for the better and in reality that was my role.  It's one thing to complain but another to do something about it. 

I was fairly well clued in on my first day when I found a backup job stuck in error status for 6 months and had to get my supervisor to call someone outside the company for the Administrator password.

By the way, that thing about the backup isn't an exaggeration.  There had literally been no data backup for almost half the server resources in 6 months.  The first request for file restoration I received took the better part of a day to satisfy and only after intense digging within old backup catalogs and a bit of luck. 

That's one thing Backup Exec is good for, endless catalogs.  At least Backup Exec's Continuous Protection server was good for something for a change because I didn't have as much as a shadow copy to work with otherwise.

Instead of going into any more lengthy diatribe on the specifics of what else was wrong with this organization, for brevity's sake I'm just going to list the issues.  See if any of them look familiar...

1. One domain controller
2. Messed up DNS configuration
3. 192.168.1.x  ( Yep, just like at your house)
4. Broken backups (Running on Backup Exec 11D - one of the buggiest versions BTW)
5. Paying  support fees for software no longer used
6. No documentation or obsolete documentation
7. Slow logons
8. Bad password policy
9. Using Domain administrative credentials to run application services
10. Outdated desktops (average 5 years old)
11. VMWare ESXi deployed in an enterprise environment
12. Lack of an enterprise management application suite
13. No redundancy...in anything
14. Backup tapes stored onsite
15. No standard workstation model
16. No accountability for outside vendors
17. Obsolete Server and Network resources
18. No or obsolete IT inventory information
19. No update policy
20. No control of IT budget (Not really that big of surprise these days but this was REALLY bad)
21. Inconsistent licensing for all IT resources
22. Reliance on outside vendors for critical IT functions (Proprietary DB systems, What' s the Admin Password?, etc)
23. No network diagram
24. Critical offsite servers that IT had no access to
25. Inadequate broadband connection (5Mbits to handle everything including 2 busy DB's and a web server)
26. New IT resources deployed without testing
27. IT projects planned and scheduled without notifying IT
28. Business phone system on its last legs (was purchased for $300 on EBay after the last one blew up...no, really)
29. Haphazard IT planning (or NO IT planning)

I know I probably forgot something but that list is pretty damning.  If you've been in the field for awhile you probably have a few of those items on your list too maybe even a few more.  Hopefully not all at the same time!

The point is that the key to fixing problems in IT is to identify them in the first place.  This particular organization was a victim of ad-hoc management.   In short, IT was repeatedly blindsided by issues that wouldn't have existed if someone was paying attention. 

You know, stuff like what the administrator passwords are and where the server room key is...

As the demands of the business were shoehorned into a dysfunctional IT methodology more and more time was spent putting out fires and less on ensuring a reliable environment.  Users eventually got used to doing less with less simply because there wasn't any alternative. 

But hey, at least the databases worked, if you could access them that is...

It's a common problem in IT but that doesn't make it acceptable.  I'm a firm believer in the KISS (Keep IT Simple Stupid) principle.  Things only get complex when you stop paying attention.  If you've got a mess, just break it down in to it's most basic parts instead of trying to do everything at once.  You're only human and the fact is, everyone's suffered this long so they can wait a bit longer for things to be done right. 

My immediate predecessor apparently couldn't embrace that philosophy as he left after only 2 days.  Admittedly it was one of the worst IT shops I'd ever walked into but nothing's impossible if you put the problem in the right context.  I was allowed to do that so when I left I felt good that I'd not only addressed the most egregious issues but laid out a framework to  build on.  That'll keep you from spending all your weekends babysitting servers and crossing your fingers Monday morning. 

I know I keep talking about "The Basics" and "Foundations."  You may be wondering what I mean by that.  Time for another list but don't worry it's a short one this time.

THE BASICS

1. Document EVERYTHING and make sure everyone knows where it is
2. Critical IT procedures need to be codified (you know, like water on a burning server is a bad idea...)
3. Keep track of your resources
4. Don't be cheap! Get what you need to get the job done consistently and reliably
5. Remember your place, IT is a service job and your users are your customers so keep them in mind in all you do
6. Don't let anything or anyone interfere with Rule 5

You wouldn't blame your car for running out of gas if you never looked at the gas gauge so why would anyone think that ignoring the basics of your IT organization would have any better result? 

A week before my departure the business hired on a full-time IT manager and I was glad my efforts were able to provide him with more than horror stories.  Having laid out the issues, current configuration and procedures put in place he had a better starting point than I did.

I spent my last few days composing a document outlining everything I'd learned about the organization as well as common procedures and recommendations for improvement.   He's got a long road ahead of him but at least he's got an idea of where he's going.

I was just glad to provide the roadmap...