Hi, I'm an IT professional and I hate you....

Got your attention didn't I....

Well folks, that's what a whole lotta people think of IT these days and the problem lies with 2 things.  Bad attitudes and bad management.

I found this article the other day and I was moved to respond.  I got kind of long-winded but that tends to happen when I'm calling out BS.

See if you find something you recognize in your own organization....

Blah, Blah, Blah, a bunch or words nobody will ever listen to.  The problem with IT's image is the same as it's always been and I've been in it for 25 years.  IT is looked at as a necessary evil precisely because that's the role IT management has accepted.

I can count on one hand the number of IT managers that had any idea of what the company they were supporting actually did or even cared, for that matter.  People know when you're just going through the motions and act accordingly. 

You might as well be an appliance repair tech not a partner...

Many organizations just hire career managers with little to no IT experience and no concept of how to effectively manage an IT team.  They're either just occupying space before moving on to the next job between seminars or buried in busy work because it's the only way they can justify their own job. 

Worse, they make poor  hiring decisions based on skill checklists and nothing more.  Ability and attitude rarely come into the mix because their hiring process is akin to choosing a combo meal at Mickey D's.  Ultimately you end up with a team populated by people that are just there to collect a check and do the bare minimum to get by.  Most IT people I've met hate their jobs because they get overworked, underappreciated and have no support and no direction from their management. 

End result, poor service and bad attitudes towards their users.

I find it amusing that Sears Holdings is held up as a stellar example of good IT.  A bankrupt company that had to spin off a tech subsidiary to provide anything of value to the parent company.  I can remember many a line I stood in when the POS systems would go down in the stores with IT indifferent to their plight. 

How could you possibly expect any kind of direction from a disinterested IT leadership anyway? IT managers are supposed to set the standard but all too often that standard is pretty low regardless of how many ITIL plaques grace their walls.  If there's no foundation, no belief in the job then why should the subordinates be any different than the leader?

There are far too many people in the field that forget that IT is a service business.  A profession that exists at the pleasure of those it serves.  I could care less what a whizbang you are with AWS or Azure or how you can quote the OSI Layer verbatim if you can't apply it to the people you serve.  Tech is amorphous and ultimately irrelevant outside of its use as a tool.  But for too many the tech is more important than the job it's supposed to be doing and we only realize that when someone from the C-suite is inconvenienced by it.

End result: A vicious cycle of IT's own making.  Shrinking budgets and poor perception of their value.

As an IT professional you're defined by the level of service you provide and if your heart isn't in it, it's going to show.  The job is too demanding to not be invested in the people you serve.  Their success is your success because you make the magic happen.  Attitude ladies and gentlemen, is the key and most of the IT organizations I've seen have a poor one.  

No wonder the perception is negative!

You get what you give, that's how life works.  If IT's attitude is adversarial you will get treated in kind.  If you're giving your all and people know it, their attitude towards you will be positive.  I've seen this and put it into action everywhere I've worked and the only trouble I ever had was with those seat warming managers I mentioned earlier.

Put the right people in the right places, get rid of the chair warmers and watch the magic happen.

The crime of Avarice....The 2018 AZ primaries and bad IT

It seems that perhaps the laissez-faire attitude toward corporate IT training may finally be coming home to roost.

In the recent 2018 Primary elections in Arizona there was a serious issue with the deployment of voting technology in Maricopa County.  As many as 62 voting sites were affected with estimates of over 100,000 voters being inconvenienced or worse.

For the project, Tempe's Insight (A large IT products and services company) was chosen as the primary contractor.   After looking over this article and supporting sources it seems fairly clear to me what went wrong.

In short....  

Inadequate training, bad management and an over-reliance on outsourcing led to a debacle that will likely end in the courts when all is said and done.

The passage below from the cited article states what I believe to be the crux of the issue.  It relates what a contracted tech experienced during the deployment.

"... training of subcontractors mirrored Insight's "regular" employee training consisting of watching a 15 minute video and a multi-page instruction sheet that was to be printed out.   In addition technicians were required to view another video on the use of Insight's  SmartPhone APP which was clearly identified as being in BETA.   In other words, not in final WORKING form.  This "APP" was to be the "preferred" means of communicating and managing assigned jobs.

At no point in this process was any other training provided to the subcontractors meaning technicians unfamiliar with both the equipment and Maricopa County election procedure were expected to somehow "magically" set up a site without ever having touched the equipment they were responsible for.  The backup plan, that same printed instructional document and vague references to a support hierarchy which as we now know was insufficient."

It's fairly obvious in this all too familiar accounting of the technician's experience that  training was woefully inadequate to the task at hand.  Not to mention support and communication channels.

I've seen this movie so often over the past few decades that I won't even pretend to be surprised.

It takes me back to the days of the "paper certified" IT professional whose training was limited ( by design ) to little more than was necessary to pass the certification exam.  Leading to individuals ill prepared for the challenges they'd face outside of the ideal scenario.

Yes, education is a personal responsibility but when your business model depends on having people ready for what you're going to throw at them you don't leave it to chance.

Or a training video...  IBM started doing that in the 90's and guess what, they don't sell computers any more.

If it's that important you'd better be sure everyone's on the same page.  Unless what Maricopa County saw on Election day is your idea of success.

I'll be honest, my personal opinion of Insight has never been very high.  They evolved from the same swamp that birthed 1000 other flaky computer part vendors back in the 80's.  By the time they became "legitimate" and changed their name to Insight I was just beginning my professional IT career and already wary of them.   

My every brush since has been an experience in either frustration, arrogance or incompetence.  Sometimes all 3 at once.

But then, what can you expect from a business founded on the principles of undercutting the competition at all costs.  

Google Hard Drives International if you want a history lesson on the company's roots.  Not exactly shining.

In any case it appears to me that Insight was once again more interested in profit than doing the job right.  Their defense?  "We're not responsible." 

Look suited morons...

You don't send a tech to something as important as a polling place armed only with inadequate training from a 15 minute video and flaky smartphone app.  

Add to it inconsistencies in the command hierarchy, failed communication channels and scheduling chaos and you get the mess we see here.

All the tenets of a company that puts no value in training, planning or project management.

What's ironic is that such "training" these days is actually considered generous compared to the status quo. 

Worry about nothing but the bottom line and you get bottom of the barrel.  

Insight, don't expect quality if you aren't willing to invest in what it takes to get the job done and that ISN'T a 15 minute video and abandonment of your field techs.

What it IS, is investing in adequate training that includes hands on labs and a firm grasp of the escalation tree (among other things) long BEFORE election day.

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

Legacy, whenever the word comes up I think of characters like Don Corleone, Michael Jordan and Bill Gates.  Legacy means at some point you've left something that will endure long after you've moved on.

In IT, legacies are usually synonymous with curses and lately I've been doing a lot of cursing.  I've inherited a legacy of sorts with the start of a new contract. 

It's with an industrial electronics company with an IT history that stretches back at least as far as Novell Netware from the piles of old software I've found.

From what I've been able to gather from sources inside the company as well as former IT employees (now acting as fair weather consultants) there was a time when IT was ruled with an iron fist.  The head of the gang of six, as I now refer to them, was an unpleasant database administrator.   His rule was absolute because databases and specifically the data within them are this company's lifeblood. 

In case you haven't gotten the picture yet, he who holds the keys to the data holds the company by the short hairs.  A legacy that's persisted to the present day.  A legacy that now haunts my every billable hour.

To say that the previous IT manager abused his position would be an understatement.  The only force that could displace him and eventually the entire gang of six was when technology began to make it possible to bypass him. 

The tipping point? When someone made the decision to move a critical resource, messaging, out of his control and into the cloud.  Not that it was ever of any real concern to him but this sudden defiance of his rule was taken as a bad omen of things to come.  For him it was time to abdicate the throne.

Remember, up to that point, his rule was absolute like some tyrannical overlord.  User concerns were of no concern with unbridled shouting matches the norm if any dared question the authority of the gang of six.  By the way, the primary duty of the gang of six was to massage the data.   Everything else was secondary and it's still evident in the present day.

Not long after the overlord's departure the remaining gang members found themselves in an uncomfortable position.  Instead of tightly regimented tasks assigned by their overlord they now had to support an unpredictable user base.  A role they seemed unsuited for from the evidence I've uncovered so far.

There was even one who did nothing all day except "cleanse" the data.  Which for all intents and purposes involved little more than editing spreadsheets produced by the overlords many data mines.

Say what you want about Microsoft's Office 365 but I for one have a new found respect for anything that would get rid of that kind of IT organization. 

Shortly after the overlord exited the company in a huff due to the peasant revolt and subsequent embracing of cloud democracy other members of the gang of six soon fell away. 

Fast forward to the present day and open on me sifting through the remains of an abandoned IT department.

Surprisingly, instead of boxes or assorted refuse piled up in some kind of dilbertesque cubicle nightmare,  I find dedicated office space.  There's actual doors, desks, rooms and even a workshop with the remains of long abandoned projects still waiting for attention on the workbenches along the wall.

It's a little spooky, like someone let loose with a neutron bomb.  I keep looking for those outlined shadows on the walls that look like the photo negative of somebody's shadow.  Thankfully, I haven't found any yet.

Somebody was trying to be organized at some point but like the old saying goes, the proof is in the pudding.  I'll put it to you this way, I don't think Bill Cosby will be doing any commercials for these guys.

As I start my third week I already have bad memories.  One of the worst was working on what should have been a relatively simple project with one of the former gang of six (now a consultant).  It was a simple PC swap but the wrinkles became evident all too soon.  The now "consultant" refused to come onsite turning what should have been a day's work into three.   When things went wrong it wasn't the disembodied voice on the speakerphone that had to bear the brunt of a fuming department head.

 Unforeseen complications that should have been addressed in a lab instead of on the production floor almost cost the company thousands in lost revenue.  Quick and dirty fixes instead of solid solutions ruled the day. 

It's not that he didn't mean well but the lack of planning and laissez faire attitude toward the critical nature of this aspect of the business bothered me.  When I discussed it with the site supervisor he recognized the attitude immediately.  It was no different under the rule of the overlord.

IT is a dynamic affair and no one day is like the next but there is always ample opportunity for good planning that includes a fallback position if something goes wrong.  At this company it seems things going wrong are the order of the day. 

As I traverse the lonely halls and rows of cubicles I see evidence of the same kind of haphazard deployment and lack of planning that have crippled IT in the organization.  In short, the tyrants didn't need to burn the castle as they fled, it was already crumbling.

By now it's become obvious to me that IT people that massage databases for a living aren't always the best qualified to make decisions for an entire organization.  Some things are better left to those of us who'd rather not spend our time memorizing SQL queries and worrying about primary keys.

Let me be blunt.  I respect someone who has the ability to manage huge volumes of data and understand the intricacies of how it all relates to each other.  In the end, however, these people are power users not network or system administrators.  There's simply too much to keep track of in both disciplines for anyone to perform both functions competently.   Defy that logic and you end up with an organization like the one I'm trying to piece back together.

Shortly before I arrived the company suffered something largely unheard of in IT these days.  A rampant virus infection.  Caused by ineffective security policies, lack of management tools and outdated security software, it was an inevitable event just waiting for an opportunity.

Token gestures of security like a recently implemented mandatory password policy are good but trivial in the context of a broken IT organization. Make no mistake, this is a broken IT organization.  Its most poignant  symbol,  a four foot high pile of discarded rack servers numbering in the dozens just inside the door of the abandoned IT workshop.  With the relative dearth of IT services available it seems more like evidence of a scorched earth policy than evidence of a virtualization project. 

Truth be told many likely became unnecessary with the move to cloud services and a "sort of" consolidation of physical servers into virtual.  Ultimately, however, it seems more like evidence of retaliation than consolidation.  Ask any system admin, for example,  how many Domain controllers should exist in ANY Windows network and the answer you'll get is 2. 

We currently have one and it lives on a virtual server with no backup and no failover.  That's one of my priority projects by the way.  I'm utilizing a discarded hulk and parts scavenged from the carcasses of similarly afflicted hardware.

Questionable licensing, inadequate resources and a lack of documentation are all symptoms of an IT organization in disarray.  When the answer to "What's the admin password" requires a phone call to an outside party for the answer you know you have issues. 

In short, my job is to try to rebuild an IT organization while trying to convince a wary executive suite that I seek no term as the next IT overlord

The most significant hurdle has little to do with a new server or software, however.  Years of abuse from a bad IT organization has made every purchase and every policy change, no matter how insignificant, an exercise in bureaucracy.  A trait that has seen others (not of the gang of six) leave after only hours.

There's such distaste for the way things were that I'm relegated to cubeville, far away from those cozy IT digs.

My story is ongoing and luckily much of my remedial work can take place after hours where I'm free to curse the names of my predecessors without concern for delicate ears. 

The lesson here can be summed up in one of the first meetings I had with my site supervisor.  We were discussing how the IT organization should be structured in the future.  Remember, right now I'm the entire IT department apart from a few specialized "consultants" still massaging the data.

He thought the organization should be headed up by yet another maestro of data to which I replied, " So you're ok with the way things were?"

He replied, " Well, no, it was awful" 

Don't get me wrong, data's important and this company lives and dies by it.  Thing is, I see a future with at least two people to keep this place humming along.  One a data specialist, the other concentrating on the network and server infrastructure.  Both can offer support and with a properly running IT shop, both will have plenty of time to support the user community instead of putting out fires and making excuses.

...and both will be equals.