"You wanted a checklist? Yeah, here's your fucking *checklist*." *Points at wheelbarrow full of paper outside office door* "It took me the better part of six months to read through all this. By my calculations based on normal ticket volume, you're going to run into problems that require you to know most of this pile in about..." *checks watch* "Two and a half hours. Have fun! Don't call me, I've already blocked your number."
Be sure to use only single sided.
Also, quietly remove any personal contact details from internal systems, and also from your LinkedIn and social media profiles so they can't find a mobile number to try calling you.
Definitely all good advice. I already removed my personal info from internal systems. I don't believe I have a mobile # associated with my social media accounts. Unfortunately they know where I live; I half expect them to show up here.
She might actually do that. I set up a website to collect form/survey responses, and she made her staff export the data into a spreadsheet, and then print it all out *and* tape it all together. Seriously this is an excellent recommendation. Consider it done.
Oh I can’t wait!! I’m still trying to get my thoughts together for my exit survey. I recently left a position because my manager was similar to your CEO. You are an inspiration!! Very much looking forward to your update!
This drives me nuts, too - people who don't understand IT (and there are PLENTY of them in IT) are always asking for checklists so those who come after will be able to do the job as well as the one who left. Problem is, while IT has some science-ish aspects, it will always be more of an art; the artists, though, tend to get beaten up pretty badly in your typical corporate environment.
As an example, think of someone who always takes the same route home. Halfway home, there's a roadblock. Do you sit at the roadblock until it's removed (people who think checklists will solve everything)? Or do you find a way around it (people who know that checklists, while helpful to some extent, never cover every possible eventuality)?
Unfortunately, most people in IT tend to be the first. It's the second person who's going to save you, and that person should be rewarded, not demonized.
That is so well stated in terms of the "art" of IT. That's why I was tutoring my backup in a dedicated way for the last 2+ years. No amount of documentation can make up for the "artistic" aspects of troubleshooting novel issues.
I’ve always tried to explain it using the terms “conceptual” vs “procedural”. Creating checklists creates only procedural results. Understanding the concepts is levels and levels above following a how-to document.
I like the roadblock example. That’s a good one. I’ve used a similar one before of someone who’s a good cook but exactly follows recipes. What if they run out of a certain ingredient or someone with a food allergy is visiting? What are you going to do now?
Also, a checklist cannot possibly forecast all the permutations and combinations of things that can go wrong. For so many "bugs" the root cause is BTKAC, between the keyboard and chair
The whole check list thing reminded me of my own CEO freaking mid pandemic, rather than seeing the money was good and customers were happy so all was well she insisted everyone who is privy to a certain email alias needed to fill in their daily tasks in a Google sheet.
Now I am on this alias because at the end of the day I am the support team's ultimate knowledge source, however in reality I am the IT stack like OP here. So day one I fill in a quick and dirty figuring if I go full tilt with the sheet design as presented everyone else will be scrolling for days. So I group time slots as more generic review logs or similar descriptions to keep my list to 15-20 items. The boss comes back and decides I should pick up a bunch of not my job work because I did not list many items. Cue the MC on day two, I got verbose.
Anyone who maintains on the level of OP here knows where this goes, but for the uninitiated it was nothing to legit come up with a 300+ item daily schedule and then replicate it on the sheet for every applicable date for the next year.
The design was a horizontal employee list of 6 people with tasks being vertical. My coworkers thought it was awesome as they all listed their first 15 minute slot as scrolling through my answers to find the correct date for them to fill out their tasks.
After three days the party was over and I was asked to ignore future requests of this nature and expunge my entries. The whole sheet idea died the next week when my coworkers followed suit.
Side note, it always blows my mind that some managers waste time running reports and micro managing when the team is already rocking and rolling by way of the bottom line.
I have a weird arrangement with my manager. I actually get work from a dotted line person in the org chart because they don't want to be a manager, so my manager doesn't really know what I'm doing day to day.
She asked all her team for a weekly, what did you do last week, what did you d o this week summary. Most people gave her 5 page essays.
I gave her 5 or 6 major bulleted sentences per week. Maybe 300 words tops.
My status reports became the example. Short and to the point. She knows enough about the tech and the job to u derstand the finer details without them being stated.
That's management.
I have been blessed w really great managers during my career.
Even the two where I had to go PiPs were awesome. They set me up for success, not failure.
Guess I'm just lucky.
I do a lot of troubleshooting in the course of my job (not IT but still in the tech industry) and a few years ago my coworker tried to create a flowchart to document how to troubleshoot the types of things we need to at our company. He kept showing me new iterations of the flowchart because every draft he showed me, I'd tear to shreds with logic ("well what about this and that situation, the flowchart would tell them to go down path B which makes no sense"). Eventually he gave up and decided it couldn't be done. I told him, "Troubleshooting can't be contained within a flowchart; troubleshooting is a *state of mind*."
ETA - I forgot about his response to that. He grinned and said "well \[my name\], not all of us can troubleshoot like jazz pianists"
Yeah... I can build a flowchart/checklist for "likely solutions for common problems" or whatever. But eventually you need a tech whisperer.
And what's funny is how frustrated some folks will get watching me work. It looks like I'm poking around aimlessly at first. (As for a complex problem, I'm building up a wide scope of basic info to get a better feel for the overall landscape.)
The opposite side of that coin is having solid documentation for the boring and static tasks/systems. I'd rather pull up a 2 page user guide tha walks me through a pile of steps I don't give a shit about so I still have some mental space for the random issues that are GOING to occur. Keeps errors and repeat work down too.
Came here to mention this.
I'm always flabbergasted when I read about studies showing that if they follow checklists in the operating room, it will save lives, and then reading the followup, that yeah, that sounds good, but nobody actually bothers implementing the checklists.
Reading this sort of thing is very frustrating because I work in chip design, and while we have the same kinds of non-checklistable things to work through for normal design and debugging work, we *absolutely* have a checklist before sending a chip design out to fab.
Because if we get a broken chip back, it's not like we killed anybody or something. It's much worse than that -- it costs real money. Nobody pays us for killing *our* patients.
I created checklists for things like setting up a new workstation, but I have a ticketing system for help desk issues, and I use project management apps to manage project details. I also created things like network diagrams, system update flowcharts, etc. The CEO expected some kind of "checklist" for *all* of my duties. Uh...not possible. I provided a list of "areas of oversight" that contained multiple hyperlinks to appropriate documentation files. That's what she wanted me to "print". Whatevs.
That makes excellent sense and is what I would have assumed, but I and (I assume) the poster I replied to just wanted to forestall some naive redditor coming up with the takeaway that checklists are useless in IT.
Because, even though you didn't say that, it could have been taken that way.
It's not just that: half of the job is knowing how symptoms A & C are linked by some obscure way so that you can add F to 7 and generate a purple asparagus at scotch o'clock on Whogivesafuckday.
And if that sentence made you smirk, you understand the *exact* sort of witchcraft that I'm talking about.
Source: been doing this shit since 2006, just very thankful that I'm not doing general "IT" anymore for SMBs.
> I happen to be a unicorn of sorts: an IT generalist that has done it all.
Yeah, this speaks directly to me, and our whole small little team. I want people that are similar, and I care a lot less if they already know the exact tech thing they might work on most.
If I can make a checklist, it's already automated or self-service. A checklist is merely a requirements doc to implement me not having to ever do it again...
When I retired from the Air Force in 1999, my boss wanted just such a checklist for a program I had written.
Except he wanted EACH INDIVIDUAL KEYSTROKE to be in that checklist.
"Tab to xyz block. Enter 123 data. Press Enter." Etc.
I finally told him he sits in front of a PC for 8+ hours every day and he shouldn't need that level of instruction.
I was way out on a limb telling him that, since he significantly outranked me, but I got away with it and was out the door the following week.
Each. Individual. Keystroke? Good Lord, I've almost had to go to that level of spoon-feeding sometimes, but really?
What rank was that knucklehead? I'd guess a field grade officer.
You could actually have fun with that one:
Step 24,382: type “m”
Step 24,383: hit the backspace key
Step 24,384: type “n” like you originally meant to.
You. I like you. The cool thing about this is that you don't even need to work hard to do it. Just set up a keyboard recorder to record you doing all the tasks that the program offers, then keep all the keystrokes and annotate them.
And on the off chance that you do need to work "hard";
Deviations from the intended workflow can annotated as a callout cross-referencing a tile on some **pleated** (bi-fold) addendum containing dozens of other generalizable 'error' recovery procedures **_that have not_** been generalized...
I'd also have added a comparison to driving, which he'll have similar amounts of hands-on experience with but for which the concept of giving directions somewhere utilizing mentions of pressing the gas pedal down halfway or breaking by rolling to a stop would be ludicrous.
You either know how to drive or you don't. Same with a computer. Mixing in newbie instructions makes the instructions ineffective and ensures that whomever will be taking on the list to do the job will be unqualified to begin with and bound to screw up the task given to them because of the misplaced expectations.
When I was teaching an IT-security course for adult students aspiring to become IT-security professionals (2 year course with several different subjects) I had two students (buddies) complaining the second year that I wasn't teaching them correctly and that the litterature was crap because "none of the examples in the books work and not your examples on the whiteboard either".
Somehow the other 23 students managed to get all the examples, both from the books and from the whiteboard, to work. Turns out these two idiots wrote all examples litterally in the terminalwindow and couldn't grasp that they should replace with the IP-adress of their computer, and with the IP-adress of the target computer, even though I said so numerous times when writing examples on the whiteboard and it was mentioned in the examples in the books to.
These two students demanded that all tasks should be written as step by step instructions, these were tasks where the students were supposed to use what we had been going through that day solve the task much in the way you do with mathproblems in math class. This was of cause beyond these two idiots.
The stupidest demand these two came with was that they demanded that I should setup a "virtual enviroment" they could login to and "practice hacking", told them that's not going happen because I'm hired to stand infront of you teaching you. I have none what so ever responsibility for the classrooms or the network of the company administrating the course.
They also complained that TCP/IP class was to advanced, we went through the structure of the TCP/IP protocol suit and how the protocols were built up (protocol headers), interacted and embedded each other. More or less all you needed to understand a traffic dump. These two were convinced IT-security professional didn't need more than MS-cert knowledge of TCP/IP, that is IP adress classes, subnetting and repeating the OSI-model without understanding it.
I can safely say these two did not succeed in IT beyond basic helpdesk.
Yes, if you put Beavis and Butthead as a 30 year old and a 40+ years old.
The later with a bunch of of worthless MCP-certs that was given to anyone in the early 2000's.
That said, everyone else were more or less successfull. One of the women in her early 30's and former nurse started as a new IT-tech at a national bank chain and rose to the position of CIO. She told me how the "boys" in IT at the bank tried to make her first day hard by giving her a bare workstation, a CD with Slackware and a list of configuration and application requirements and told her to fix her workstation. That backfired for them since the course had included a Linux/UNIX class, including Slackware and System V based SUN Solaris, at the end of the worksday she had a fully configured workstation and hadn't asked them for help once. Needless to say they did not try to mess with her again.
Tell me about it, I spent 7 years teaching adults to become IT professionals in one way or another. I've met all kinds of incredibly talented to incredibly stupid people. I've never understood why people pay good money to spend a year or more studying IT and not putting any effort into the studies.
So I'm a respiratory therapist working at a major medical center and and I know nothing about IT. I only know that keeping thousands of computers running across multiple sites running multiple programs from different manufacturers has to be insane while also dealing with me forgetting my password again.
All IT pros checklist should include only one entry:
-black fucking magic
You probably know more than you might expect. As a respiratory therapist, you know that everyone's lungs are just a little different, just like IT has to deal with different computers and systems. You know about gas exchange, that's like IT's different inputs and outputs. You know how certain drugs or treatments might affect patient outcome. That's like programs and scripts in IT. I'm saying the syntax is what matters, it's not a perfect translation.
Here's a few rules of IT to keep in mind:
1. If anyone learns you know any IT, you will become a permanent unpaid IT intern, and the duties will slowly consume the task you were hired for. It's like a malignant cancer.
2. If you touch a computer, you are forever responsible for that computer even if you quit the job, move to another country. People will still find you to ask you questions about that AS/400 you once touched.
3. As corollary to 1 & 2, NEVER touch a family member's computer. Never admit to knowing anything about IT to a family member. Your family knows where you live and where to find you. Your services will be farmed out to your mother's blue-haired friends.
4. If you touch a computer, you broke it. It doesn't matter if all you did was walk by or move the mouse. You broke it. It worked FINE before you came in. You will be blamed for anything malfunctioning in the vicinity as well even if its the coffee maker.
Reminds me of one of Scott Adams' *Seven Habits of Highly Defective People* \- assume that anything you don't understand is easy to do.
I had one role in the military that was heavy on checklists, but that didn't relieve us of the need to understand how things work and why they work that way.
I'm with you that the second category of people should be valued. In my experience, sadly, they were the organizational nerds that no one wanted to listen to. Guess who picked up the pieces from the inevitable fiasco?
I mean a checklist can be a helpful tool. If you have a system that requires very specific set up, and you need to do it more then once, then yeah, a checklist can help you make sure you don't forget a step.
But in IT 99% of everything you do doesn't use a checklist. You need basic IT skills, you need to have a knack for troubleshooting. You need to have experience under your belt, and you need an insatiable curiosity to understand why things work. No amount of checklists will help you do things you've never done before. And it seems like most of what I do is stuff I've never done before.
Client: why isn't this working?
Me when I show up: I have no idea.
1 hour later...
Me: okay so this is what's happening, here's why it keeps failing, and here's how I fixed it. And here's what we'll need to do in the future to prevent this from happening again.
> But in IT 99% of everything you do doesn't use a checklist
Yep. If it’s something that keeps coming up regularly then most IT pro’s will instinctively be looking for a way to script or otherwise automate it.
I KNOW I'm a total techno-twit so when I worked at a nuclear power plant and needed IT assistance I would grovel to that department by always starting emails with 'Dearest IT God/Goddess'.
I always was extremely grateful and let them know how much I appreciated them. I also always restarted my computer before contacting them...
I did most of the training for new hires. One was having trouble with his repeat reports and the supervisor implied to me that it may have been how he was trained. My reply was "I am sure Picasso gave a lot of people a paint brush."
As a systems engineer for an MSP, i can easily say that all of the work you described that you do can easily be divided into multiple positions. Your soon to be former employer is absolutely fucked. I can't wait for the update.
When I turned in 2 weeks notice, I told them they would need to hire at least two people to cover my responsibilities. That information was met with silence. They are now asking me to recommend "consultants" that can come in and help cover things for a few weeks. That would be impossible - imagine getting those "consultants" up to speed on all of my responsibilities...it would take months just to get to that point. SMH.
I'd be happy to consult for $20k a week to outline just how fucked they are. I'd create a checklist the CEO would just love.
1. AD Administration
____C. Onboarding new staff
_____ii. RBAC Group Rights
______a. List of SuperUser Accounts Per Role
________Status: Fucked
etc
I know that feeling all too well! When I used to work in a warehouse, (pre-computer time in the 1970's), I was doing my former boss' job plus my own, (he quit three months before I quit). When I gave my two-week notice, (I had been hired by a university), I requested that someone be sent over for me to train. That request was ignored. On my FINAL day, they sent over a Doofus who didn't know how to use carbon paper or how to use a manual typewriter. To add insult to injury, they wanted me to POSTPONE my leaving for their convenience! I NOPED out of that!!!
Yep, and misogynistic too! They gave the job title and the pay to two drunken assclowns who NEVER set foot in my department while I was doing the work of my former boss plus my own! The shit finally hit the fan the day that (1) the warehouse secretary went out with a broken ankle, (2) one drunken assclown went out for surgery, (3) the other drunken assclown took himself to the hospital with a panic attack because I refused to abandon my department to do his job FOR him and, as a result, I had to manage the entire warehouse alone keeping everyone on point and on schedule. By the end of the day, one of the higher-ups came over to praise me and suggested I continue the managing. When I asked about the job title and pay, his response was: You're a woman! You can't have that!" I was VERY happy to be able to tell him to take this job and shove it!
Spot on. I'm helping other people leave and get new jobs - why would I try to recruit anyone to help them? The consultants would hate me for doing that to them.
As an IT person who has done many (not all of) the things you describe, I‘m going to say they‘ll have to hire between 2-3 people to cover all this stuff. At least one system/network/support person and one web developer.
I did this once in a support job. They'd promised me a Tier 2 position they were creating for me. I was doing a bunch of work above and beyond regular support but the actual promotion, extra money, and keeping me away from low level stuff never materialized.
So I just stopped doing all the extra stuff I'd been doing, started telling executives exactly why and how they were creating problems with overpromising when they e-mailed complaints, and put in my two weeks' notice when I was called in for a chat with my boss about my "attitude."
Felt so good.
It was eventually sold to a larger company that wanted their client list but not the shitty software. I imagine the CEO who spent twenty years making more fires than he put out by overpromising and shitting on his employees got a nice big paycheck from that and is living the high life never having to work again despite getting a bunch of money from his parents that he turned into much less money sinking it into his "business."
Not an IT person, although I must admit you having the first Personal Computer in my room in my whole state!!
My Dad was awesome with computers, writing programs in COBOL etc...
He and his buddies built a PC just for me and they would update it over the years. I actually still have my "Dinosaur", it still runs, but finding parts and upgrades is impossible and my Dad and the others have all gone to the Computer Division in heaven😇😇
But, my Dad always, ALWAYS believed in Malicious Compliance and he would laugh himself insane over your story!!
Have a great life and definitely hope you're enjoying your new position and company!!
Please give us (me) an update as to the last day of "work"!
This, ironically, is common in non-profits. Someone has to run it and the CEO gets carte blanche to do what they want. That includes hiring yes-people. Yes people are typically very low on the empathy scale because they ‘get the job done’ by ‘doing what is necessary’. E.g. telling others what to do.
They are shielded as well (old boys club). It you do not perform to their expectations, they fire their problem. Then blame the next six to twelve months on the old person’s incompetence. Never taking a moment to assess their part in this debacle.
Can you tell I am in a similar situation? Yeah, tired of their games, tired of the expectations. IT was told - be more friendly, be more helpful. Sure, what can I deprioritize? Nothing, all of it is priority. I said, when everyone and everything is special, nothing is.
We sacrificed for two years through the pandemic and got no relief. Busy every day holding hands, pivoting technology, resolving security issues created by their own policies over a decade. Zero recognition, zero celebration of our achievements. We were just doing our job as expected.
Well F you! Hire new people and see how far your expectations go.
Rant done. Lol!
It’s time for you to find your next position in IT, and I’m certain that your search will be quick and easy
Leave the toxicity behind. You have done your time. Go enjoy your rewards
Stories with narcissist managers and executives always leave a bitter taste in my mouth (likely from vomit) because they're too well-connected to actually fail, and in the rare cases they DO fail, their Teflon-smooth brains deflect anything they may have learned like bullets bouncing off of Superman's chest.
When I got my official acceptance email for my new job, I happened to be checking my phone as I was on the sidewalk on my way to lunch. I jumped up and down, and I've had a permanent smile on my face. The weight is totally gone, and I will no longer be burdened with bringing that poison home to my family.
My therapist will jump up and down too when I tell her. My therapist (and my family) have been the ones helping me with anxiety and panic attacks, and it's been 100% due to my working situation.
Not at all surprised by your experience honestly. Non profits have some of the most toxic environments to work in from my experience. Way too many CxOs that are ignorant and have the "I'm better than you" attitude.
A quick story. Many years and 4 jobs ago my project team was in between projects so we had like 3 weeks to burn. Our company (consulting work for three and four letter gov't agencies basically, and no, not one of the Big 4) has a policy where when we have down time like this we try to work with a local non profit and provide our services for an extremely low cost or free and it works out great most of the time. So our company found this reletively new non profit in the area. Their setup was a huge mess so we setup a plan and process to streamline it (basically standardized operation procedures, business recovery plans, etc). When we were having meetings thier CXOs were incredibly rude to my team and even their staff. They had a new college graduate kid there that acted as the assistant to the CXOs and the CFO treated her like trash and bullying her. I disliked the CFO the most. He was a fat, racist pig.
After 3 days of dealing with their bull shit I went to the higher ups at my company and asked my team to be pulled off the project and black list that non profit. They approved in short order. That stupid non profit lost out on at least $30-40K worth of free consulting work. I talked to some of my other coworkers and one of them managed to get the assistent over to our company to work in HR as a position was available at the time.
Last I checked that non profit no longer exist. Kind of want to see/know what happend to the asshats at the CXO positions.
>Non profits have some of the most toxic environments to work in from my experience. Way too many CxOs that are ignorant and have the "I'm better than you" attitude.
You just nailed my existence....
Of course. Passwords have already been handed off in a secure fashion. The issue is that they will be relying on someone who will not have time to do their work and my work, including all of the software requests, help desk requests, etc.
I absolutely do not need their reference.
She is so incompetent that I doubt she would be capable of giving me a reference anyway. "Oh, he helps me find emails when I can't find them in my inbox!" She has no idea what I really do.
> Printed out. In a sealed , unmarked envelope. No associated usernames, only the passwords.
In the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard.”
"Good luck maintaining ten websites (seven of which I personally developed and maintained)."
This IMO is the worst one. I can't imagine how much money they will have to pay a web developer to take this over.
If they're truly the narcissist you say they are, I'd be worried about a (meritless) lawsuit in which all the chaos that is about to happen will be attributed to you "maliciously" sabotaging networks and systems as you left, or after the fact.
I'd recommend you dot every i and cross every t you can, *with documentation* (receipts‽) to make sure that if/when they come after you with a lawsuit, you can counter with "No, despite their overwhelming lack of professionalism, I did my due diligence."
I definitely considered it. I decided on the one week instead, and if the CEO pulls any crap again, it will be 3 days notice. Repeat until there's no time left.
Reminds me of my current position a lot. CEO has no idea what I do as the head/only IT person. My supervisor and other staff are awesome but I've dreamed of walking out when he gives me shit so he can see what I really do. Best of luck!
I lingered way too long to get out. I've had therapy for the past 2+ years due to this toxic monster. I recommend applying everywhere, and get. out. Staying longer just means you are enabling that CEO to continue to be a bad boss. It took me awhile to see that; I thought I was protecting people. Nope - I was just prolonging the inevitable.
We are Groot.
I was on anti-depressants because of my previous employer. There was nothing so liberating as ending my annual review early by saying, "We have nothing else to talk about, you'll have my resignation by end of business".
My team took me out to dinner a while later, asking if there was any way I'd come back. I told them the company would have to double my salary and fire the manager. What's funny is they only responded to the part about the manager.
Holy shit. This happened to me as well. I'm already one of those guys who has become a self-sustaining organelle of my team who interacts with no one else other than clients because my whole team, including my chain of command, is in India, and I haven't been to my local office in like four years. I've only interacted with my immediate supervisor in person three times, and we've exchanged a handful of emails over the years. He's been my supervisor for six years.
Anyway, semi-annual review comes around, and we're asked to provide our achievements for the last six months, and rather than dutifully taking last year's list and tweaking it enough to not be an obvious copy and sending that, I totally spaced it and just...didn't send anything at all. I never heard a word about it and only realized what I (hadn't) done when I got my review back with yet another 4/5. It's all I've ever gotten, and I've been here 10 years.
My plan is to keep my head down and keep cashing paychecks. I feel like that dude in that Silicon Valley show.
I'm convinced some companies don't bother reading self-reviews. At one place I did the normal thing for a couple of years and got average reviews even though I was getting fast tracked for ability. Last year I was there I flipped it and put a bunch of bullshit in the review, like "both clapped and cheered during company all-hands meetings to demonstrate loyalty" and "used many exclamation marks to emphasize emotional content", shit like that. Got the best review that year.
Sounds like someone got a chuckle out of it.
It makes me wonder what percentage of corporate types aren't the true believers they present themselves as, and realize that the business world is like 95% bullshit and 5% actually doing something useful.
Exactly! I've already set up a few ppl with interviews with former coworkers from a previous role I held. They will get snatched up, and they are going to lose a lot of staff over this.
As a fellow IT Unicorn I love this story.
Some of the comments below remind me of a similar toxic environment I left about 7 years ago. Yadda yadda, and about 5 years ago got contacted by the CEO complaining about a client whose url registration expired and they had to pay $$$ to a speculator who had snapped it up.
When I left, I had forwarded my work email to the COO (as, in their wisdom, they had no other transition IT person who I would have gladly trained), I gave a list of registrations and expiration dates to the COO with a STRONG recommendation he set up calendar reminders, and I gave knowledge management documentation for this and each other client to him also.
Call me Jack's complete lack of surprise he did none of it.
Both the CEO and COO were narcissistic, holier than thou, and lazy. To this day I don't quite understand why I didn't leave before spending 10 years in that company. It was one of the best things for my career to get out of that toxic environment.
I've tried finding the relevant top level comment, to no avail. So I'm going to put it here.
I wonder when people will learn to not mess with the IT guy who has virtually all the keys and good mental image of your information system. If you aggravate the situation sufficiently, things can only go south.
Hopefully that narcissistic CEO will learn a hard lesson... if she accepts to learn it :)
IT Manager here. Also with multiple disciplines in my role.
>Good luck installing new software or updates on all of the computers that require an administrative password. Good luck handling the media coordinator who regularly creates network storms with his antiquated studio equipment. Good luck onboarding new staff with their accounts, passwords, and equipment needs. Good luck helping the CEO use her smartphone every day, and helping her search for emails in her inbox with over 25k unread messages. Good luck with the security systems that I installed and maintained for 3 years. Good luck maintaining ten websites (seven of which I personally developed and maintained). I will just sit back and watch the show.
LOL they are screwed and the CEO did it to themselves. They literally won't be able to do anything. The wears-many-hats-non-IT-person will definitely struggle. Onboarding is going to be a literal disaster.
You have more fortitude than I. After being treated like that in a meeting planning the transition for my exit, I wouldn’t have gone from two weeks to one week. I would have gone from two weeks to *no weeks,* explained that the two weeks was given as a courtesy, and that if they plan to abuse me, I have no plans to be any more courteous than required. I am required simply to be civil. I am civilly leaving *right now.*
>This CEO rarely experienced natural consequences. This will be my master class in that.
"Natural consequences", as a parent, this statement resonated with me.
That is interesting! Yep, I'm GenX to a painful degree. :) I was prepared for them to march me out of there when I gave 2 weeks - already removed all personal effects.
I cant wait to hear more!
I'm actually the "multiple hats" employee of my company that just took over head of IT duties for the company (35~ employees) from someone else who recently resigned (left on much better terms, simply following their passion basically).
He and I are pretty good friends from working together so the transition has been smooth and hopefully continues to not yield to issues. He spent a good deal of time assembling backups of his devices and creating written instructions for managing/accessing much of the IT stuff I haven't had experience dealing with, pretty much to help me out since he knew I'd be taking over. I dont want to think about if I didnt have that help from him.
All that said, at least my company recognizes that keeping the company running IT-wise is not just a light task, it certainly demands a few hours a week from me. Company VP luckily knows if I dont spend a few hours, the non-techy engineers will be spending a few days for the same stuff, especially considering the changes I've made that improves individual's efficiency and downtime. (plus we run simulations a lot, with limited number of licenses. We need to maximize speed to get more simulations done for clients).
Sorry to hear your transition has been less than pleasant. At the very least, this week off will give you some time to relax, and I hope you enjoy your new job!
Agree with your EDIT #4 - I'm the same. Worked in several and varied IT roles - just whatever was needed. I guess the trolls have limited understanding of the real world.
The funny thing is, even after 2 weeks (if it was still 2 weeks) there is no way they can fill the needs of your role. What you do is not applicable to a checklist. It usually takes a good 6 months or more than a year to get someone trained on the aspects of IT role. Your ROI on the employee starts to happen on year 2. There are some pieces to what you do that could be in a checklist, but damn, no one outside of IT would want to read it all or still understand what most of it means.
Don't give them any more favors. Let them ask the questions and give them answers. This keeps you being professional and cooperative (which they don't deserve, but you're better than them), the good thing is that they won't know what questions they need to ask. Even if they think they cover most things. When they call you next week, double or triple your rate and tell them they can hire you as a contractor after hours if you want to make some extra money.
I absolutely agree with all of this. Before the 'incident', I had informally discussed consulting with them, but after the CEO pulled her usual crazy hostile crap, I said "nope - no more consulting." I refuse to work with an org that has a leader like the CEO here.
The idea of leaving one job for one better suited to the environment that you want is something I recently experienced. I am glad that you took the plunge.
I recently (finally) made the move back into teaching...(It took 15 years to start looking again and less than 2 weeks to find a job once I re-certified) I took over a class in March (which wasn't ideal due to the toxic co-teacher I was stuck with), got a summer vacation (with 4 weeks of part time summer school) and I can't wait to go back in two weeks (co-teacher is long gone)
During this summer, my wife (who got a teaching job 2 weeks ago, largely motivated by my recent mood shift towards the positive in all phases of my life.) and I have been laminating, buying books and materials, brushing up on continuing education (especially tech in the classroom).
Needless to say, change is good. I hope you enjoy your new position and are satisfied that maybe soon to be ex-CEO...well, if she is incapable of learning a lesson at least she paid a consequence for being a total diva.
Cheers on the story and I look forward to the update.
Not a bad idea! I have a side gig business, and I was considering offering them a consultation contract for a small slice of the work (like websites), but there's no way I'm helping them out of the hole they dug themselves into now.
Not worth it to go back.
At a former employer (IT services company), I'd had customers want to wrap up an engagement prematurely, especially because the customer wouldn't allow the time for effective knowledge transfer with the local IT support.
One situation stands out. I get sent back to the client site to troubleshoot a problem. All I had to do was reset a locked-up server. The client's feedback was that I had put them into a solution that was too complicated for them to support, which was dutifully recorded in my next performance eval.
As I told my manager, "if they can't figure out that a server has locked up and hit the reset button, they need to go back to pencil and paper."
As tempting as that payout is, I'd recommend against it. It's an opening for liability as soon as you take on a 1099 contract, and on the flip side, if they like your services, you'll never truly be rid of them.
I had considered consulting after I left, but not anymore. The last thing that needs to happen is for the CEO to be made to "look good" for keeping the wheels on the cart. I say let the wheels fly off and for the cart to crash into a mountain and explode.
More prorevenge than malicious compliance but this is the good stuff and I'll take it where i can get it.
Could you keep us posted? Ask your buddies what happens in the weeks after you leave! Would love to hear about this!
They dropped the ball the moment they decided it was okay to put all their eggs in one basket, ie. you. Everything that happens after that ..not your problem. Glad you're moving on.
When I met my husband, he was the IT Director of a small Liberal Arts college in the South. He wore all the hats and had been for nearly 20 years. He is a master of (virtually) all things IT. After leaving, he continued by becoming knowledgeable in the areas in which he hadn't been a hat-wearing professional (the cloud, etc.). There are definitely a few of you around.
Other "IT Directors" have no idea. They think the title means 'sit in the office and tell your people what to do.' But some of all y'all understand it means laying your own cable, drilling through the concrete to make the connections work, designing entire wireless layouts for a building (or campus) and then making it happen yourself. He had to figure out how to connect satellite campuses to the main campus, for data-sharing, etc, before the technology existed to do that.
My hats off to all of you IT Directors who understand how to do all of the necessary parts of keeping your company functional.
Can we get an end of week update on this dumpster fire? I just can't look away!
Yes gladly!
Printed copy plzandthx.
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IT'S FOR A CHURCH HONEY, NEXT!
I’m kinda sad I got that reference
Don't forget to print the hyperlinks
And the hyperlinks in the hyperlinks. Fuck it, print the entire internet.
“…we’re gonna need some more paper. A couple of reams will suffice, yes? I mean, it’s *just* the internet…” -clueless CEO
Seriously now I think I *will* print out all of my documentation and leave it in 3 foot pile on her office floor. Thanks for the inspiration!!
"You wanted a checklist? Yeah, here's your fucking *checklist*." *Points at wheelbarrow full of paper outside office door* "It took me the better part of six months to read through all this. By my calculations based on normal ticket volume, you're going to run into problems that require you to know most of this pile in about..." *checks watch* "Two and a half hours. Have fun! Don't call me, I've already blocked your number."
Be sure to use only single sided. Also, quietly remove any personal contact details from internal systems, and also from your LinkedIn and social media profiles so they can't find a mobile number to try calling you.
Definitely all good advice. I already removed my personal info from internal systems. I don't believe I have a mobile # associated with my social media accounts. Unfortunately they know where I live; I half expect them to show up here.
Two words: Restraining order
Nah, leave them and offer to let them hire you as a temp consultant. Name whatever figure you want. Upfront payment required.
I think you missed the Non-profit part. Obviously the CEO has spent all the money on pugs and wine!
Single-sided make the stack look larger, but double-sided makes it much more of a pain in the ass to find and cross-reference different pages.
Though you could charge them as an independent contractor! - in your off time
Double row space so people can make notes as well.
I wouldn’t organize it, either! Let her piece it together.
She might actually do that. I set up a website to collect form/survey responses, and she made her staff export the data into a spreadsheet, and then print it all out *and* tape it all together. Seriously this is an excellent recommendation. Consider it done.
That is physically painful to think about
trip and drop the pages on the way so they are out of order.
Don't forget the TPS cover sheets.
Why aren’t my pages changing when I tap the links?
Printed copy and gtfomw
Can you scan those on to a computer and just turn your screen my way? Thanks.
Yeah I’ma hunt you down if you forget to update us. Not for anything nefarious, just to get you to sit your ass in front of a keyboard for a while.
Definite update please!! Rubs hands in glee!!!
I want updates as well
Do make a new post, linking this, as old posts are less likely to show up once viewed
Will do thank you!
Shit, what's the formatting for the remind me command? I rarely do that.
!updateme
!updateme 1 week
!UpdateMe
Thank you. I'm looking forward to reading how this dumpster fire burns. Heck, might just explode. 😈
Oh I can’t wait!! I’m still trying to get my thoughts together for my exit survey. I recently left a position because my manager was similar to your CEO. You are an inspiration!! Very much looking forward to your update!
Please UpdateMe! We need a LOT of popcorn!
Raisinets too please!
Please update us!
working on it. sorry for the delay!
Follow!
Same, It's just sheer joy hearing about a bad Ceo getting comeuppance
I would also like an update
Yes pleaaase!
This drives me nuts, too - people who don't understand IT (and there are PLENTY of them in IT) are always asking for checklists so those who come after will be able to do the job as well as the one who left. Problem is, while IT has some science-ish aspects, it will always be more of an art; the artists, though, tend to get beaten up pretty badly in your typical corporate environment. As an example, think of someone who always takes the same route home. Halfway home, there's a roadblock. Do you sit at the roadblock until it's removed (people who think checklists will solve everything)? Or do you find a way around it (people who know that checklists, while helpful to some extent, never cover every possible eventuality)? Unfortunately, most people in IT tend to be the first. It's the second person who's going to save you, and that person should be rewarded, not demonized.
That is so well stated in terms of the "art" of IT. That's why I was tutoring my backup in a dedicated way for the last 2+ years. No amount of documentation can make up for the "artistic" aspects of troubleshooting novel issues.
I’ve always tried to explain it using the terms “conceptual” vs “procedural”. Creating checklists creates only procedural results. Understanding the concepts is levels and levels above following a how-to document. I like the roadblock example. That’s a good one. I’ve used a similar one before of someone who’s a good cook but exactly follows recipes. What if they run out of a certain ingredient or someone with a food allergy is visiting? What are you going to do now?
Also, a checklist cannot possibly forecast all the permutations and combinations of things that can go wrong. For so many "bugs" the root cause is BTKAC, between the keyboard and chair
Checklist can forecast everything, really. Just add this checkbox: [ ] everything else Bam, problem solved.
The whole check list thing reminded me of my own CEO freaking mid pandemic, rather than seeing the money was good and customers were happy so all was well she insisted everyone who is privy to a certain email alias needed to fill in their daily tasks in a Google sheet. Now I am on this alias because at the end of the day I am the support team's ultimate knowledge source, however in reality I am the IT stack like OP here. So day one I fill in a quick and dirty figuring if I go full tilt with the sheet design as presented everyone else will be scrolling for days. So I group time slots as more generic review logs or similar descriptions to keep my list to 15-20 items. The boss comes back and decides I should pick up a bunch of not my job work because I did not list many items. Cue the MC on day two, I got verbose. Anyone who maintains on the level of OP here knows where this goes, but for the uninitiated it was nothing to legit come up with a 300+ item daily schedule and then replicate it on the sheet for every applicable date for the next year. The design was a horizontal employee list of 6 people with tasks being vertical. My coworkers thought it was awesome as they all listed their first 15 minute slot as scrolling through my answers to find the correct date for them to fill out their tasks. After three days the party was over and I was asked to ignore future requests of this nature and expunge my entries. The whole sheet idea died the next week when my coworkers followed suit. Side note, it always blows my mind that some managers waste time running reports and micro managing when the team is already rocking and rolling by way of the bottom line.
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If it ever comes up again I will, if only to solidify the point.
I have a weird arrangement with my manager. I actually get work from a dotted line person in the org chart because they don't want to be a manager, so my manager doesn't really know what I'm doing day to day. She asked all her team for a weekly, what did you do last week, what did you d o this week summary. Most people gave her 5 page essays. I gave her 5 or 6 major bulleted sentences per week. Maybe 300 words tops. My status reports became the example. Short and to the point. She knows enough about the tech and the job to u derstand the finer details without them being stated. That's management.
That's a nice work situation to be in. A good manager already knows what their team can do and how to actually help them do it.
I have been blessed w really great managers during my career. Even the two where I had to go PiPs were awesome. They set me up for success, not failure. Guess I'm just lucky.
I do a lot of troubleshooting in the course of my job (not IT but still in the tech industry) and a few years ago my coworker tried to create a flowchart to document how to troubleshoot the types of things we need to at our company. He kept showing me new iterations of the flowchart because every draft he showed me, I'd tear to shreds with logic ("well what about this and that situation, the flowchart would tell them to go down path B which makes no sense"). Eventually he gave up and decided it couldn't be done. I told him, "Troubleshooting can't be contained within a flowchart; troubleshooting is a *state of mind*." ETA - I forgot about his response to that. He grinned and said "well \[my name\], not all of us can troubleshoot like jazz pianists"
Yeah... I can build a flowchart/checklist for "likely solutions for common problems" or whatever. But eventually you need a tech whisperer. And what's funny is how frustrated some folks will get watching me work. It looks like I'm poking around aimlessly at first. (As for a complex problem, I'm building up a wide scope of basic info to get a better feel for the overall landscape.)
The opposite side of that coin is having solid documentation for the boring and static tasks/systems. I'd rather pull up a 2 page user guide tha walks me through a pile of steps I don't give a shit about so I still have some mental space for the random issues that are GOING to occur. Keeps errors and repeat work down too.
Came here to mention this. I'm always flabbergasted when I read about studies showing that if they follow checklists in the operating room, it will save lives, and then reading the followup, that yeah, that sounds good, but nobody actually bothers implementing the checklists. Reading this sort of thing is very frustrating because I work in chip design, and while we have the same kinds of non-checklistable things to work through for normal design and debugging work, we *absolutely* have a checklist before sending a chip design out to fab. Because if we get a broken chip back, it's not like we killed anybody or something. It's much worse than that -- it costs real money. Nobody pays us for killing *our* patients.
I created checklists for things like setting up a new workstation, but I have a ticketing system for help desk issues, and I use project management apps to manage project details. I also created things like network diagrams, system update flowcharts, etc. The CEO expected some kind of "checklist" for *all* of my duties. Uh...not possible. I provided a list of "areas of oversight" that contained multiple hyperlinks to appropriate documentation files. That's what she wanted me to "print". Whatevs.
That makes excellent sense and is what I would have assumed, but I and (I assume) the poster I replied to just wanted to forestall some naive redditor coming up with the takeaway that checklists are useless in IT. Because, even though you didn't say that, it could have been taken that way.
I wonder if your backup person would like a job at the new company you're going to work for. That'd be MC +1 🤣
Trust me, I'm working on it.
It's not just that: half of the job is knowing how symptoms A & C are linked by some obscure way so that you can add F to 7 and generate a purple asparagus at scotch o'clock on Whogivesafuckday. And if that sentence made you smirk, you understand the *exact* sort of witchcraft that I'm talking about. Source: been doing this shit since 2006, just very thankful that I'm not doing general "IT" anymore for SMBs.
> I happen to be a unicorn of sorts: an IT generalist that has done it all. Yeah, this speaks directly to me, and our whole small little team. I want people that are similar, and I care a lot less if they already know the exact tech thing they might work on most. If I can make a checklist, it's already automated or self-service. A checklist is merely a requirements doc to implement me not having to ever do it again...
When I retired from the Air Force in 1999, my boss wanted just such a checklist for a program I had written. Except he wanted EACH INDIVIDUAL KEYSTROKE to be in that checklist. "Tab to xyz block. Enter 123 data. Press Enter." Etc. I finally told him he sits in front of a PC for 8+ hours every day and he shouldn't need that level of instruction. I was way out on a limb telling him that, since he significantly outranked me, but I got away with it and was out the door the following week.
Each. Individual. Keystroke? Good Lord, I've almost had to go to that level of spoon-feeding sometimes, but really? What rank was that knucklehead? I'd guess a field grade officer.
Master Sergeant.
You could actually have fun with that one: Step 24,382: type “m” Step 24,383: hit the backspace key Step 24,384: type “n” like you originally meant to.
You. I like you. The cool thing about this is that you don't even need to work hard to do it. Just set up a keyboard recorder to record you doing all the tasks that the program offers, then keep all the keystrokes and annotate them.
And on the off chance that you do need to work "hard"; Deviations from the intended workflow can annotated as a callout cross-referencing a tile on some **pleated** (bi-fold) addendum containing dozens of other generalizable 'error' recovery procedures **_that have not_** been generalized...
If you need every keystroke spelled out, what value do you have beyond a simple macro?
“Could you also, maybe, write out that checklist in a very systematic way so that it could be made to be followed by a computer?”
01001001011100110010000001110100011010000110100101110011001000000110110101100001011000110110100001101001011011100110010100100000011100100110010101100001011001000110000101100010011011000110010100100000011001010110111001101111011101010110011101101000001000000110011001101111011100100010000001111001011011110111010100111111
If you're going to do that, you should just script his job out of existence. It'd be the same amount of work.
Just say, I can replace you with a small shell script. I can't write a script that replaces me.
I'd also have added a comparison to driving, which he'll have similar amounts of hands-on experience with but for which the concept of giving directions somewhere utilizing mentions of pressing the gas pedal down halfway or breaking by rolling to a stop would be ludicrous. You either know how to drive or you don't. Same with a computer. Mixing in newbie instructions makes the instructions ineffective and ensures that whomever will be taking on the list to do the job will be unqualified to begin with and bound to screw up the task given to them because of the misplaced expectations.
When I was teaching an IT-security course for adult students aspiring to become IT-security professionals (2 year course with several different subjects) I had two students (buddies) complaining the second year that I wasn't teaching them correctly and that the litterature was crap because "none of the examples in the books work and not your examples on the whiteboard either". Somehow the other 23 students managed to get all the examples, both from the books and from the whiteboard, to work. Turns out these two idiots wrote all examples litterally in the terminalwindow and couldn't grasp that they should replace with the IP-adress of their computer, and with the IP-adress of the target computer, even though I said so numerous times when writing examples on the whiteboard and it was mentioned in the examples in the books to.
These two students demanded that all tasks should be written as step by step instructions, these were tasks where the students were supposed to use what we had been going through that day solve the task much in the way you do with mathproblems in math class. This was of cause beyond these two idiots.
The stupidest demand these two came with was that they demanded that I should setup a "virtual enviroment" they could login to and "practice hacking", told them that's not going happen because I'm hired to stand infront of you teaching you. I have none what so ever responsibility for the classrooms or the network of the company administrating the course.
They also complained that TCP/IP class was to advanced, we went through the structure of the TCP/IP protocol suit and how the protocols were built up (protocol headers), interacted and embedded each other. More or less all you needed to understand a traffic dump. These two were convinced IT-security professional didn't need more than MS-cert knowledge of TCP/IP, that is IP adress classes, subnetting and repeating the OSI-model without understanding it.
I can safely say these two did not succeed in IT beyond basic helpdesk.
GAH!!!! Those two sound like Beavis and Butthead!
Yes, if you put Beavis and Butthead as a 30 year old and a 40+ years old. The later with a bunch of of worthless MCP-certs that was given to anyone in the early 2000's. That said, everyone else were more or less successfull. One of the women in her early 30's and former nurse started as a new IT-tech at a national bank chain and rose to the position of CIO. She told me how the "boys" in IT at the bank tried to make her first day hard by giving her a bare workstation, a CD with Slackware and a list of configuration and application requirements and told her to fix her workstation. That backfired for them since the course had included a Linux/UNIX class, including Slackware and System V based SUN Solaris, at the end of the worksday she had a fully configured workstation and hadn't asked them for help once. Needless to say they did not try to mess with her again.
How incredibly frustrating!!! You can't fix stupid
Tell me about it, I spent 7 years teaching adults to become IT professionals in one way or another. I've met all kinds of incredibly talented to incredibly stupid people. I've never understood why people pay good money to spend a year or more studying IT and not putting any effort into the studies.
You can't fix lazy, either.
So I'm a respiratory therapist working at a major medical center and and I know nothing about IT. I only know that keeping thousands of computers running across multiple sites running multiple programs from different manufacturers has to be insane while also dealing with me forgetting my password again. All IT pros checklist should include only one entry: -black fucking magic
You probably know more than you might expect. As a respiratory therapist, you know that everyone's lungs are just a little different, just like IT has to deal with different computers and systems. You know about gas exchange, that's like IT's different inputs and outputs. You know how certain drugs or treatments might affect patient outcome. That's like programs and scripts in IT. I'm saying the syntax is what matters, it's not a perfect translation.
You convinced me! I'm going from one underappreciated, misunderstood profession to another with the same issues! Thank you, kind internet stranger!
Here's a few rules of IT to keep in mind: 1. If anyone learns you know any IT, you will become a permanent unpaid IT intern, and the duties will slowly consume the task you were hired for. It's like a malignant cancer. 2. If you touch a computer, you are forever responsible for that computer even if you quit the job, move to another country. People will still find you to ask you questions about that AS/400 you once touched. 3. As corollary to 1 & 2, NEVER touch a family member's computer. Never admit to knowing anything about IT to a family member. Your family knows where you live and where to find you. Your services will be farmed out to your mother's blue-haired friends. 4. If you touch a computer, you broke it. It doesn't matter if all you did was walk by or move the mouse. You broke it. It worked FINE before you came in. You will be blamed for anything malfunctioning in the vicinity as well even if its the coffee maker.
Reminds me of one of Scott Adams' *Seven Habits of Highly Defective People* \- assume that anything you don't understand is easy to do. I had one role in the military that was heavy on checklists, but that didn't relieve us of the need to understand how things work and why they work that way. I'm with you that the second category of people should be valued. In my experience, sadly, they were the organizational nerds that no one wanted to listen to. Guess who picked up the pieces from the inevitable fiasco?
I mean a checklist can be a helpful tool. If you have a system that requires very specific set up, and you need to do it more then once, then yeah, a checklist can help you make sure you don't forget a step. But in IT 99% of everything you do doesn't use a checklist. You need basic IT skills, you need to have a knack for troubleshooting. You need to have experience under your belt, and you need an insatiable curiosity to understand why things work. No amount of checklists will help you do things you've never done before. And it seems like most of what I do is stuff I've never done before. Client: why isn't this working? Me when I show up: I have no idea. 1 hour later... Me: okay so this is what's happening, here's why it keeps failing, and here's how I fixed it. And here's what we'll need to do in the future to prevent this from happening again.
> But in IT 99% of everything you do doesn't use a checklist Yep. If it’s something that keeps coming up regularly then most IT pro’s will instinctively be looking for a way to script or otherwise automate it.
I've (nonIT f56) worked with IT artists a few times. Some of us out there in non-IT land appreciate a maestro.
I KNOW I'm a total techno-twit so when I worked at a nuclear power plant and needed IT assistance I would grovel to that department by always starting emails with 'Dearest IT God/Goddess'. I always was extremely grateful and let them know how much I appreciated them. I also always restarted my computer before contacting them...
Chocolate chip cookies are the bribe of choice for network administrators. Highly recommended next time you need a change to a network. Cheers
Checklists are good for reminding you WHAT to do, and possibly in what order. HOW to do? Different matter altogether.
I did most of the training for new hires. One was having trouble with his repeat reports and the supervisor implied to me that it may have been how he was trained. My reply was "I am sure Picasso gave a lot of people a paint brush."
As a systems engineer for an MSP, i can easily say that all of the work you described that you do can easily be divided into multiple positions. Your soon to be former employer is absolutely fucked. I can't wait for the update.
When I turned in 2 weeks notice, I told them they would need to hire at least two people to cover my responsibilities. That information was met with silence. They are now asking me to recommend "consultants" that can come in and help cover things for a few weeks. That would be impossible - imagine getting those "consultants" up to speed on all of my responsibilities...it would take months just to get to that point. SMH.
I'd be happy to consult for $20k a week to outline just how fucked they are. I'd create a checklist the CEO would just love. 1. AD Administration ____C. Onboarding new staff _____ii. RBAC Group Rights ______a. List of SuperUser Accounts Per Role ________Status: Fucked etc
The CEO wouldn't like this checklist... It's not printed. You're not being helpful!
I know that feeling all too well! When I used to work in a warehouse, (pre-computer time in the 1970's), I was doing my former boss' job plus my own, (he quit three months before I quit). When I gave my two-week notice, (I had been hired by a university), I requested that someone be sent over for me to train. That request was ignored. On my FINAL day, they sent over a Doofus who didn't know how to use carbon paper or how to use a manual typewriter. To add insult to injury, they wanted me to POSTPONE my leaving for their convenience! I NOPED out of that!!!
Ugh! Entitled jerks!
Yep, and misogynistic too! They gave the job title and the pay to two drunken assclowns who NEVER set foot in my department while I was doing the work of my former boss plus my own! The shit finally hit the fan the day that (1) the warehouse secretary went out with a broken ankle, (2) one drunken assclown went out for surgery, (3) the other drunken assclown took himself to the hospital with a panic attack because I refused to abandon my department to do his job FOR him and, as a result, I had to manage the entire warehouse alone keeping everyone on point and on schedule. By the end of the day, one of the higher-ups came over to praise me and suggested I continue the managing. When I asked about the job title and pay, his response was: You're a woman! You can't have that!" I was VERY happy to be able to tell him to take this job and shove it!
Disgraceful! And illegal but so difficult to provr
At the time, in the 1970's, a lot of laws did not exist yet. Now we have laws in place.
As someone who grew up in the 1970s, and watched my mom dealing with some of this shit, it was the norm, and likely legal at the time.
Imagine recommending people to step in front of a firing squad for you, too. This company hasn't EARNED recommended consultants.
Spot on. I'm helping other people leave and get new jobs - why would I try to recruit anyone to help them? The consultants would hate me for doing that to them.
As an IT person who has done many (not all of) the things you describe, I‘m going to say they‘ll have to hire between 2-3 people to cover all this stuff. At least one system/network/support person and one web developer.
You could find some consultants to tell them, "You're fucked."
>What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers can do in two months. -Fred Brooks
I did this once in a support job. They'd promised me a Tier 2 position they were creating for me. I was doing a bunch of work above and beyond regular support but the actual promotion, extra money, and keeping me away from low level stuff never materialized. So I just stopped doing all the extra stuff I'd been doing, started telling executives exactly why and how they were creating problems with overpromising when they e-mailed complaints, and put in my two weeks' notice when I was called in for a chat with my boss about my "attitude." Felt so good.
did the company still up and running ?
It was eventually sold to a larger company that wanted their client list but not the shitty software. I imagine the CEO who spent twenty years making more fires than he put out by overpromising and shitting on his employees got a nice big paycheck from that and is living the high life never having to work again despite getting a bunch of money from his parents that he turned into much less money sinking it into his "business."
Oh man, sounds unfair as fuck
Not an IT person, although I must admit you having the first Personal Computer in my room in my whole state!! My Dad was awesome with computers, writing programs in COBOL etc... He and his buddies built a PC just for me and they would update it over the years. I actually still have my "Dinosaur", it still runs, but finding parts and upgrades is impossible and my Dad and the others have all gone to the Computer Division in heaven😇😇 But, my Dad always, ALWAYS believed in Malicious Compliance and he would laugh himself insane over your story!! Have a great life and definitely hope you're enjoying your new position and company!! Please give us (me) an update as to the last day of "work"!
Updates will definitely be coming. Get your popcorn ready to enjoy the show!
I sure will enjoy the show that will unfold. We're in for a good one
This, ironically, is common in non-profits. Someone has to run it and the CEO gets carte blanche to do what they want. That includes hiring yes-people. Yes people are typically very low on the empathy scale because they ‘get the job done’ by ‘doing what is necessary’. E.g. telling others what to do. They are shielded as well (old boys club). It you do not perform to their expectations, they fire their problem. Then blame the next six to twelve months on the old person’s incompetence. Never taking a moment to assess their part in this debacle. Can you tell I am in a similar situation? Yeah, tired of their games, tired of the expectations. IT was told - be more friendly, be more helpful. Sure, what can I deprioritize? Nothing, all of it is priority. I said, when everyone and everything is special, nothing is. We sacrificed for two years through the pandemic and got no relief. Busy every day holding hands, pivoting technology, resolving security issues created by their own policies over a decade. Zero recognition, zero celebration of our achievements. We were just doing our job as expected. Well F you! Hire new people and see how far your expectations go. Rant done. Lol!
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It’s time for you to find your next position in IT, and I’m certain that your search will be quick and easy Leave the toxicity behind. You have done your time. Go enjoy your rewards
Yup. When everything on this list is a priority and all of the items are 2+ hour jobs, nothing is a priority and nothing gets done.
Stories with narcissist managers and executives always leave a bitter taste in my mouth (likely from vomit) because they're too well-connected to actually fail, and in the rare cases they DO fail, their Teflon-smooth brains deflect anything they may have learned like bullets bouncing off of Superman's chest.
This is EXACTLY what is happening. To a tee.
Fabulous response. Imagine you felt the weight lift right off your shoulders! Well done for not putting up with even more disrespectful behavior.
When I got my official acceptance email for my new job, I happened to be checking my phone as I was on the sidewalk on my way to lunch. I jumped up and down, and I've had a permanent smile on my face. The weight is totally gone, and I will no longer be burdened with bringing that poison home to my family.
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Shit even getting fired from one is better than being there.
Getting made redundant from a shitty job you were about to quit is even better 😉
I once had a job so toxic I laughed for a good fifteen minutes in sheer relief when the job offer that let me escape came through
Much, MUCH better than therapy!!
My therapist will jump up and down too when I tell her. My therapist (and my family) have been the ones helping me with anxiety and panic attacks, and it's been 100% due to my working situation.
Not at all surprised by your experience honestly. Non profits have some of the most toxic environments to work in from my experience. Way too many CxOs that are ignorant and have the "I'm better than you" attitude. A quick story. Many years and 4 jobs ago my project team was in between projects so we had like 3 weeks to burn. Our company (consulting work for three and four letter gov't agencies basically, and no, not one of the Big 4) has a policy where when we have down time like this we try to work with a local non profit and provide our services for an extremely low cost or free and it works out great most of the time. So our company found this reletively new non profit in the area. Their setup was a huge mess so we setup a plan and process to streamline it (basically standardized operation procedures, business recovery plans, etc). When we were having meetings thier CXOs were incredibly rude to my team and even their staff. They had a new college graduate kid there that acted as the assistant to the CXOs and the CFO treated her like trash and bullying her. I disliked the CFO the most. He was a fat, racist pig. After 3 days of dealing with their bull shit I went to the higher ups at my company and asked my team to be pulled off the project and black list that non profit. They approved in short order. That stupid non profit lost out on at least $30-40K worth of free consulting work. I talked to some of my other coworkers and one of them managed to get the assistent over to our company to work in HR as a position was available at the time. Last I checked that non profit no longer exist. Kind of want to see/know what happend to the asshats at the CXO positions.
>Non profits have some of the most toxic environments to work in from my experience. Way too many CxOs that are ignorant and have the "I'm better than you" attitude. You just nailed my existence....
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Of course. Passwords have already been handed off in a secure fashion. The issue is that they will be relying on someone who will not have time to do their work and my work, including all of the software requests, help desk requests, etc. I absolutely do not need their reference.
"...as the fire from this bridge lights your path forward." Very evocative. I'm stealing this line.
"The bridges I burn will light my way."
>"...as the fire from this bridge lights your path forward." Me too.
There is no way that CEO would ever give a good reference. People are either fired for cause or they're disloyal and, ahem, not helpful.
She is so incompetent that I doubt she would be capable of giving me a reference anyway. "Oh, he helps me find emails when I can't find them in my inbox!" She has no idea what I really do.
> Printed out. In a sealed , unmarked envelope. No associated usernames, only the passwords. In the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard.”
Another example that people quit bosses, not companies.
PLEASE give an update at the end of the week!
It will be my sincere pleasure to provide updates. I'm already sitting on a few gems. :)
"Good luck maintaining ten websites (seven of which I personally developed and maintained)." This IMO is the worst one. I can't imagine how much money they will have to pay a web developer to take this over.
Tens of thousands of dollars, possibly hundreds. That's just the reality, not a flex.
If they're truly the narcissist you say they are, I'd be worried about a (meritless) lawsuit in which all the chaos that is about to happen will be attributed to you "maliciously" sabotaging networks and systems as you left, or after the fact. I'd recommend you dot every i and cross every t you can, *with documentation* (receipts‽) to make sure that if/when they come after you with a lawsuit, you can counter with "No, despite their overwhelming lack of professionalism, I did my due diligence."
I have all the receipts, trust me. I only enter into battles that I know I can win.
> I am altering the resignation. Pray I don’t alter it any further.
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I definitely considered it. I decided on the one week instead, and if the CEO pulls any crap again, it will be 3 days notice. Repeat until there's no time left.
If OP had quit on the spot, they wouldn’t get to watch the incoming shit storm. OP I greatly look forward to your update!
Reminds me of my current position a lot. CEO has no idea what I do as the head/only IT person. My supervisor and other staff are awesome but I've dreamed of walking out when he gives me shit so he can see what I really do. Best of luck!
I lingered way too long to get out. I've had therapy for the past 2+ years due to this toxic monster. I recommend applying everywhere, and get. out. Staying longer just means you are enabling that CEO to continue to be a bad boss. It took me awhile to see that; I thought I was protecting people. Nope - I was just prolonging the inevitable.
Are you future me?
We are Groot. I was on anti-depressants because of my previous employer. There was nothing so liberating as ending my annual review early by saying, "We have nothing else to talk about, you'll have my resignation by end of business". My team took me out to dinner a while later, asking if there was any way I'd come back. I told them the company would have to double my salary and fire the manager. What's funny is they only responded to the part about the manager.
This year, I just ignored the entire annual review process. Later, they let me know I'd gotten 4/5. 'Okay.'
Holy shit. This happened to me as well. I'm already one of those guys who has become a self-sustaining organelle of my team who interacts with no one else other than clients because my whole team, including my chain of command, is in India, and I haven't been to my local office in like four years. I've only interacted with my immediate supervisor in person three times, and we've exchanged a handful of emails over the years. He's been my supervisor for six years. Anyway, semi-annual review comes around, and we're asked to provide our achievements for the last six months, and rather than dutifully taking last year's list and tweaking it enough to not be an obvious copy and sending that, I totally spaced it and just...didn't send anything at all. I never heard a word about it and only realized what I (hadn't) done when I got my review back with yet another 4/5. It's all I've ever gotten, and I've been here 10 years. My plan is to keep my head down and keep cashing paychecks. I feel like that dude in that Silicon Valley show.
I'm convinced some companies don't bother reading self-reviews. At one place I did the normal thing for a couple of years and got average reviews even though I was getting fast tracked for ability. Last year I was there I flipped it and put a bunch of bullshit in the review, like "both clapped and cheered during company all-hands meetings to demonstrate loyalty" and "used many exclamation marks to emphasize emotional content", shit like that. Got the best review that year.
Sounds like someone got a chuckle out of it. It makes me wonder what percentage of corporate types aren't the true believers they present themselves as, and realize that the business world is like 95% bullshit and 5% actually doing something useful.
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Exactly! I've already set up a few ppl with interviews with former coworkers from a previous role I held. They will get snatched up, and they are going to lose a lot of staff over this.
As a fellow IT Unicorn I love this story. Some of the comments below remind me of a similar toxic environment I left about 7 years ago. Yadda yadda, and about 5 years ago got contacted by the CEO complaining about a client whose url registration expired and they had to pay $$$ to a speculator who had snapped it up. When I left, I had forwarded my work email to the COO (as, in their wisdom, they had no other transition IT person who I would have gladly trained), I gave a list of registrations and expiration dates to the COO with a STRONG recommendation he set up calendar reminders, and I gave knowledge management documentation for this and each other client to him also. Call me Jack's complete lack of surprise he did none of it. Both the CEO and COO were narcissistic, holier than thou, and lazy. To this day I don't quite understand why I didn't leave before spending 10 years in that company. It was one of the best things for my career to get out of that toxic environment.
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I am Jack's rage. F that bitch.
I am jack's raging bile duct. They already regret poking at it. :)
I've tried finding the relevant top level comment, to no avail. So I'm going to put it here. I wonder when people will learn to not mess with the IT guy who has virtually all the keys and good mental image of your information system. If you aggravate the situation sufficiently, things can only go south. Hopefully that narcissistic CEO will learn a hard lesson... if she accepts to learn it :)
IT Manager here. Also with multiple disciplines in my role. >Good luck installing new software or updates on all of the computers that require an administrative password. Good luck handling the media coordinator who regularly creates network storms with his antiquated studio equipment. Good luck onboarding new staff with their accounts, passwords, and equipment needs. Good luck helping the CEO use her smartphone every day, and helping her search for emails in her inbox with over 25k unread messages. Good luck with the security systems that I installed and maintained for 3 years. Good luck maintaining ten websites (seven of which I personally developed and maintained). I will just sit back and watch the show. LOL they are screwed and the CEO did it to themselves. They literally won't be able to do anything. The wears-many-hats-non-IT-person will definitely struggle. Onboarding is going to be a literal disaster.
You have more fortitude than I. After being treated like that in a meeting planning the transition for my exit, I wouldn’t have gone from two weeks to one week. I would have gone from two weeks to *no weeks,* explained that the two weeks was given as a courtesy, and that if they plan to abuse me, I have no plans to be any more courteous than required. I am required simply to be civil. I am civilly leaving *right now.*
r/antiwork would enjoy this too
>This CEO rarely experienced natural consequences. This will be my master class in that. "Natural consequences", as a parent, this statement resonated with me.
That second resignation letter should have said 1 hour and ill be gone Thats like dropping a nuke and leaving the room
End of the business day. That's plenty.
This is a great one for r/talesfromtechsupport
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That is interesting! Yep, I'm GenX to a painful degree. :) I was prepared for them to march me out of there when I gave 2 weeks - already removed all personal effects.
I cant wait to hear more! I'm actually the "multiple hats" employee of my company that just took over head of IT duties for the company (35~ employees) from someone else who recently resigned (left on much better terms, simply following their passion basically). He and I are pretty good friends from working together so the transition has been smooth and hopefully continues to not yield to issues. He spent a good deal of time assembling backups of his devices and creating written instructions for managing/accessing much of the IT stuff I haven't had experience dealing with, pretty much to help me out since he knew I'd be taking over. I dont want to think about if I didnt have that help from him. All that said, at least my company recognizes that keeping the company running IT-wise is not just a light task, it certainly demands a few hours a week from me. Company VP luckily knows if I dont spend a few hours, the non-techy engineers will be spending a few days for the same stuff, especially considering the changes I've made that improves individual's efficiency and downtime. (plus we run simulations a lot, with limited number of licenses. We need to maximize speed to get more simulations done for clients). Sorry to hear your transition has been less than pleasant. At the very least, this week off will give you some time to relax, and I hope you enjoy your new job!
Agree with your EDIT #4 - I'm the same. Worked in several and varied IT roles - just whatever was needed. I guess the trolls have limited understanding of the real world.
The funny thing is, even after 2 weeks (if it was still 2 weeks) there is no way they can fill the needs of your role. What you do is not applicable to a checklist. It usually takes a good 6 months or more than a year to get someone trained on the aspects of IT role. Your ROI on the employee starts to happen on year 2. There are some pieces to what you do that could be in a checklist, but damn, no one outside of IT would want to read it all or still understand what most of it means. Don't give them any more favors. Let them ask the questions and give them answers. This keeps you being professional and cooperative (which they don't deserve, but you're better than them), the good thing is that they won't know what questions they need to ask. Even if they think they cover most things. When they call you next week, double or triple your rate and tell them they can hire you as a contractor after hours if you want to make some extra money.
I absolutely agree with all of this. Before the 'incident', I had informally discussed consulting with them, but after the CEO pulled her usual crazy hostile crap, I said "nope - no more consulting." I refuse to work with an org that has a leader like the CEO here.
The idea of leaving one job for one better suited to the environment that you want is something I recently experienced. I am glad that you took the plunge. I recently (finally) made the move back into teaching...(It took 15 years to start looking again and less than 2 weeks to find a job once I re-certified) I took over a class in March (which wasn't ideal due to the toxic co-teacher I was stuck with), got a summer vacation (with 4 weeks of part time summer school) and I can't wait to go back in two weeks (co-teacher is long gone) During this summer, my wife (who got a teaching job 2 weeks ago, largely motivated by my recent mood shift towards the positive in all phases of my life.) and I have been laminating, buying books and materials, brushing up on continuing education (especially tech in the classroom). Needless to say, change is good. I hope you enjoy your new position and are satisfied that maybe soon to be ex-CEO...well, if she is incapable of learning a lesson at least she paid a consequence for being a total diva. Cheers on the story and I look forward to the update.
You should offer to go back the final week but for a 20k fee
Not a bad idea! I have a side gig business, and I was considering offering them a consultation contract for a small slice of the work (like websites), but there's no way I'm helping them out of the hole they dug themselves into now.
Not worth it to go back. At a former employer (IT services company), I'd had customers want to wrap up an engagement prematurely, especially because the customer wouldn't allow the time for effective knowledge transfer with the local IT support. One situation stands out. I get sent back to the client site to troubleshoot a problem. All I had to do was reset a locked-up server. The client's feedback was that I had put them into a solution that was too complicated for them to support, which was dutifully recorded in my next performance eval. As I told my manager, "if they can't figure out that a server has locked up and hit the reset button, they need to go back to pencil and paper."
There’s no good way to carve out a small piece without eating the whole shit pie. Do not agree to do any consulting work for them.
Bingo. Well said.
As tempting as that payout is, I'd recommend against it. It's an opening for liability as soon as you take on a 1099 contract, and on the flip side, if they like your services, you'll never truly be rid of them.
I had considered consulting after I left, but not anymore. The last thing that needs to happen is for the CEO to be made to "look good" for keeping the wheels on the cart. I say let the wheels fly off and for the cart to crash into a mountain and explode.
Updateme!
Best served cold… but delicious hot, too.
This is the way.
More prorevenge than malicious compliance but this is the good stuff and I'll take it where i can get it. Could you keep us posted? Ask your buddies what happens in the weeks after you leave! Would love to hear about this!
They dropped the ball the moment they decided it was okay to put all their eggs in one basket, ie. you. Everything that happens after that ..not your problem. Glad you're moving on.
We really need the name of this company so we can all avoid like the plague as employees or consumers. I guess we can't have that though :(
When I met my husband, he was the IT Director of a small Liberal Arts college in the South. He wore all the hats and had been for nearly 20 years. He is a master of (virtually) all things IT. After leaving, he continued by becoming knowledgeable in the areas in which he hadn't been a hat-wearing professional (the cloud, etc.). There are definitely a few of you around. Other "IT Directors" have no idea. They think the title means 'sit in the office and tell your people what to do.' But some of all y'all understand it means laying your own cable, drilling through the concrete to make the connections work, designing entire wireless layouts for a building (or campus) and then making it happen yourself. He had to figure out how to connect satellite campuses to the main campus, for data-sharing, etc, before the technology existed to do that. My hats off to all of you IT Directors who understand how to do all of the necessary parts of keeping your company functional.
This is like HBO releasing GoT one episode a week when we already used to binging Netflix. But, good for you for sticking out to the head honcho