When is enough enough at work?

[mikester]

doink!

[Dueller]

Originally posted by mikester
...... The word was when I was interviewing and asked them the state of their network they said it was in fine shape and running the latest and greatest. A total lie pretty much.

I've been fighting with it for a few months now and slowly getting things done but the costs are out weighing the benefits drastically lately. ..... sent them recommendations on hardware purchases and upgrades and given them plans for the implementation of those upgrades.

I'm told sometimes the money is there and sometimes it isn't. ,....

The problems are drastic and the network basically needs nearly a forklift upgrade to be brought up to par with the features they want.

I'm tired and I know I can't do this by myself and I certainly don't intend too.

You;re working for a company that lies to you....

They're won't be straight with whether they're committed to what they say they want

Cost vs benefits? You could be talking about the company but what about the cost vs benefit to you. Company loyalty is one thing, but at what cost to your health and sanity?

Tough one....sounds to me they either need to commit to what they said they want or its time for you to move on.

Tough one

[beepbeep]

BTDT.

Book a meeting with a company honcho and spill the beans. Not in a angry "I haven't slept for 32 hours and hardware is s**t"-way but in sane, polite and constructive manner.

Try also to understand them. They probably have zero knowledge of stuff and believe that everything runs by itself, forever and that guy that want's least amount of money should be hired.

I sat on both sides and most often, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Techies often like the newest and brightest stuff and want money to buy it even if sometimes costs outweight the benefits (in real way).

Also, corporate types running the show have often zero understanding on how things work.


Try to have a constructive discussion and be open with consequences of not keeping the gear in running order. (Now this is a tricky part, many techies believe you have to have newest firmware and hardware to be "in running order", be prudent).

Hopefully, you will get somewhere. If you don't, do not leave the notice but find another job first. Then leave the notice and get the hell out of there.

[red-beard]

Welcome to life in a Corporation!

First, I doubt the guy lied to you. He was most likely being told this and he believed it. After all, you work for a very tech company.

Second, in large corporations, the budgets for each year are usually set by Oct/Nov in the previous year. At GE, the 1st pass for budgeting occurs in MAY!!!

If you want to meet with senior staff about an issue, do not walk into the meeting with a problem. If all you have is a problem, to them, all you are doing is '*****ing'. You need a problem, a solution, and a solution that the person you are meeting with can implement.

You also need data and an analysis. There are X number of servers. Percentage Y are fully up to date. Percentage Z are not. Of the Z units, here is the breakdown of the states of the equipment.

Now you need a set of alternatives: Fix 'em, replace 'em, do nothing. Do the pros and cons of each alternative. Show the costs of each alternative both in people and money. Now the fun part. Risk analysis. What is the risk to the company of doing each one. Determine the worst cases, note the dollar value, human value (work lost) and the percent chance of each happening. Multiply these together and add it to the costs of each alternative. If you did things 'correctly' the alternative you want to do if the one with the lowest total cost. If not, you may be surprised at which alternative is actually the best one. Sometimes the answer is not the one our gut says.

Remember, one of the alternative should be the 'status quo', i.e. doing what you are doing now. Show them that what you are proposing is a reduction in costs vs. what is already in progress.

This really works. It also shows that you have inititive and that you are cost conscious and have the corporations best interest (keeping costs low) at heart.

If the upper management is not willing to listen, then the find another job. You have found they do not have the companies best interest at heart, and that they are on the wrong path. It also means that they may be on the wrong path for other decisions.

[oldE]

I'm starting to think Wayne should start a "Pelican IT folks with problems with their System" BBS

Mike
Good advice above. You can't go on the way you have been. By the sounds of your post, you're spending too much time p!ssing on fires to even keep up.
You have two choices: Either bail or schedule a meeting.
If you schedule the meeting, go in with solutions, not complaints or dreams.
You are dealing with management types. They still think the Emperor has clothes, 'cause someone told them and they like to believe it.
Good luck
Les

[svandamme]

i once had a place like that... no money for hardware
yet 24/7/356 operation with big bucks

server always crapping out on friday afternoons and stuff

in the end i got fed up too

and started bringing the server down when i felt like it...
eg , turn it of gracefully in midday without telling a soul
then acting surprised, and saying " i'm on it"
then sitting around in a locked server room , with server allready up but network cable detached... playing tetris on a management pc, looking feverishly busy to the tossers from management looking out through the serverroom tiny window on the door

right when i thought they we're ripe for a heart attack, i'de plug the cable back in , run around the room , pretending to do a few things... and tadaaaa fixed

did that 3 times in 2 weeks... then got every little bit of hardware i wanted ordered with a rush job...

also handy to know, that servers that crap out on friday afternoons...
won't crap out on fridaysafternoons if you crap them out on wednesdays or thursdays... or friday mornings

i was bored for months after that because everything worked fine since...


don't forget, if you're the BOFH ... you own them not the other way around...

[Superman]

Goran is right on and Redbeard is offering good advice. I'm not in IT, but rather Labor Relations, but I'm the absolute caricature of blabbermouthiness. I routinely splay the cards across the table and insist that others do the same. VERY candid. It's shocking and charming and effective. That's my advice. Lay it out for them. But first.....do your homework. Not only would it be necessary for you to attend the meeting very prepared to answer questions, and with at least one proposal that will resolve the problem, you probably should go in there with an understanding of the boss' perspective. His budget is probably not a secret. The cycle of the budget, what was allocated last time, the history of the IT budget, other pressures, etc. But really, the meeting will be very simple in another sense. You'll be telling them that their IT system is falling like a house of cards and if some correct decisions are not made soon, you will be moving on to another employer/client who is prepared to respect and support IT.

[VincentVega]

I ran into similar situations when working for non-IT companies. Since they were in business to make $$, technology was an expense, not an enabler. I've since worked only for companies that develop or integrate technology, much different attitude.

Be careful if you skip a level of mgmt, btdt. I dont work there anymore.

[svandamme]

Originally posted by Chris Martin
I've since worked only for companies that develop or integrate technology, much different attitude.

LOL , not ours

[Gogar]

Get another job lined up, then the ball's in your court. If you like the company and have been doing a good job, sit 'em down and let them have it. If they don't give you a huge raise or a new system, get out.

Your loyalty to yourself and your happiness far outweighs loyalty to any company.

[Scott R]

I just left IBM after a few years, they had an internal practice that assumed you worked 60 hours a week on a 40 per week position. This in fact was policy for my level. After two years of supporting their aging systems, and archaic business practices I quit. I worked every weekend during normal change windows of 12:00 AM to 4:00 AM, after two years I was so burned out that I needed an intervention from my wife, in the form of, lose the job or lose me. The sick part of this being that I don't even need to really work, I just enjoy iy.

Fast forward to today, it's Friday, and I'm just surfing at work. After switching jobs I found out that I never get called at night, or on the weekends. The place I went to has a completely different corporate culture. So I guess the moral of the story is, the grass may be greener on the other side.

[stevepaa]

If you think you have a future with the company, you must do what red-beard says. They did not hire you to tell them about problems, but to fix them. So lay out the problems, solutions, and risks. In then end, ifyou don't like their respoonse, ten find another job. Good luck.

[stomachmonkey]

$$$$$$$$$$$$

It's all about the $$$$$$$$'s

I worked for a company that was in deep s**t. I was a director, my VP could not get vendors paid. I'd walk down to the CEO and come back 5 minutes later and the CFO would already be on the phone with the VP telling him a check was being cut.

VP was convinced I had polaroids of the CEO with a goat.

It was simpler than that. I never went in begging, pleading, whining or complaining.

I told him flat out. Do we want to lose or make money today? Pay X and I'll generate 2X with it. Don't pay it and you'll lose X plus 3X.

Once you understand the religion of money all things are possible.

[SlowToady]

I hear you, sort of. My situation isn't *quite* as bad, but my employer (well, one of them) expects miracles on a next to nothing budget. Take the following example:

Everything we do depends on *one* server. Yep, one point of failure. One server running the place; if it goes down, we can't access any files (they are stored on the server), the accounting software (it's server based), the internet (DNS for LAN provided by server), process credit cards (need internet) or ship orders (need internet, too). Well, one day last semester I get a call at 11AM. The server is down, hard. It shut itself down, and when they try to re-start it, it starts up, and then goes down. Everytime. Well, I had class from 9-5 so I didn't get the message until 5P. Oops. Server was down all day, at about $2.5K hour or something. I know, not big $$$ but it's a small, somewhat seasonal company. So it's a lot to them. It took me 6 hours to get this thing rebuilt and running. (And MAN did they get me cheap!)

Well, just the other day, I approach my boss, the owner, about how I think we should implement a fail-over cluster, so that if it ever happens again, the second server will take over and I can rebuild the first one without the business grinding to a halt. He says, that sounds expensive, I don't think it's necessary.

Keep in mind our "server" is a HT-enabled P4 with a Promise FastTrak and 2 SATA disks, mirrored.

I can't get $$$ for ANYTHING.

Sorry for the rant..heh. And, sorry Mikester, I have no useful advice for you.

Maybe at your next meeting you could do like Maddox suggests: just hold up a sign that says "YOU'RE ALL FULL OF ****. YOU'RE NETWORK IS LAME, GIVE ME MONEY TO FIX IT." Ahh..maybe not.

Good luck.

[RoninLB]

Florida

[cool_chick]

My suggestion? Make sure to outline the cost/benefit analysis in your proposals, e.g., the hardware upgrade proposals. A good way to analyze the cost if the hardware is not upgraded is to analyze the cost to business if, let's say, Exchange is down. Business impact. It will cost the company $100,000 an hour if Exchange is down.

Additionally, I would try to implement a monthly "downtime" window. In my company, on the third Saturday of every month, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., we are allowed to do upgrades to servers, including those critical servers (e.g., Tier I apps, Domain controllers, etc., if it's not an emergency situation), do those reboots, etc. It is a given that the network will not be available at that time. If a customer forgets and attaches to Exchange, and if no maintenance is taking place on Exchange, then they got lucky. But we do not guarantee data integrity during this window. This has been rather successful.

Good luck.