IT guy quit, never held accountable for documentation. Oh boy.

[TT100]

Title says it all. Going to have to write a blues song about IT silos now. Also need to brush up on my Exchange Server management skills. For the short term anyway. We're likely going to outsource our enterprise IT and leave the media and broadcast systems to engineering where they belong.

Saw this train coming a couple of years ago when it became obvious that the IT guy, who was to directly report to me, was also managed by my boss and "allowed" to not follow up on direct instructions to document his doings. Got to the point where he locked himself in his office and would only crack the door open and peep out if someone knocked.

Last week my boss took my old suggestion and brought in an IT security firm for a face to face, and tomorrow one of their techs is coming to assess our situation. Should have happened two years ago.

Looking forward to outsourcing the enterprise / business admin side of things. I've already spent most of the morning with "I can't log in," "how do I sort email (again)" and "I used to be able to do xxxx but now I can't" calls.

Desktop support. Yuck.

IT peeves. Got any?

TT

[Doc W]

You're right, this is a classic. "Documentation? We don't need no stinkin' documentation!"

I saw a cartoon in an IT magazine years ago (mid 80s). A woman and her two children are weeping beside a freshly-covered grave, obviously right after the burial. A guy in a suit is standing beside them, holding up a large black umbrella over them. He says, "I know this is not a very good time, but he didn't mention anything about 'source code,' did he?"

Good luck!

[NTBluesGuitar]

I just happen to be an Exchange Engineer by day...currently doing a 2013 build/upgrade with a DAG across two AD sites (Dallas and Chicago).

Feel free to ping me if you need!

IT pet peeves? There aren't enough hours in the day to type them all out...

[gibsonjunkie]

When our IT person got fired I was "volunteered" (more accurately - "Voluntold") to take over coordinating IT for our Association. It took me about a year to clean up the mess she left behind.

[TT100]

I just happen to be an Exchange Engineer by day...currently doing a 2013 build/upgrade with a DAG across two AD sites (Dallas and Chicago).

Feel free to ping me if you need!

IT pet peeves? There aren't enough hours in the day to type them all out...

Very generous of you. Thanks. I'll exhaust other avenues before bothering you though!

Fwiw, we're still on Exchange 2007 and I'm going through users finding accounts for staff who haven't been here for years.

Yesterday was his last day and he did an email dump of links and passwords to me, then drove out of the parking lot. "Here's what you need." We'd been asking for this for years. Would have fired him three years ago if upper management had allowed for a backup plan.



GJ, I'm feeling it.

TT

[Rickenjangle]

As a documentation analyst, I've seen it all - the good, the bad, and the ugly - but the sad truth is that companies looking to cut corners will leave it to the IT guys to document their procedures - and not pay guys like me to professionally create training guides, reference guides, and quick reference cards. Why? It's all overhead...seems expensive until the IT guy quits, leaving a big hole in the infrastructure and requiring a lot of time to come up to speed.

[NTBluesGuitar]

Very generous of you. Thanks. I'll exhaust other avenues before bothering you though!

Fwiw, we're still on Exchange 2007 and I'm going through users finding accounts for staff who haven't been here for years.

No worries...fire an email whenever you need. My 2007 is a little rusty, but I've done a 2007 - 2010 migration and now the 2010-2013 migration.

[DanTheBluesMan]

back in the early '90s, I took an office job with a construction company that had fired their previous office manager before they got his passwords. He probably did them a favor because their 'computer' was one of those all in one Compaqs. Monochrome built in monitor, floppy disc drive system. They had me try to hack the password for 2 weeks before I finally said "you either get him to divulge his password or buy a new setup." The 'new' set up was the smallest, slowest, cheapest 286 they could get their hands on. "It's good enough for printing proposals, isn't it?"

that was an interesting summer. when the season ended, i said that I probably would not be available the following spring if I had another job by then. There was no way I wanted to deal with that again.