Vent?! Can I vent here?

[blunderbelly]

You know that internet meme with Picard doing a face palm? Can you picture it? Can you remember the last time you faced a similar situation? I would assume yes... Now put yourself back in that state of mind for a moment. Remember why you felt that way! Cringe a little and feel a pulse of stress shoot up your spine. Are the hairs on the back of your neck standing a little?... Now push your shoulders back to relieve a little tension before returning to the slumped position over the keyboard. Now that you know how I feel, I'll vent a little and hope it makes sense.

Here, in my shoes after taking a new job, I am facing it daily. Not because of the users because they're great. I face a more diabolical nightmare! Worse then any user... Taking over IT for a company who for years had a second rate desktop support guy run the whole show. Who neglected the most basic network infrastructure and left it on floors, behind desks, in a mess of wires, all collecting dust. Who used versions of Windows server as a personal experiment and has made a mess of AD and left it lacking any logical layout. No GPOs of any kind. Who decided brand new computers and expensive software would stop user complaints. Who was able to argue with management that "The user has the software to do it, it's not my fault if they asked for it without being able to use it" (yet more often then not the IT guy never looked at what a user actually needed and who more often then not had no idea what to do). A IT guy who has a spider web of shares mis-configured and spread out over multiple servers and computers, oh my good god the shares! Allow me to cry a little at the lack of any organization to the shares and to the liberty and full control that was allowed to users... Security? What security?

To an IT guy who threw money at issues he didn't understand and in all honesty I'm surprised he didn't sink the company. To an IT guy who ran desktop support well but anything above telling a user how to open an e-mail, he'd called in IT consultants. Consultants to purchase, install, and configure hardware/software and then took the reigns only to experiment and muck things up. To an IT guy who has skewed managements view of IT to the point where they believe no stable working IT infrastructure can be done efficiently and at a low cost (due to always bringing in consultants to do everything above fixing a hang nail).

I could go on for pages (as I'm actually doing in my full analysis paper for the company) but I'll let your minds wander as to what I face. If you can imagine it, I'm probably facing it here.

Now, I can fix all the things mentioned. It'll take awhile, elbow grease, and a lot of grunt work. From structured cabling to long nights correcting OS issues; But I can fix it. I'll be introducing a lot of FreeBSD into network infrastructure but I'll leave Windows Servers for user management etc, as to not waste the thousands of dollars already tied up on that platform. But that's not my uphill battle. My battle will be gaining the trust of management and users. It'll take a while for me to prove how after some expenses on my behalf, the next 5 years of IT expenses will be drastically reduced from the previous 5 years. Once I show management the math they'll be on board, but users are a different story... The reason? The last IT guy was well liked.

To an IT guy who regardless of how little he knew about IT and how much he cost the company, he did in fact keep things running (even if it was local consulting companies who kept the show going and the lights running behind the scenes). To an IT guy who above all else was literally related to upper management (keeping his position secure regardless of ballooning costs and blunders). To an IT guy who was liked by all. I'm sure he is a great guy and I have no doubt under different circumstances he and I would get along and be good friends. But he knew little of IT and cost the company a LOT of unnecessary expenses. Who had no idea what he was doing and forced things by any means until they somewhat functioned, in reality going against all industry standards and practices. Now I'm not saying everyone should follow the same way of doing things, I mean he should have set up a test lab to practice instead of experimenting in the live production environment and leaving the mess of unsuccessful tries in the same production environment. Trying to decipher how he accomplished things is difficult not only because he had no idea what he was doing, but he also didn't keep any documentation. No software configs, IP tables, network topologies.. Nothing...

I have to be so careful how I word things due to his immediate relation and connection to the company. I have to prepare a large document saying the entire network needs a full overhaul and the current setup is a nightmare, WITHOUT actually saying "the entire network needs a full overhaul and the current setup is a nightmare". Anyways, it's Sunday morning and the little one is up. I'm not finished typing but I just need to get this off my chest. A vent. A rant. Whatever. If anyone has faced a similar experience with an IT manager who knew nothing but was well liked, please share. I need any advice I can on how to word my analysis paper without pointing any fingers...

Help me turn this:

Into this:

 

[gkontos]

It really depends on the company. If like you say the IT guy was liked by all, then you need to find out why. Was if for his charming personality? It certainly was not for his skills. In small "family" companies it is very difficult to be appreciated for your skills. The reason is that the management has no idea what IT is and how much should it cost to run smooth.
Also, if you have to do user support, it comes down to having one skilled person spending endless hours (MONEY) for stupid things. If I was in your shoes, I would try to "outsource" the user support as much as I can and do in house all the things that consultants did. Down the road the management will see that the money spend for IT are much less and the service much better.

Of course, my "charming personality" would make most users hate me because I am terrible at user support with absolutely no tolerance to stupidity.

 

[wblock@]

Companies generally love IT guys who are not that good at IT. They are visibly busy all the time. "Just look at how hard that guy works, he's so industrious!"

What they really expect is that the computers will never work well, and what they really want is somebody to just listen to their complaints and be seen to be fighting with the terrible computers. It mirrors their personal experience with computers.

Be careful suggesting that the previous guy made mistakes. He was a hero, or at least related to upper management, a hero by the transitive property (upper management are heroes by definition). Instead, suggest that new technologies have provided some opportunities that the hero did not have time to take advantage of because he was so busy valiantly fighting for the users, and now might be a good time to save some money and improve infrastructure by doing those things, and here's what that will cost, and here's how much it will save.

 

[scottro]

Exactly. Otherwise, you look like that guy, the one who just blames someone else for the problems.

You don't know their circumstances either--there may have been legitimate reasons for at least some things being as they are, but even if they're not, and this person was a terrible, horrible idiot, who had no skill other than make people like him, as wblock@ says, you won't get anywhere blaming him. (And there might be truth in the diplomatic way of saying it too, who knows.)

 

[hitest]

Best wishes blunderbelly as you transition your company to a well designed IT infrastructure. I really like wblock's suggestions and agree that bashing your predecessor will not help your cause.

 

[blunderbelly]

Thanks everyone! I really just needed to get it of my chest as I can't say anything at work. I like wblock@'s idea of mentioning some solutions might not have been available to the previous IT guy but it's hard to argue that a firewall is a new piece of technology, or that buying tower server after tower server instead of moving to a rack (when they actually have a dedicated room with AC) is a good idea. Or that using a switch between two 5m network cables is the best solution because you can't crimp a 10m is fine. I really don't like to speak ill of anyone trying to cut a living in this profession but it's messy there folks... Real messy.

I'll be able to find a way to word it where I'm very soft on the previous IT infrastructure but it ain't gonna be easy when I'm being forced to go into detail about how some basic A+/Network+ stuff was never followed. Let alone network infrastructure and server OS configuration. I'm no genius or guru but I'm pretty confident I can bring the company around and save them a lot of money. Ultimately I'm looking forward to the work! I rant about the current state of things but it's just that, venting. What better way to stay on my toes then to fix the mess in front of me?

Still accepting any suggestions for wording and thanks everyone so far for replying and sharing ideas. I need it.

 

[scottro]

Perhaps a simple, There are a lot of ways of doing things. In my own experience, method X works well, and I'd like to implement it.

Without knowing the people involved, I have no idea if such a thing would be adequate, but often, people don't really want to know the Hows or even the Whys, they just want it done.

If we were sitting around and talking, I'd probably say, Meh, relax, it's either not as bad as you think it is right now, or it is that bad, and that's why they hire us instead of some kid off the street, but in a forum, that might sound patronizing as you don't know what a kind and wonderful person I am.

I remember a job where I complained about how nothing was documented. They said that was true, and it was something they hoped I'd help fix.

(It wasn't a lecture, it was encouragement and praise.)