Slashdot Mirror
Getting Rid of Staff With High Access?
HikingStick writes "I've been in the tech field for over 15 years. After more than nine years with the same company, I've been asked to step in and establish an IT department for a regional manufacturing firm. I approached my company early, providing four weeks notice (including a week of pre-scheduled [and pre-approved] vacation time). I have a number of projects to complete, and had planned to document some of the obscure bits of knowledge I've gleaned over the past nine years for the benefit of my peers, so I figured that would give me plenty of time. That was on a Friday. The following Monday, word came down from above that all of my privileged access was to be removed — immediately. So, here I sit, stripped of power with weeks ahead of me. From discussions with my peers in other companies, I know that cutting off high-privilege users is common, but usually in conjunction with a severance offer (to keep their hands off the network during those final weeks, especially if there is any ill-will). Should I argue for restored access, highlight the fact that I am currently a human paperweight, request a severance package, or simply become the most prolific Slashdot poster over the next few weeks? Does your company have a policy/process for dealing with high-privilege users who give notice? What is it, and do you make exceptions?"
Your situation kinda sucks as it sounds like you are a diligent worker who wants to help the company. But as long as they are paying you, it's really their choice how they want to use your services. All you can do is when your co-workers ask for your help in passing the torch, mention that you are hand-cuffed by the lack of access and have them request it for you.
P.S. Some activities to pass the time would include Watching Grass Grow and/or Watching Paint Dry.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
a delightful term I learned from my UK counterparts. Essentially you're still under employ by the current company so cannot do work for your new one or any competition, and you relax at home while getting paid. It's like paid vacation, except not, since you could theoretically be called in to work at any point.
AKA. request to work from home if your access is revoked, since you can't do anything at that location now anyway.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
I have worked for 3 hosting companies. My experiance has been: If you are not considered a risk, you are allowed to work your final weeks with full access. If you are REMOTELY considered a risk, you are imediately walked out, although you are paid for your final weeks.
Any good admin/manager knows if you have physical access, you might as well have root/admininistrator access.
It seems to be common now for companies' to strip users of all their privileges ASAP. If you think this was bad, be glad you're not be laid-off. I've often many people tell me that they learned they no longer had a job when their sessions were terminated in the middle of the work day.
Welcome to the work-world of the 21st century.
Steven
http://www.practical-tech.com/
http://blogs.computerworld.com/sjvn
Rumor has it that step 4 has something to do with becoming a highly-paid consultant for the old company.
If they want to keep you from doing your job, they're only going to be hurting themselves and their isn't really much that you can do about that. But what you can do is to do what you can to leave on the best of terms. Just because they decide to be dorks doesn't mean that you have to respond in kind. It's really important to not burn bridges as you might need them for a reference some day. Document whatever obscure bits that you need to and do knowledge transfer with those you can work with. Then you can move on with you conscience clear.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
I'd ask for "gardening leave" (i.e. be allowed to go home rather than forced to sit twiddling your thumbs all day). You might also offer to sit down with a co-worker and tell them about all the stuff you were doing so they can take it over.
This is almost certainly not personal. Your senior management has obviously made a policy decision that the risks of leaving you with access to the systems are more important than the costs of locking you out. Obviously *you* know you are honest and safe, but they can't take that risk. If you think about the amount of damage you could have done if so inclined, you might see the point. There are quite a few horror stories about disaffected employees and computer systems.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Have you ever had nothing to do at work for that long? I can handle surfing the Internet at work for maybe a week. After that, the boredom is excruciating. Believe me, being completely ignored by your company can sometimes be almost as bad as other things.
Really, you aren't.
You should spend the next 3 weeks documenting your projects. That is what the company needs from you. So few companies get this, want you coding until the last minute.
What happens when your stuff breaks? The next folks start at your documentation and go from there. Internal wiki's are great for this.
That would be the ethical thing to do. At this stage you don't need the high access as your replacement has the access. I would work closely with your replacement explaining things to them that may not be nessarly documented, even if they are documented people most likely don't want to read it. So use the time to give your replacement the upper hand. There is a lot you can do without having root/administrator access.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Good time to pick up a new skill/programming language or refresh your knowledge, etc.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Anyone who is malicious and has half a working brain would, of course, do all of that evil stuff before giving any notice. Do they really think that all of their employees are malicious, incompetent, backstabbing morons ?
You could be trying to steal information or recruit your coworkers to your new job.
Yes, the free market is a cool thing, as long as it doesn't impact the bottom line. Then you should fight it tooth and claw. And you should hang on to moronic employees who can't look for better jobs themselves, but need to be recruited by a coworker. Geez. Some people in charge must really, really think that all of their employees are a bunch of dimwitted morons. Maybe they're right, too.
How do they NOT know that you aren't going to spend the next four weeks setting up timebomb scripts or sabotaging equipment?
because anyone competent in such things had them in place months ago.
He's leaving on good terms, he would not timebomb anything. Disgruntled employees? they had their timebombs in place for months. Best if you know that most of the backup tapes are also infected with it so they cant easily roll it back.
I know I have had to disarm may disgruntled timebombs left by people. The really clever guys had them there for a long time so it's a major bugger to get rid of them. One was part virus and replicated and replaced it's self afte a bit of random time (3-10 days later it pops back up.)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
that's a pretty fucked up attitude. Perhaps the employee is at a point where they have grown beyond where the current place can offer them any promotion or challenging/interesting new work? In fact, once you have mastered a job, you tend to automate it to the point where you become bored and need new challenges. You certainly can spend the time transitioning knowledge to other people. The notice also gives the company that time to do that transition. You don't even need privileged system access for that type of thing. Escorting people out the door just because they have decided they can no longer grow within their current position, especially if they have done years of good work for you is pretty arrogant and stupid. How about chatting with the person about why they want to leave and see if there is some good option that benefits everyone instead?
Wow. I've been sitting here for five minutes rereading this post -- while doing other things -- and I can't get it out of my head.
I can't imagine something better than being paid to read Wikipedia and learn stuff all day long for months at a time. That's basically a MacArthur grant.
I'd learn Icelandic, finish my PIC data acquisition unit, re-learn synthetic organic chemistry, design and build a couple power supplies, actually learn electrical engineering rather than just pretending to know it, build a suit of chainmail, learn enough aerodynamics to design a new set of wings for a homebuilt plane... I could spend three years of 8 hour days online with ease, and love every second of it.
(I know this because after a car crash I spent about six weeks bedridden and that's exactly what I did the whole time, and it was *glorious*. I learned enough Japanese to have semi-intelligent conversations and taught myself Perl during that painful vacation.)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Uh, aren't you always at the mercy of your employees? After all, if you could do it all yourself, why hire people?
You sound like a joy to work for.
This seems really silly. Since the employee is the one giving notice, he probably would not have motivation to cause damage before leaving. Furthermore, if he wanted to open a back door or steal code before leaving, he could simply do it before he gave notice.
On the other hand, those two weeks could be a really crucial time for the employee to document his knowledge and train others. Any company that won't take advantage of those two weeks is probably just being paranoid.
Ah, but don't you know? No individual (without an executive title) is ever considered 'important' to a company. Proving that fact is far more important than meeting deadlines :)
And for those thinking to flag troll - i've seen this actually happen numerous times. Besides, if you miss a deadline because of someone who's no longer around it's pretty easy to blame them eh?
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.