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
I would imagine those sorts of working conditions might be enough to flare up your old back pain condition, making it difficult to attend work on a daily basis.
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Wow, I will have to remember to give four weeks notice next time instead of two.
Thanks for the heads up!
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
You're possibly getting paid to surf the Internet all day, the best job there every was, and you're wanting to go back to working hard for the Man?
In the early nineties, my dad was a high-privilege employee at a bank. Anyway, due to office politics, he pretty much got the boot because one of the higher ups didn't like him. (You know, how easy it is to fire someone if you really want). He had been working there for nearly 20 years, and according to local law he had 6 months notice. He was disallowed to go to the bank during those 6 months: from one day to another he sat at home.
I heard this is pretty much the rule with high-privilege employees. So, I'd suggest, sit back, enjoy yourself and troll on slashdot as if there were no tomorrow.
if you think that this will make you the only person taking a pay check to sit around all day and do nothing more than post to slashdot, you are sorely mistaken.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
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.
We look forward to hearing from you...frequently.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
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's in the company's interest for you to do nothing. They actually will prefer if you do absolutely nothing because of their own liability. As a regular employee, if you mess something up it's just negligence (oops). On the other hand if the company terminates you and still gives you access, and then you mess something up, they're criminally liable because they should have restricted your access.
For example, I worked on banking software and had god-rights. If I as a regular employee steal all of the customer data and sell it, then I am the criminal. If I have been terminated and do the same, then they are at fault. Now yes, I realize that it's a pedantic difference, but the banks which run the software see a world of difference and will sue the my employer accordingly.
Believe me, it's cheaper to pay me 6 months severance than it is to be sued for my actions.
It really depends on level of access and what they can access. In many cases however they have been escorted out the door with in minutes of giving notice. Typically they get the two weeks notice they gave as paid time (Two weeks is standard).
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
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.
You could level a character to 70 no problem in 4 weeks. Enjoy!
Make it a malt liquor. I want to be as clever and handsome as possible.
get your work ip address banned by slashdot and wikipedia.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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.
Get everyone organized on the way out and leave a lasting impression! Organize the workers in your workplace. Technology workers are the least represented sector in the US and should be able to reap the benefits of collective bargaining.
Highlight unfair labor practices, working conditions, unsavory boss types, gender inequality in pay scales, and anything else that brings pain to people's lives. Gender inequality is a great one, because it exists almost everywhere. Distribute pamphlets, circulate emails, stick things up on whiteboard, announce your demands loudly.
If you can get 75% of the workers there to sign a petition to join a labor union the organization has to deal with the union by law. Offer people a cookie to sign the petition and you will hit that number. An affiliated union can get an organizer in there after you leave to keep things going.
Coders of the world unite!
M
I've left two jobs in my life where I had administrative type access to high importance parts of the system. Company A when I gave my notice (three weeks in this case) said thanks, but told me to take the three weeks off with pay and disabled my access immediately. I have had great recommendations from my manager at that company which has helped me get other jobs, so I'm pretty sure it isn't a person issue.
Company B, which I left a couple months ago, let me work my entire 4 weeks notice with full access.
I don't know how big a firm your talking about here, but a lot of companies have a pretty firm HR policy on asset access for short timer employees. Before you get too upset, check into the policy and see if your being singled out or if that is just the way the organization works. It certainly sounds to me based on your snippet the latter is much more likely.
I spent those two weeks typing documentation on everything I did, and in training one of the junior admins to wrangle SMTP until they found a replacement. The only real benefit I got out of the deal was that I didn't have to carry a pager anymore.
The other benefit? The folks there were okay with me burning off paid sick days to arrange for the U-Haul and to tie up loose ends before the move.
Most companies that I've worked with in the past were similar - you only really lose access to the vital stuff, but there's usually plenty of non-vital stuff that still needs done until you bail.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
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.
I have a friend who is an accountant. When he turned in his notice to a Fortune 500 company (2 weeks I believe), they gave him 1 month's pay and told him (fairly politely) that he could leve immediately and good luck on his next job. However, note I said that he's an accountant.
It does seem to me that there's little point in removing access and keeping an IT guy on. If they need to remove access they should just pay you for a month and let you go. The fact that they want you to stay and took away your access says a lot of negative things about them. They don't trust you, but they want to keep you to the bitter end anyway.
Knowledge transfer as much as you wish during this time. If I was being treated this way, it sure wouldn't make me want to seek people out to give knowledge to, but I would probably help anyone who came to me with questions. I do suggest to you that you not ask for your access back. If your company wants to be a jerk about this, let it be a complete inconvenience for them and play by those rules. A company that has already shown that they don't trust you is not going to look favorably on any requests you make for restored access. In fact, they might find it suspicious that you need the access and they might suspect you of planting trojans, etc. Just live with it. In fact, you probably should fight to not get the access back and here's why. If something goes wrong after you leave, your company has shown you that they don't trust you. They might blame you for whatever happens if you get your access restored.
Most companies do not act this way. I've worked in IT for almost 22 years now (since college) and we've either just sent people packing the same day (never for IT staff, but it has happened for sales people and such) or they got to keep their access until they left.
I usually give more than two weeks. Usually it's a matter of planning my next job's start date, and then saying "All right, you've got me for a month. Get me a replacement and I'll train him/her." In a small community, this sort of behaviour goes a _long_ ways towards your reputation.
Once, however, it was a defensive move. My manager was maneuvering to fire me (not justified, but I was a resident alien and appealing would have been more or less impossible) so I resigned before he got the chance--and padded my stay to four weeks, until I had my affairs in order.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
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.
Seriously. Just be 'on call' if they have problems. Since you can't do much by physically being there, what difference does it make?
if they won't do that, ask for severence and be on your merry way enjoying the time off.
I wasn't so lucky. I was 'fired' (new management didnt' understand my role as lead network security analyst, and even worse, feared my knowledge). But because of that fear, I got a severence package and most of the bonus I was promised for helping an outsourcing initiative (no, it wasn't me who was replaced through that). I was also able to collect unemployment. The downside is that I had to explain why I was fired in all of my interviews.
If your company truly thought you were some kind of "risk" they would have given you immediate "gardening leave". The fact they haven't means, as another has suggested, that they want to see what happens without you being in the daily operations. In short they ARE respecting you and will use you as and when they feel something is "broken" and needs your guidance. In short enjoy the R & R that the company has offered you as a parting gift. Be respectful and courteous, don't burn bridges (you don't appear to be that type anyway) and best of luck in your new job:) Meantime I have a problem with WM11 not syncing to my MP3 Plarers...Are you available?;)
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.
Notice is for sallies, real men just quit. After all -- do they give you notice when your going to be let go? No.
The one time I was laid off I was told it was effective in six weeks. I spent much of that time documenting and training coworkers on projects that I had worked solo on. My network access and other privileges were not affected. I asked the VP of engineering if I could take some of the source code home for reference so that I could answer questions over the phone or by email after I left. He drafted a letter stating that I was allowed to keep the source for this purpose only and that it remained company IP and could not be disclosed to anyone else. We both signed it.
This was about a 150 person company owned by a large international conglomerate. The VP was originally from the conglomerate's corporate headquarters and joined us two years earlier when we were acquired. The rest of management was local. I had been there about four years. A year after my layoff the situation at the company had improved and I was asked to return.
The moral of the story:
I don't deny that it is common to be immediately cutoff when you resign, but it is not a given.
Don't burn bridges.
It's a waste of money to pay someone who doesn't even want to be working for you. Obviously their output is going to be nill so their pay should be nill.
Myself and at least one other poster have demonstrated diligence training those who will be taking over. I think it is far more of an individual judgement call based on past projects and the individual level of trust.
If you are going to be involved in managing those family businesses I would suggest a less black and white perspective. Sorry, but management is not easy and such a black and white perspective often indicate the less capable managers or someone in an unforgiving bureaucratic/politicized environment who needs to cover their ass with policy compliance. That said, I agree that it many cases the proper decision is immediate cutoff, immediately issuing a final check, and wishing them well as you walk them out in a friendly manner. My point is merely that in some cases keeping them around for a little while can be beneficial to the company.
Wait, are you saying you don't have some backdoor access set up that they don't know how to revoke? Noob! :)
Actually, if they're paying you to do nothing, I'd go with "become the most prolific Slashdot poster over the next few weeks". But if you've been their for 9 years and your smart, why don't you have everything running like clockwork so you can just sit and read slashdot all day anyway except for the semi-weekly "outage" that you cause to convince them that you didn't have your job completely automated within 6 months of starting. I guess if it was that kind of an IT job, you probably wouldn't be leaving in the first place.
Are you going to a competitor?
If not, I'd approach my boss, say "I understand that you want to protect all the data that I have access to. But, I hope to be able to serve this company in the time that I have left and without at least some of that access, I can't do that. Here are the things that I still have in progress: X, Y and Z. If you give me permission to do A, B and C, then I can complete these projects before I leave.
"Others might have given you much less notice, But out of loyalty, I wanted to give you ample time to find my replacement and handle the transition. Would you please consider reinstating the access I need to finish these projects? If you cannot, please tell me how I can serve this company until my departure."
They probably won't give you the access. But, this at least creates a positive impression in their minds. Pulling some of the other stunts suggested here doesn't.
Don't take it personally. Especially if you are leaving a large company.
So.. what to do with your new free time? If you really want to not burn a bridge, spend the time documenting all the little ins and outs of the stuff you really think is important, or that you have had some nagging concerning about. Find out who will be picking up your tasks, introduce them to the folks that you interact with on a routine basis. If you have direct interaction with end users, let your replacement know which end users requires a little more attention, or have difficulty with things. Give your replacement(s) a little "tour" of the more obscure tasks that you do. All systems have little quirks, transfer those bits of knowledge. Any special configurations, unusual setups, etc.
Why would you want to do this. Because it's a professional way to respond. And it is possible that years later it might come back to you. As a personal antidote, when I left my first company (after 13 years), I didn't burn any bridges. They let me keep my system authorities, but what I did was to set up a new account for my replacement and with my replacement looking over my shoulder I started to remove my old accounts, just to make sure that things would still work. I worked closely with my replacement in "cleaning up" all the little hooks that my old admin accounts had and made sure that he had the same access that I did. A few years later in the new company, I was laid off as part of a large downsizing - several hundred people (everyone was literally given notice, told not to touch any system, make one phone call, grab your personal stuff and escorted out of the building - in a very unprofessional manner). My old manager from the original company contacted me and asked if I was part of the downsizing and let me know that "there is a desk here if you need it". (As a final note in this, about 6, 7 months after I was laid off, I received a call from the company that laid me off.. asking for my skills again.. my response was "hell hasn't frozen over yet") -- so the karma works both ways..
Your play is to do whatever is in your own personal interest (which would include the interest of your family and friends, and perhaps innocent bystanders).
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
OK, I guess I'll de-cloak and jump in. First background, I'm a CTO with a small software company. By small I'm talking about 30 bodies total. I mention this only to provide some data on my experience/viewpoint (CTO, not developer) and my environment (dev shop, small company) and even with all that said, remember YMMV.
OK, our policy falls in to two categories/buckets:
1 - your privs are removed and you are sent home with pay for the notice period, goodbye don't come in to work.
2- you keep all your privs and you continue to work, thanks for staying during the notice period.
Nothing else makes sense to us. Removing your privs and having you come in just creates a distraction while you talk to other staff, not useful to us.
As to whether you fall into bucket 1 or 2 is the result of conversations among management. Any doubt that you will play nice - goto bucket 1 immediately. Any doubt that you are really needed to complete work - goto bucket 1 immediately. If you both can and will contribute to the project and we do not expect any issues with you working during your notice (poaching employees, causing trouble, etc.) then go to bucket 2.
We have had people we assigned to bucket 1 that were great employees and I'd like to keep. They were not really needed for the project and we sent them home as sort of a last 'paid vacation' from us. No ill will, I'd hire them again. We've also sent people home and taken a hit on the project as the distraction, productivity, or trust factor outweighed the usefulness factor.
Removing your privileges and still having you come in makes absolutely no sense to me. Seems to be the worst of both worlds, you can't really be productive and the low work load can cause you to create distractions for other staff. I just do not get why they want to do that.
Hope that helps.
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.
In any big project, there's always more documentation that can be written, and more details to pass on.
If you've got an employee that can turn over all their knowledge in two or three days, you've been hiring the wrong people.
One answer to your earlier question about "why weren't you passing/sharing knowledge the whole time you were there before?" It's not always about hoarding knowledge - often, there's simply nobody to turn it over to. In a busy environment, it's difficult to find time to sit down and train someone in a system they're unlikely to use. Those other employees all have their own projects to get done, too. Documentation and cross-training, while good to have, often slip in priority compared to getting the newest patch out.
As a contractor, I tend not to have this problem as much. Since I know from the beginning that I won't be there long, I can be meticulous in my documentation and training, planning from the beginning to get my work ready to turn over to someone else. Most regular employees, though, usually don't have that luxury.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.