IT Crises vs. Vacation: Sometimes It Isn't Pretty

CWmike writes "It's true that IT systems have become essential to business operations, but the successful functioning of the IT department shouldn't rest on any one person's shoulders. All told, vacations serve as mini tests to prove if a department can function when key players are away. That's the theory, anyway. In reality, IT departments sometimes flunk. The results can either be comical or turn out to be a serious wake-up call to organizations that need a better Plan B. To prime your mental pump before your own vacation, Computerworld compiled anecdotes about good vacations gone bad."

Comments

The real problem

[rsilvergun]

at least in the states is, companies have figured out they can get one person to do the work of two and pocket the other guy's salary. I'm seeing this everywhere in the form of longer wait times for services. It's also really screwing the economy because it means there's 1 less job available, so higher unemployment and less money circulating. We're heading back to the 1800s, when our masters argued that idle hands were the devil's playthings, and the lower class would just spend the time drinking anyway... Kiss your vacations (and your 40 hour work week) goodbye.

Re:The real problem

[innerweb]

As always, the problem is management and management not knowing enough about what they are managing,

Most management has two issues they contend with when it comes to IT. One is they can not see how IT contributes to profit, and therefore see it as nothing more than cost. Another is they do not see how IT can help enhance and manage work flow.

For an IT person to be successful, they need to learn how their management hears things, and learn to talk to them in a way they will hear. Which means to get where you need to be and to get what you need you have to sell it by talking to them at their level. That may not be easy. Sometimes it involves golf games, sometimes fishing, whatever it takes to get to know management to understand what it is they see and hear (we all have filters). Once you learn how to communicate with them, then you have to start to educate them. Once they learn how IT truly can work, they will start to let you have projects that they would not have let you have before. Choose these projects carefully. The ones they can see and feel the success of get you *karma* points. These points become spendable for projects you need that they will not understand the benefit of. Do enough stuff they can see the benefit of, and eventually, they will see the justification of having another person.

Should it be this way? Probably not, but it is, so we in IT have to learn to deal with it. Remember that most management is ignorant about IT. And they want to stay that way . Management typically thinks it has too much on its own plate as it is. They manage things like IT by looking elsewhere and saying, hey see what they are bragging about, why are we not like that? Kind of like all those *investment* bankers who collapsed the economy on bad loans and derivatives. Many said, "Not smart", but their bosses ignored them, saying, "Look others are doing it and profiting , we need that profit as well."

We know that is not real management. But management does not care. If it does not bite them today, it is a good thing today.

That is why it is our job in IT to stealth educate our management. It is our job to know these things. It is also our job to communicate those needs effectively. That is where most in IT fall down. It is very hard to communicate IT effectively. It is even harder to do so when you do not have a grasp on the whole of the company's operations. To be able to explain IT in terms the rest of the company will understand, you have to know their jobs and how IT is used to help them. So, one of the reasons IT management is so extraordinarily tough is that you have to know everything about how the company works to be able to do the job effectively. That means not just running the IT department. It means knowing in full detail how the IT department impacts the company as a whole in every nook and corner. It actually means you wind up knowing more than anyone else in the company about how the company works. IT management is the hardest job in any company.

And that is a natural things when you think about what IT truly is in a company. It is everywhere in a company. The phone system, the desktops, the printers, the servers, the network, the data, the data sharing, the personnel, ... Companies work or don't work because of their Information flow. Information flows because of IT. IT becomes the lifeblood of the company. Wrong numbers in inventory, parts are not made. Wrong field size for an import, data lost. Wrong version of software, job might not get done. Nothing in a company is as pervasive as IT.

We could all go back to pen and paper to track things. We could remove all the digital IT in every company. The job could and would get done (well, most would). But, as what cost? This is probably the thing that an IT person has to understand the most to manage the company (not just IT). This cost reduction from using data systems is where management will understand you. But you have to understand it first. Only then can you demonstrate why hiring another person in IT is profitable.

Re:The real problem

[bigstrat2003]

It's like this. I work to enable me to enjoy the rest of my life, not for its own sake. If my life is really shitty as a result of my job, then I might be better off without it.

This is one of those things that happens because we allow it. If IT employees were willing, across the board, to demand proper respect and consideration from their employer, then there would be no problem. Until we stop cowering in fear of losing our jobs, we're going to be screwed unless we happen to get lucky and have a nice manager.

Re:The real problem

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I used to think like you do. I believed that it is every man for themselves and that money in the bank was the only way to assure my freedom.

But now that I have a ton of money in the bank and am effectively retired and can do as I please, I am not so sure. I am the richest person I know. Everybody else I know still puts in the 9-to-5 (or often 8 to 7 and sometimes weekends) grind.

I don't think it is feasible to expect everyone, or even a simple majority, to achieve what I have achieved. Maybe its because, looking back, I can see that ~90% of my success is due to nothing more than being in the right place and the right time while only 10% is due to my own fortitude. Few people will ever be lucky enough to find themselves in similarly favourable circumstances.

So while I am still strongly in favour of some the things you wrote, like a competitive market for healthcare. I am not so sure that a go it alone approach is ever going to be successful given the array of forces organised against the modern peon.

Re:When I leave.....

[itchythebear]

When I leave ... then I turn off my pager...

So I'm guessing the last time you left was sometime in the 90's?

*ducks*

Another reason for vacations: crooked employees

[John Jorsett]

I'm personally aware thru my late father, who was an accountant, of two companies that had employees embezzling funds for years. One telltale sign was that they never took vacations, because their replacements would have discovered what they were up to. Businesses should insist that their personnel take time off, just to make malfeasance easier to detect.

I would fire you for that

[sjbe]

The flip side to being "one deep" is you are more valuable. I would lean towards hoarding knowledge and being on-call. I don't WANT my employer to be comfortable functioning without me.

Business is a team sport and you are definitely NOT being a team player. I have fired people for doing exactly what you are suggesting. It doesn't make you more valuable, it makes you a liability. You are putting the organization at risk for your own gain. If you make everything dependent on you and then you get hit by the proverbial bus, your selfishness has endangered everyone who depends on you. Single point of failure is a bad thing and information hoarding makes you a single point of failure. If the people you work for tolerate that kind of behavior from you, they are extremely foolish.

Re:I would fire you for that

[garyebickford]

I've seen you before. You are basically stuck in a box. (the box of your preconceptions and way of thinking) That box is pretty closely related to the 'union thug' box, not to put too fine a point on it. That box pretty well destroyed Detroit over a period of 40 years. That box will prevent you from ever succeeding beyond a low level, unless you change jobs, get an MBA and go to work for the next group of Wall Street sociopaths (no, not all WS folks are sociopaths, but they're always out there - a separate topic).

When you take a job, you are providing a service in return for pay. This is a standard bargain, just like when you get a haircut. The barber offers a service, and you pay the barber. If the barber gives you an attitude, or doesn't do a good enough job, you will go somewhere else next time. If he/she does a real crap job or pisses you off enough, you won't pay him. But if he does a very good job, has a good attitude and goes above the standard, you might tip him extra.

Similarly, if you do a bit above the standard, look for how to make the company succeed, at most (not all) companies you are likely to be noticed, and sooner or later are more likely to be promoted, given a raise, or in bad times, less likely to be laid off. Sure, some companies don't follow that model - but even then, if you have done the right thing, at least _some_ of the folks in almost any company will be available to give you a good reference when you go somewhere else. So it's just good marketing unless you're a scam artist.

I used to work in the oil exploration business. There are about 30,000 oilfield engineers in the world. It's essentially a small town. If a field engineer made a mistake, that was usually not fatal. But if an engineer screwed somebody over, or failed to carry through on a promise, everybody in the business knew about it soon enough. If that happened enough times, that engineer would eventually be unable to get a job anywhere in the business - or would end up working from some scab outfit working with old crap equipment and cutting corners wherever they could.

Just so you know, the above is not a fantasy. It's exactly how things have worked for me, most places, most times, through a 40 year career. Because I always tried to do the best for the company, even when things didn't work out, I could honestly tell potential employers what I did do, what didn't work out, and why. And I never got negative feedback as a result. Potential employers can smell a rat, and unless they are rats as well, prefer not to hire them.

Re:There can be only one...

[Sir_Sri]

I off and on contracted for a place where this was hugely important.

What they'd do is come up with some bullshit reason they were giving a bunch of people 2 or 3 extra weeks of vacation but it must be taken within a short time frame (that quarter or the next two quarters), usually times to align with the summer already planned vacations, and sometimes not entirely bullshit.

Either way, if you were gone for about 3 weeks, and no one really needed you for that time off, your job was going to be axed shortly. Maternity leave? No problem, your job will definitely be here when you get back because we'll try not to fill it at all, and if we don't need it, you're gone as soon as we're legally allowed when you get back.

It's slimy, but it's business.

Fault tolerance is a serious problem. If you only have two people who know a system, both of whom work in the same area, and both get the same infectious disease for a week you have a problem. On the other hand, having 3 or 4 people with redundant skills is a waste of money. I can see the appeal of cloudsourcing to a 3rd party in that regard.

On a personal basis, if you don't have something you, and only you can do until the day you retire you're taking serious risk. That doesn't have to be technical of course, you can be the only one who knows how to deal with the crazy redhead secretary in another department who bothers you all the time, or you could be the only one who knows how stuff in storage is laid out or whatever. It's a tricky balance between 'manpower intensive to replace' and 'crippling the company if you get hit by a bus'.