They know you're not helping your teammates, and they'll remember it if one of them learns on his own and gets as good as you.
And they will if they have even a shred of self-motivation.
If you teach them, you're seen as the mentor. If you actively ignore them, they'll eventually pass you up -- even if you're a superman and always keep your knowledge ahead of them, all it takes is an extended illness, something happening in your personal life that requires more attention than work for a while, anything really... and you're off the horse and they're on.
If you're their mentor, they'll help defend you as your friend when the boss says, "Man he's been slacking lately." If you've been antagonistic and rude (maybe you're not this way in person, but that's how you come across here, no respect for them at all -- you were there once, remember?) -- they'll make SURE to stab you in the back.
You might be able to rebound somewhere else with your skills, you might not. That all becomes a matter of market timing at that point.
Why run that risk? You're not that crazy are you? Build relationships, have allies, not just co-workers. Not only will it make you a better person (integrity and attitude DO still matter to people, not just you doing "a job"), but you'll learn that the newbies will teach YOU things.
Your choice. Be a competitive jerk, or be a teammate. Think hard about what your employer wants, they're watching -- even if you think they're too "stupid" to hire better help, etc... they're not.
They know the job is getting done, and that you're replaceable. Everyone is. As this article proves... the guy is in jail, his employer's network is still running after a few hiccups, and he's facing charges.
Think he would be if he had any allies, any people he was mentoring, any relationships with the co-workers he disdained?
That's the myth of tech jobs -- that they're a career. Only a person driven to learn MORE than tech will have a long-term career in sysadmin and support roles. This is a problem both with companies and also with the workers themselves. Many think that the Senior technical jobs are the end of the road.
The reality is, people with technical AND people skills managing teams, projects, and customer relationships make a lot more money than the front-line folks. Sales and business skills also are far more effective when the person who has them also has held deep technical knowledge jobs in the past.
That's my only "point" here. This guy promoted himself to "tech god" status and decided that was the end of the road for him, so he entrenched himself and tried to make himself "indispensable". It didn't work. He got fired, and when he withheld key information from his employer to take back over their network, they sent the cops after him. This is the 100% NORMAL response of a company locked out of their own badly-managed gear.
Guess what? That network is back up and running, the managers learned never to hire only one guy -- or to hire a guy who will work with others better -- and the "tech god" is gone. That trend will continue.
Techies need to learn "soft" skills and continue to grow beyond just the technical. Being a CCIE who hoarded information didn't save this guy, and it won't save anyone else either. Having some relationship skills in a government job probably would have given this guy a decent paying job for LIFE -- but he blew it.
I'm saying we ALREADY live in a society that has juries and judges and yes... they do make these kinds of social calls when reviewing cases like this guy's.
If they can make ANY charges applicable, and the guy is a bung-hole... a jury will do it.
Reality. Law isn't just what's written on paper. It's interpreted by a jury of his peers.
Any peer of his that thinks him holding back critical information to a city-wide network was a jackass move -- they'll get him for something.
Whether or not that's "legal" then becomes a matter of many appeals. If he can afford it.
In the long run, wouldn't it have been smarter and simpler for him to just hand over the passwords when asked like a real sysadmin/professional in any job would? Yep.
Will they make his life hell by using the legal system as a tool to screw with him because he didn't? Yep.
City government CAN jail anyone they want at any time. I'm not saying it's RIGHT, I'm saying it's already here.
Acting unprofessionally and stupidly like this guy, means he gets to try out the system first-hand. He will get his day in court or the ability to plea bargain out of the charges if they're legitimate charges, but he could have avoided the whole thing by being a normal cooperative adult about his job.
He thought he was important and screwed with the wrong people. Shit happens to people that do that every day of the week... "IT Sysadmin" or dumb-ass driving drunk who gets a little extra attention from the officers who pick him up.
I'm not judging it right or wrong -- I'm saying that's the way it IS. And he was intelligent enough to know that. Especially knowing his bosses better than any of us do, he's a dumb-fuck for trying this stunt.
If threatened with jail, most people willingly hand over the combination to the people who OWN the lock and shed.
Only in IT do "admins" think they're more important/competent/smart than their employers and would think of withholding such information.
What the boss does with the access after they have it is not his concern, since we already know he was fired at that point in time.
Want the passwords and I don't work there anymore? Sure. Here you go. Want me to fix the mess you're about to make after you make it? Give me a call and I'll give you a quote for consulting.
I have NO problem with that. But withholding the information isn't responsible, it's unprofessional. Not doing the job anymore, you don't need to protect the systems from your boss. He'll go down in flames on his own.
Your attitude highlights the difference between "admins" and "senior admins". Senior staff has to train, teach, and otherwise keep the organization learning and growing.
This guy was certainly "senior" if there were critical network components under his care. Whether or not his management was clueful enough to have him do it, he should have been teaching and helping others learn so he was NOT the only person capable of maintaining the systems.
I see it the other way around. "I'm the best, and I always will be" attitude is often used by good technical, but socially-immature, admins who have no people skills.
In the long run, the company would be better with an admin who both has and is good at both technical skills and people skills, and you know it. Are you worth more to your employer if you can both admin machines and also get along with co-workers? Hell yes. You'll see this very clearly if you're ever asked to manage a large group of people.
You may choose not to be that good an employee, but all that does is hurt your team, your company, and ultimately you, sooner or later. You're smarter than that.
Plenty of examples in professional sports -- even though there are definite superstars there, supported by measurements and statistics (how many admins are truely measured?)... The teams that win work as teams, and the superstar works with his teammates, not aloof from them.
Grow up and play nicely with others in the sandbox, and lose the big head. You'll go further.
It's likely that some day in the future you'll want to advance beyond technical work, and perhaps even you'll enjoy managing a team of young fiesty whippersnappers such as yourself with over-inflated egos too, because you'll remember when you were infallible.
A jury of his peers will determine the answer as to whether or not the information was more like a set of keys, or more like knowledge.
I think you'll find he'll plead guilty to lesser charges and it'll never make it to court, but the same thing will come up again and again until it does.
Is access to computer systems the same as access to property? A great legal debate will rage for years.
Meanwhile, it's so blatantly obvious the guy is unprofessional and childish, that hopefully he's gone from the industry forever. We could use less people like him maintaining critical systems, really.
There are other CCIEs that certainly could do a better job than the reports seen so far, and even train others to assist them.
Being a misanthrope is a very big strike against someone working on core infrastructure.
Withholding keys to a building you used to work on from a former employer would certainly land you in as much hot water as this guy is in, if you want to use a non-technology based analogy.
The analogy here would be you fire someone who has a set of keys to your shed, and then say, "By the way, I need you to return those keys to the shed." And they don't.
It's very likely that's criminal, and when the way you have the shed arranged is a booby trap that everything will fall down inside and hurt someone entering the building (a locksmith), you probably have grounds for a case for lots of willful collateral damage.
This guys an unprofessional prick, and I'm glad he's out of the industry -- the rest of us don't act like this.
His is similar to asking an employee to hand you the keys to the shed that only he has keys to, when you fire him. Him holding on to those keys is probably criminal, since he's denying access to their belongings.
They fired him and then said, "Give us the keys to unlock the shed." He said, "Fuck off".
In your case, you gave them the keys. If they called you up and said, "Show us how to run the lawnmower in the shed", you'd be well within your rights to tell them to fuck off.
Two very different things.
They can at least charge him with the theft of the keys and ask a judge to have him pay back all costs associated with paying a locksmith.
In his case, if the locksmith unplugged the extension cord running to the shed, the shed was rigged to self-destruct causing a lot more damage too.
You're trying to use your experience to cover an insane misanthrope's behavior. It isn't going to fly, not here -- and not to a jury of his peers.
A truly professional sysadmin can find ways to keep things running but also be just slow enough to respond to that 24/7 on-call so that someone starts thinking, "Hey... we shouldn't put that responsibility all on one guy."
They also should be filing appropriate risk analysis reports to their bosses that clearly spell out that the organization is single-sourced on them for various tasks, and be willing to train backups in those tasks.
This guy is just a prime example of another non-team-player in IT who couldn't get over himself long enough to look after the systems and the organization's long-term health properly.
A very unprofessional admin, is all this is. No one is irreplaceable.
This stuff isn't rocket science, and even TFA makes CCIE sound like it's some kind of un-winnable holy grail.
There's thousands and thousands of CCIEs out there, for crying out loud. And even more CCNPs who could easily have figured out his network and maintained it, given a bit of time and a few books.
What an unprofessional retard this guy is. Makes the rest of us look bad, too.
Here's hoping one of the states reads this, and their statute of limitations hasn't run out.
Perhaps you'll be lucky enough to be a named accessory to the crime, and go to jail too.
There's no reason any of you involved in the tax fraud couldn't have anonymously tipped off a few state Attorney Generals to the fraud, other than lack of personal morals and ethics on every individual's part you say knew about it.
After their experience with you -- a supposedly "competent admin" who obviously doesn't play nicely with others -- you suppose they decided they'd hire a couple of cheap replacements and put you on the list for the next layoff? I do.
You ARE paid to tutor your colleagues. Or at least give your management concrete things they need to learn to move to whatever next-level you have in your head for them.
Trust me, they know you behave this way, and if they do happen to stumble across a professional admin who is as talented as you who can also work with so-called "lesser" team-mates, you'll definitely be gone... and your anti-teamwork attitude with you.
You're a twit. People learn by making mistakes. As senior guy it's your job to create learning experiences (situations in which your backups can make mistakes without doing serious damage) to teach them the concepts of the care you take when doing your work.
If you're not training them and you're actively denying them the ability to make the same mistakes you did once, you're doing yourself, the company and them a disservice and an unprofessional job.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but they don't CARE what you like.
They know you're not helping your teammates, and they'll remember it if one of them learns on his own and gets as good as you.
And they will if they have even a shred of self-motivation.
If you teach them, you're seen as the mentor. If you actively ignore them, they'll eventually pass you up -- even if you're a superman and always keep your knowledge ahead of them, all it takes is an extended illness, something happening in your personal life that requires more attention than work for a while, anything really... and you're off the horse and they're on.
If you're their mentor, they'll help defend you as your friend when the boss says, "Man he's been slacking lately." If you've been antagonistic and rude (maybe you're not this way in person, but that's how you come across here, no respect for them at all -- you were there once, remember?) -- they'll make SURE to stab you in the back.
You might be able to rebound somewhere else with your skills, you might not. That all becomes a matter of market timing at that point.
Why run that risk? You're not that crazy are you? Build relationships, have allies, not just co-workers. Not only will it make you a better person (integrity and attitude DO still matter to people, not just you doing "a job"), but you'll learn that the newbies will teach YOU things.
Your choice. Be a competitive jerk, or be a teammate. Think hard about what your employer wants, they're watching -- even if you think they're too "stupid" to hire better help, etc... they're not.
They know the job is getting done, and that you're replaceable. Everyone is. As this article proves... the guy is in jail, his employer's network is still running after a few hiccups, and he's facing charges.
Think he would be if he had any allies, any people he was mentoring, any relationships with the co-workers he disdained?
Wow. A slashdotter who isn't a Democrat hiding in fake-Libertarian clothes! Refreshing! (GRIN...)
That's the myth of tech jobs -- that they're a career. Only a person driven to learn MORE than tech will have a long-term career in sysadmin and support roles. This is a problem both with companies and also with the workers themselves. Many think that the Senior technical jobs are the end of the road.
The reality is, people with technical AND people skills managing teams, projects, and customer relationships make a lot more money than the front-line folks. Sales and business skills also are far more effective when the person who has them also has held deep technical knowledge jobs in the past.
That's my only "point" here. This guy promoted himself to "tech god" status and decided that was the end of the road for him, so he entrenched himself and tried to make himself "indispensable". It didn't work. He got fired, and when he withheld key information from his employer to take back over their network, they sent the cops after him. This is the 100% NORMAL response of a company locked out of their own badly-managed gear.
Guess what? That network is back up and running, the managers learned never to hire only one guy -- or to hire a guy who will work with others better -- and the "tech god" is gone. That trend will continue.
Techies need to learn "soft" skills and continue to grow beyond just the technical. Being a CCIE who hoarded information didn't save this guy, and it won't save anyone else either. Having some relationship skills in a government job probably would have given this guy a decent paying job for LIFE -- but he blew it.
(I think you mean to use "e.g." not "i.e." -- look it up.)
So we agree that they're having to re-do what this moron that Slashdotters are defending here, should have been doing in the first place. His job.
I'm saying we ALREADY live in a society that has juries and judges and yes... they do make these kinds of social calls when reviewing cases like this guy's.
If they can make ANY charges applicable, and the guy is a bung-hole... a jury will do it.
Reality. Law isn't just what's written on paper. It's interpreted by a jury of his peers.
Any peer of his that thinks him holding back critical information to a city-wide network was a jackass move -- they'll get him for something.
Whether or not that's "legal" then becomes a matter of many appeals. If he can afford it.
In the long run, wouldn't it have been smarter and simpler for him to just hand over the passwords when asked like a real sysadmin/professional in any job would? Yep.
Will they make his life hell by using the legal system as a tool to screw with him because he didn't? Yep.
City government CAN jail anyone they want at any time. I'm not saying it's RIGHT, I'm saying it's already here.
Acting unprofessionally and stupidly like this guy, means he gets to try out the system first-hand. He will get his day in court or the ability to plea bargain out of the charges if they're legitimate charges, but he could have avoided the whole thing by being a normal cooperative adult about his job.
He thought he was important and screwed with the wrong people. Shit happens to people that do that every day of the week... "IT Sysadmin" or dumb-ass driving drunk who gets a little extra attention from the officers who pick him up.
I'm not judging it right or wrong -- I'm saying that's the way it IS. And he was intelligent enough to know that. Especially knowing his bosses better than any of us do, he's a dumb-fuck for trying this stunt.
If threatened with jail, most people willingly hand over the combination to the people who OWN the lock and shed.
Only in IT do "admins" think they're more important/competent/smart than their employers and would think of withholding such information.
What the boss does with the access after they have it is not his concern, since we already know he was fired at that point in time.
Want the passwords and I don't work there anymore? Sure. Here you go. Want me to fix the mess you're about to make after you make it? Give me a call and I'll give you a quote for consulting.
I have NO problem with that. But withholding the information isn't responsible, it's unprofessional. Not doing the job anymore, you don't need to protect the systems from your boss. He'll go down in flames on his own.
Your attitude highlights the difference between "admins" and "senior admins". Senior staff has to train, teach, and otherwise keep the organization learning and growing.
This guy was certainly "senior" if there were critical network components under his care. Whether or not his management was clueful enough to have him do it, he should have been teaching and helping others learn so he was NOT the only person capable of maintaining the systems.
I see it the other way around. "I'm the best, and I always will be" attitude is often used by good technical, but socially-immature, admins who have no people skills.
In the long run, the company would be better with an admin who both has and is good at both technical skills and people skills, and you know it. Are you worth more to your employer if you can both admin machines and also get along with co-workers? Hell yes. You'll see this very clearly if you're ever asked to manage a large group of people.
You may choose not to be that good an employee, but all that does is hurt your team, your company, and ultimately you, sooner or later. You're smarter than that.
Plenty of examples in professional sports -- even though there are definite superstars there, supported by measurements and statistics (how many admins are truely measured?)... The teams that win work as teams, and the superstar works with his teammates, not aloof from them.
Grow up and play nicely with others in the sandbox, and lose the big head. You'll go further.
It's likely that some day in the future you'll want to advance beyond technical work, and perhaps even you'll enjoy managing a team of young fiesty whippersnappers such as yourself with over-inflated egos too, because you'll remember when you were infallible.
A jury of his peers will determine the answer as to whether or not the information was more like a set of keys, or more like knowledge.
I think you'll find he'll plead guilty to lesser charges and it'll never make it to court, but the same thing will come up again and again until it does.
Is access to computer systems the same as access to property? A great legal debate will rage for years.
Meanwhile, it's so blatantly obvious the guy is unprofessional and childish, that hopefully he's gone from the industry forever. We could use less people like him maintaining critical systems, really.
There are other CCIEs that certainly could do a better job than the reports seen so far, and even train others to assist them.
Being a misanthrope is a very big strike against someone working on core infrastructure.
Tell them you won't sign any contract until they give you a full price. If they won't do it, turn them in to your state Attorney General.
Who gives a shit about "social acceptability"? You're the customer. You don't pay, they don't win.
Withholding keys to a building you used to work on from a former employer would certainly land you in as much hot water as this guy is in, if you want to use a non-technology based analogy.
The analogy here would be you fire someone who has a set of keys to your shed, and then say, "By the way, I need you to return those keys to the shed." And they don't.
It's very likely that's criminal, and when the way you have the shed arranged is a booby trap that everything will fall down inside and hurt someone entering the building (a locksmith), you probably have grounds for a case for lots of willful collateral damage.
This guys an unprofessional prick, and I'm glad he's out of the industry -- the rest of us don't act like this.
That's what the court case and a jury of his peers will determine, of course.
Or more likely, it'll all be settled out of court for an undisclosed sum after the lawyers work out the probabilities on both sides.
If you see it and don't tell someone with the authority to stop it, you're an accomplice. Plain and simple.
Your story and his are very different.
His is similar to asking an employee to hand you the keys to the shed that only he has keys to, when you fire him. Him holding on to those keys is probably criminal, since he's denying access to their belongings.
They fired him and then said, "Give us the keys to unlock the shed." He said, "Fuck off".
In your case, you gave them the keys. If they called you up and said, "Show us how to run the lawnmower in the shed", you'd be well within your rights to tell them to fuck off.
Two very different things.
They can at least charge him with the theft of the keys and ask a judge to have him pay back all costs associated with paying a locksmith.
In his case, if the locksmith unplugged the extension cord running to the shed, the shed was rigged to self-destruct causing a lot more damage too.
You're trying to use your experience to cover an insane misanthrope's behavior. It isn't going to fly, not here -- and not to a jury of his peers.
His superiors didn't set the bail, a judge did. Think about what you just said.
The judge obviously found $5 million a reasonable number for some reason.
Maybe you were, but that doesn't mean a majority of us were. Back your assertion up with facts.
Most of us were spoiled kids who had things the majority of the world doesn't have, and still do.
Being a sysadmin in the U.S. probably puts you in the top 1% of wage-earners worldwide.
Don't like it? Do something else. But don't act like it's all some damn complex we've all got.
Some of us are professionals and act like it. This guy didn't and doesn't deserve to be called a sysadmin anymore.
No he's 100% responsible.
A truly professional sysadmin can find ways to keep things running but also be just slow enough to respond to that 24/7 on-call so that someone starts thinking, "Hey... we shouldn't put that responsibility all on one guy."
They also should be filing appropriate risk analysis reports to their bosses that clearly spell out that the organization is single-sourced on them for various tasks, and be willing to train backups in those tasks.
This guy is just a prime example of another non-team-player in IT who couldn't get over himself long enough to look after the systems and the organization's long-term health properly.
A very unprofessional admin, is all this is. No one is irreplaceable.
Great post. Wish I could mod it up another notch.
This stuff isn't rocket science, and even TFA makes CCIE sound like it's some kind of un-winnable holy grail.
There's thousands and thousands of CCIEs out there, for crying out loud. And even more CCNPs who could easily have figured out his network and maintained it, given a bit of time and a few books.
What an unprofessional retard this guy is. Makes the rest of us look bad, too.
Here's hoping one of the states reads this, and their statute of limitations hasn't run out.
Perhaps you'll be lucky enough to be a named accessory to the crime, and go to jail too.
There's no reason any of you involved in the tax fraud couldn't have anonymously tipped off a few state Attorney Generals to the fraud, other than lack of personal morals and ethics on every individual's part you say knew about it.
Yeah you want him to quote law, and you haven't yet. Convenient defense.
That's called a booby trap, and is completely unprofessional behavior.
Anyone smart enough to handle getting a CCIE is smart enough to know power isn't always on.
This guy's a top-notch prick who should have been fired long ago.
After their experience with you -- a supposedly "competent admin" who obviously doesn't play nicely with others -- you suppose they decided they'd hire a couple of cheap replacements and put you on the list for the next layoff? I do.
You ARE paid to tutor your colleagues. Or at least give your management concrete things they need to learn to move to whatever next-level you have in your head for them.
Trust me, they know you behave this way, and if they do happen to stumble across a professional admin who is as talented as you who can also work with so-called "lesser" team-mates, you'll definitely be gone... and your anti-teamwork attitude with you.
You're a twit. People learn by making mistakes. As senior guy it's your job to create learning experiences (situations in which your backups can make mistakes without doing serious damage) to teach them the concepts of the care you take when doing your work.
If you're not training them and you're actively denying them the ability to make the same mistakes you did once, you're doing yourself, the company and them a disservice and an unprofessional job.
It is his fault. His behavior was unethical, at the very least.
Professional administrators document their work in such a way that if they leave, someone can take over where they left off.
This guy was an unprofessional twit.