February 21, 2017 at 6:04 am
Eric M Russell - Monday, February 20, 2017 8:43 AMpatrickmcginnis59 10839 - Monday, February 20, 2017 7:55 AMIf you lose a decision, do you resort to violence to get the decision to go back your way?
lol what the heck?????
The corporate office where I work is located in Kennesaw, Georgia; a town where resorting to violence to win an argument is not advised.
https://www.municode.com/library/ga/kennesaw/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTIICOOR_CH34CIEM_ARTIIFI
Love it. My guess is that they don't have a huge problems with workplace violence or road rage.
February 21, 2017 at 6:28 am
Ed Wagner - Tuesday, February 21, 2017 6:04 AMEric M Russell - Monday, February 20, 2017 8:43 AMpatrickmcginnis59 10839 - Monday, February 20, 2017 7:55 AMIf you lose a decision, do you resort to violence to get the decision to go back your way?
lol what the heck?????
The corporate office where I work is located in Kennesaw, Georgia; a town where resorting to violence to win an argument is not advised.
https://www.municode.com/library/ga/kennesaw/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTIICOOR_CH34CIEM_ARTIIFILove it. My guess is that they don't have a huge problems with workplace violence or road rage.
I won't say it doesn't exist, but it is safer compared to other areas in the greater Atlanta area. The more serious troublemakers prefer to cluster somewhere else, where they don't get hassled and the marks don't shoot back.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
February 23, 2017 at 8:15 am
David.Poole - Monday, February 20, 2017 11:46 AMIt can get worse than this but not by much https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber
...
Read that too. Was shocked that it was a recent thing. Under management should be ashamed of themselves.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
February 23, 2017 at 9:43 am
patrickmcginnis59 10839 - Monday, February 20, 2017 7:55 AMIf you lose a decision, do you resort to violence to get the decision to go back your way?
lol what the heck?????
There was only one time in my career where I felt physically threatened, fortunately it didn't actually come to violence. It was also the same company I worked at where I saw the most office politics in the IT department. I left there promptly when I got "reassigned" to a manager I'd worked with before on a project and who I knew working for him would lead to nothing but problems.
February 23, 2017 at 9:58 am
When it comes to dealing with politics in IT, there are two general types I break things down into- Internal IT politics, and external polititcs. The external politics are often one of the bigger challenges, as marketing, sales and other departments often feel a need to place their mark on a project, even if they have no idea what it entails.
There are a couple of approaches that can be effective for dealing with External politics. One of them is the classic bike-shedding method- give the people something minor to argue about that will consume all of their attention so IT can get on with dealing with the important things. I find that the best method for doing this is to send an email to the potentially involved parties with a question about the bike shed that you want to use to keep them out of the technical things- perhaps a question about logos or fonts for official reports, or a whether a domain name should have a hyphen in it or not, something relatively trivial that will have minimal impact on the actual code. A similar tactic I like to use when presenting mock-ups/ prototypes is to make something that is easily modified with minimal impact, and make it have an obvious flaw so that people can point it out and feel that they have had a beneficial impact .
When it comes to things like budgets and hardware purchases, I take a two-fold approach.
The first portion of this is to show exactly why certain hardware is needed. Whether this comes from recommended specifications from a vendor for hardware involved in a new system being put in place, or showing why hardware for existing systems needs to be upgraded, I try to show that there are benefits to spending the money on upgrades. In a previous job where I ran everything IT related for a collections call center, I was able to show the owners of the company that the server that they had for their database was running slowly enough to cause employees to spend an average of thirty seconds waiting for an account to open before they could make an outbound call, and an average of 2 minutes to be able to search up an account. I then took information from the software's logs, and showed that most employees were spending up to an hour each day waiting for accoutns to load, and/or searching. i then cross-referenced this with how many calls that came in and hung up because employees were unable to find who was calling for what before the person on the other end got upset and hung up. In doing so, I was able to quantify the cost of having a server that was too slow as (employee hourly wage x 1hr / day x # of employees in the office). I then showed how much it was costing them per week , per month and per year to have a slow, outdated server. I then compared it to the cost of the new server. To further reinforce my point, I also showed how much money was spent on repeatedly calling people who did not stick around to wait for an employee to pull up their account, then looked into how many accounts per week this happened with, as well as how much less likely people that hung up due to delays in pulling up their account were to set up a payment plan. The point I am trying to make about this is that when it comes to budgetary issues, it helps a lot to be able to speak in the language that management understands- money. The second portion of the approach to getting budgetary approval is to speak the other language that management does not like to hear, but understands- compliance. For example, the costs of upgrading software (OS, SQL server, etc. ) If a software upgrade is needed to maintain compliance, pointing out the fines for failing to do so is a good way to get approval for software upgrades- especially when the fines are an order of magnitude higher than the cost of the upgrade. The combination of using the carrot of decreasing costs or increasing revenue and the stick of non-compliance fines tends to work well with management types when it comes to IT budgets in my experience.
When it comes to internal IT politics, I find that a more nuanced approach is needed, as you are dealing with people that not only understand at least half of what you are talking about, but also frequently have strong feelings about technologies, vendors and other factors in IT. for Internal politics, I usually try to get some input from as much of the team as possible, then do research into the various technologies, vendors, etc. One of the biggest things I look for are specific aspects of a technology or vendor that makes it impossible or impractical to implement, such as security problems, cost, or compatibility with existing systems. Once the impossible & impractical have been eliminated, it becomes a lot more feasible to debate things and arrive at something resembling a consensus. When one or more people have had their proposals eliminated due to the impossibility or impracticality of the proposed solution, it makes them more likely to look for flaws in the remaining proposals, as well as to make suggestions that can improve the remaining proposals. In my current role, I am no longer in charge, which makes it a lot easier for me to shrug off politics for these kinds of things , because in the end, I am not the final decision maker. I end up just making sure that I have lots of CYA for when there are things being implemented that I do not agree with for one reason or another, so that if something does go wrong, I at least have a paper trail to show that it was not my decision that caused something.
Another thing that I have noticed in IT politics is that there are two extremes in IT. People that want change for the sake of change, and always want to use the newest, most up to date software and hardware, and people that think change should only happen when things are broken. Striking a a balance between these two factions can be very difficult, as they both have their merits.
February 23, 2017 at 11:51 am
Has anyone else here read the tell-all book "Disrupted: My Misadventure In The Start-Up Bubble"?
http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-journalist-joins-a-start-up-finds-its-part-frat-part-cult
It's bizarre and LOL funny. At one point it involves a C-level executive digging through the guy's home trash can in the middle of the night, and it ends in an FBI investigation.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
February 23, 2017 at 12:04 pm
Eric M Russell - Thursday, February 23, 2017 11:51 AMHas anyone else here read the tell-all book "Disrupted: My Misadventure In The Start-Up Bubble"?
http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-journalist-joins-a-start-up-finds-its-part-frat-part-cultIt's bizarre and LOL funny. At one point it involves a C-level executive digging through the guy's home trash can in the middle of the night, and it ends in an FBI investigation.
Wild. I did have a dotcom that ended (a couple of years after I left) with a phone call from a prosecutor in Chicago asking me about the database I designed. Evidently never went to court, but I was able to tell the prosecutor that "Oh no, of course we could link the people using our app with the web pages they visited." They seemed really excited about that. Ha!
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
March 7, 2017 at 10:22 am
David.Poole - Monday, February 20, 2017 11:46 AMIt can get worse than this but not by much https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.In reality politics in a business is about a triage of resources and building relationships to ensure that your team is likely to succeed.
There is absolutely nothing about that company I don't despise. Well, possibly the potted plants
I'm a DBA.
I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them.
March 9, 2017 at 7:26 am
andrew gothard - Tuesday, March 7, 2017 10:22 AMDavid.Poole - Monday, February 20, 2017 11:46 AMIt can get worse than this but not by much https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.In reality politics in a business is about a triage of resources and building relationships to ensure that your team is likely to succeed.
There is absolutely nothing about that company I don't despise. Well, possibly the potted plants
I'd be surprised if something like this happened at Microsoft. But my expectations for a company like Uber are lower. When you consider relatively young age of the folks who found and work for startup companies, their tendency to hire friends and family to key positions, the enormous pressure by investors to get a return back on their money, and their disregard for rules, it's no wonder that stuff like this routinely happens.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
March 14, 2017 at 5:30 am
Eric M Russell - Thursday, March 9, 2017 7:26 AMandrew gothard - Tuesday, March 7, 2017 10:22 AMDavid.Poole - Monday, February 20, 2017 11:46 AMIt can get worse than this but not by much https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.In reality politics in a business is about a triage of resources and building relationships to ensure that your team is likely to succeed.
There is absolutely nothing about that company I don't despise. Well, possibly the potted plants
I'd be surprised if something like this happened at Microsoft. But my expectations for a company like Uber are lower. When you consider relatively young age of the folks who found and work for startup companies, their tendency to hire friends and family to key positions, the enormous pressure by investors to get a return back on their money, and their disregard for rules, it's no wonder that stuff like this routinely happens.
No excuse though.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
March 14, 2017 at 7:56 am
Gary Varga - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 5:30 AMEric M Russell - Thursday, March 9, 2017 7:26 AMandrew gothard - Tuesday, March 7, 2017 10:22 AMDavid.Poole - Monday, February 20, 2017 11:46 AMIt can get worse than this but not by much https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.In reality politics in a business is about a triage of resources and building relationships to ensure that your team is likely to succeed.
There is absolutely nothing about that company I don't despise. Well, possibly the potted plants
I'd be surprised if something like this happened at Microsoft. But my expectations for a company like Uber are lower. When you consider relatively young age of the folks who found and work for startup companies, their tendency to hire friends and family to key positions, the enormous pressure by investors to get a return back on their money, and their disregard for rules, it's no wonder that stuff like this routinely happens.
No excuse though.
Yes, taking this story at face value, the Uber executive manager and the HR were way out of line. It also confirms my belief that it's typically key people within executive management, not rank and file IT staff, that create an overtly hostile work environment. From my experience the vast majority of IT professionals are open minded, logical, and focused on their job. Folks in IT that exhibit personalities counter-productive to the mission tend to get weeded out. When budgets get constrained or deadlines start slipping, it's the useless a--hole who gets tossed overboard.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
June 24, 2017 at 9:11 pm
Eric M Russell - Sunday, February 19, 2017 6:28 AMI've actually never worked in close proximity with someone who was extreme or overbearing with their politics. The better IT organizations tend to "weed out" certain personality types who disrupt the productivity of the team. Based on workplace horror stories I've heard from others, the sales, marketing, and financial industries are probably where you would encounter it most. Perhaps that partially explains the personality rift between IT and the former areas.... The news cycle seems to be dominated by discussion of politics. Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, the talk of politics is inescapable and is probably going to lead to you being displeased with your fellow man. Luckily, we work in IT, so we can avoid politics.
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA! ...
I think you've been very lucky, Eric; as I see it, the typical IT organisation has lots of political animals (after all, IT people are human, despite rumours to the contrary). I've had to work in close proximity with IT people who played politics the hard way, extremist and trying to be overbearing, I've also run into the variety that omits being overbearing and plays its plays tricks behing the scenes, and suspect that they do more harm than the overbearing ones because they are less likely to be spotted and stopped by senior management. All those extremist IT or CS politicians, whether overbearing or not, are poisonous.
Tom
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