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The absolute worst scenario happened

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Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#341

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

Judgmentality wrote: post #334
ycombinete wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough it made me sick to my stomach. I manage a small company and the idea of being extorted in such a blasé and psychopathic fashion terrifies me to even think about.

> Funnily enough it made me sick to my stomach. That an overworked employee who had already left the company would stick up for himself? Or that a company would go to such efforts to try to manipulate a former employee? I realize my tone doesn't hide my feelings, but even if we disagree I'd still be curious to hear more.

Consider that you are only hearing one side of the story and taking it entirely at face value.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#342

Post by gist »

> So, everything is fucked. We have (had) a custom DNS system built into our custom ERP software (don't ask). It had an integration to our old (bind) nameservers, which was stragith up awful and we've been trying to replace it for years. Well, on Friday it all broke down. All domain information was wiped out and records became null. Our company's domain is down, as well as our customer domains (we're a medium-sized MSP). Every person who knew how the custom DNS system worked has left the company years ago.

Unclear why HN wastes time on this type of 'story' with no attribution and scant details. (I have expertise in this area let's say).

To start this implies that they have not added a customer or made a change in several years by this statement:

"Every person who knew how the custom DNS system worked has left the company years ago."

This also contradicts:

"and we've been trying to replace it for years"

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#343

Post by rolobio »

throwthescene wrote: post #305
tw04 wrote: post #88

I actually don't see any issue that isn't simply a matter of money. Everything they list that's an issue seems to revolve around the fact that the employees with domain knowledge for the system have left the company. Reach out to them and hire them on as contractors. If they left under bad terms because the business was a bunch of dicks, expect to pay 10x market rate. If this is truly "fix this or the business is out…

Throwaway purely so that I can comment. I've had this happen before. Years ago I left a rather awful company - I left on great terms with my boss, though I hated the company. I was the last person who knew how to release X product. While I documented everything, after I left, the wiki lost its mind, backups apparently weren't a thing, and the director of IT moved to Bermuda. Fast forward 6 months.. a contractual obli…

Why a check with your lawyers? Why not just deposit into your personal account?

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#344

Post by colinmhayes »

rjmunro wrote: post #333
colinmhayes wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If farmers paid enough to get Americans to do seasonal farm labor their produce would cost twice as much as central/south American produce and they would immediately go out of business as everyone buys cheap imported fruit.

You can fix this with import duties. If the country you are importing from doesn't have good labor laws, you charge them 100% extra.

People get really pissed off when food gets more expensive. Politicians realize that and will therefore never pass legislation that would cause such drastic price increases on food.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#345

Post by exikyut »

ycombinete wrote: post #322
tofuahdude wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this with all my heart. You did exactly the right thing at every step.

Funnily enough it made me sick to my stomach. I manage a small company and the idea of being extorted in such a blasé and psychopathic fashion terrifies me to even think about.

"Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my par--wait did you say $250,000?"

If your company were in the hands of incompetents, but still kept going in spite of the incompetents because it had gotten its foot wedged in the door or whatever, and then fell apart in ways you could only scorn, how would you view that sort of situation?

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#346

Post by matwood »

simonw wrote: post #315

So many beautiful details if you search for more comments by the original author of the post: "The company that built this ERP solution went bankrupt 6 years ago, and we don't have the source code. It uses PostgreSQL and MySQL, and also has a built-in key-value database for which none of us has any credentials. We don't have the source code for this software (it's built in C and delivered to us as compiled packages..…

Extremely poor planning/lawyering on the companies part. When larger entities deal with smaller entities, it's common to have a source code escrow as part of the agreement which grants the purchasing company rights to the source code in the event of this exact situation.

Obviously we all know that source code alone isn't enough, but it is something to start from.

If the ERP solution was not SaaS and installed on site, the purchasing companies IT should have gotten credentials as part of the contract. Again, normal type stuff when buying software from smaller companies that have somewhat higher risk of going out of business.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#347

Post by sanedigital »

Aeolun wrote: post #135
paulz_ wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These types of situations always wind up being the most fun I have at work and leave me feeling most fulfilled. I wish I could do that all day instead of going to standups.

Come work for our company! We have an infinite amount of fires to put out. To be fair, the number of fires is finite, new ones are just getting started faster than they are put out.

I believe that implies that the fires are indeed infinite, just countably so.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#348

Post by ghgdynb1 »

rolobio wrote: post #343
throwthescene wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwaway purely so that I can comment. I've had this happen before. Years ago I left a rather awful company - I left on great terms with my boss, though I hated the company. I was the last person who knew how to release X product. While I documented everything, after I left, the wiki lost its mind, backups apparently weren't a thing, and the director of IT moved to Bermuda. Fast forward 6 months.. a contractual obli…

Why a check with your lawyers? Why not just deposit into your personal account?

The idea is that you want a trusted third party because either of the two adversarial parties could screw the other over.

The company could say: we’re going to pay you 125 and you could sue us and spend 60k and two years or just settle for that, after he’s already done the work.

The guy could demand the payment directly to his account and then not deliver, and the firm would be in the same situation.

By depositing the funds in escrow, they’re making sure that the money is there and in the hands of people whose only incentive is to give it to the correct party upon fulfillment of the contract.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#349

Post by sufehmi »

ycombinete wrote: post #322
tofuahdude wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this with all my heart. You did exactly the right thing at every step.

Funnily enough it made me sick to my stomach. I manage a small company and the idea of being extorted in such a blasé and psychopathic fashion terrifies me to even think about.

"extorted"

This is pure slander

The company can avoid this if they only care to maintain the documentation / wiki left behind by said person

When they failed to do even just basic proper operations, it's their own fault.

I'm a business owner and a consultant, and I too charge more for these kind of asshole clients, because of the extra stress.

But nowadays I just try to avoid them, it's just too damaging for your own sanity. Their kind of stupidity, self-entitlement, and ignorance is on a completely different level.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#350

Post by dqpb »

rolobio wrote: post #343
throwthescene wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwaway purely so that I can comment. I've had this happen before. Years ago I left a rather awful company - I left on great terms with my boss, though I hated the company. I was the last person who knew how to release X product. While I documented everything, after I left, the wiki lost its mind, backups apparently weren't a thing, and the director of IT moved to Bermuda. Fast forward 6 months.. a contractual obli…

Why a check with your lawyers? Why not just deposit into your personal account?

It went into an escrow account, presumably until he completed the work
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