Why everyone hates the IT department • Hacker News Board

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#41

Post by knieveltech » Sun, Nov 27, 2011, 4:42 AM UTC

fuzzix wrote: post #29

oz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a sysadmin for a financial services firm, and then for a Big-4 accounting firm, so I may have some perspective: 1. "For starters, I was not allowed to use my own equipment. They rattled off some gibberish about security and support even though my mail client supports SMTP and I can read Office files just fine. Also, for an agency focused on security their insistence on using Windows XP was baffling." The first…

"Definitely shame on your IT guys for not blocking outbound connections to your own proxy at the firewall" So, are you going to try to distinguish between me using my https banking service and my VPS with sshd bound to ports 22 and 443? In the EU you may find yourself in an legally ambiguous situation deploying the level of packet inspection required to achieve that.

No. I'm going to have monitoring software installed on every piece of computer equipment in the office and run daily reports on installed software. The second I come across something not on "the list" I'm going to pull the network cable for you cube out of the switch and then confiscate your equipment. Have fun explaining any missed deadlines to whoever you report to.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#42

Post by oz » Sun, Nov 27, 2011, 4:50 AM UTC

ShardPhoenix wrote: post #28

oz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a sysadmin for a financial services firm, and then for a Big-4 accounting firm, so I may have some perspective: 1. "For starters, I was not allowed to use my own equipment. They rattled off some gibberish about security and support even though my mail client supports SMTP and I can read Office files just fine. Also, for an agency focused on security their insistence on using Windows XP was baffling." The first…

This attitude might be ok for managing the average office worker's machine but when it comes to jobs like programming that are not highly regimented, it's just not good enough. Get out of my way and let me do my job. I'm glad I'm at a company that lets us do whatever we want to our machines (we use a VM for the few things that require IE).

I'm also a programmer, and agree completely - I think devs should have admin rights on their boxes, and at the very least access to VMs for testing

Ultimately, it's an issue of trade-offs: I guarantee that since you're allowed to go wild on your machine, the IT cost to support devs is higher. It's not right or wrong, simply a matter of trade-offs. It's up to an individual organization to determine an acceptable trade-off.

Edit: Grammar

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#43

Post by oz » Sun, Nov 27, 2011, 5:08 AM UTC

gatlin wrote: post #31

oz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a sysadmin for a financial services firm, and then for a Big-4 accounting firm, so I may have some perspective: 1. "For starters, I was not allowed to use my own equipment. They rattled off some gibberish about security and support even though my mail client supports SMTP and I can read Office files just fine. Also, for an agency focused on security their insistence on using Windows XP was baffling." The first…

It sounds like if you'd been my IT guy at the state agency, I'd have had a much better time - simply because I would have had intelligent arguments :) The reason the printers were like this is some initiative by our dumbass Governor called "Team for Texas," I'm told. It's not my IT guy's fault but it is dumb IT policy which is definitely why IT people get bad reps (even if it's not their fault) which I think is relat…

"I can't imagine it would take more than a cursory look at Notepad++ to vet it."

This, right here, is the issue. You simply don't know what is involved. "I can't imagine why you need to draw blood to see if I have AIDS, Doctor"

The specific program is not the issue. IT in the enterprise is all about centralized/standardized management and configuration. Every deviation from the standard is gonna increase the burden of maintenance.

How it normally works is that there is a single base OS / apps specification, and defined optional applications. EVERYTHING is tested against these, and guaranteed to work. This allows deployment against a global fleet to go smoothly. It's all about known quantities, which allows them to quantify everything.

Please remember that no IT guy wakes up in the morning and says "Yay! How can I make gatlin's life suck today???" It's more like, "Oh shit, last months patches are not being installed on those PCs in accounting. I wonder if it's the SCCM [0] client?" You find out 8 hours later that there's a conflict between $NON-STANDARD APPLICATION and the SCCM client. Have fun scouring Technet and forums to find a solution. These are the things that fill us with dread.

I'm not saying it's right. Just want you to see the other side.

[0]- Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#44

Post by zecho » Sun, Nov 27, 2011, 5:10 AM UTC

The best IT staff don't spend their time bitching about idiot operators in their companies. They give them the tools to empower them to do their jobs. This comes down to management. If your management sees IT as merely a cost center, then you're probably going to get shitty IT. If they see it as an efficiency center, you're going to attract better IT. Any manager worth their salt understands that a one-size-fits-all IT strategy is probably stupid. It's not about creating efficiency for the IT department, it's about creating efficiency for the profit-generating arms of the company.

But then again, I work at a company that allows the programming team to have their own network, buy their own machines and do whatever they feel like with them (within certain bounds, of course, like PCI compliance).

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#45

Post by oz » Sun, Nov 27, 2011, 5:18 AM UTC

wh-uws wrote: post #36

oz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a sysadmin for a financial services firm, and then for a Big-4 accounting firm, so I may have some perspective: 1. "For starters, I was not allowed to use my own equipment. They rattled off some gibberish about security and support even though my mail client supports SMTP and I can read Office files just fine. Also, for an agency focused on security their insistence on using Windows XP was baffling." The first…

Thanks for sharing that. I've always wanted to hear what it was like to be an IT guy at an enterprise / non technical type of company. Always wondered why they had those rules

Thanks. Believe me, the practices you see preached on HN (which I personally agree with) are so far removed from the typical enterprise it's not even funny. Agile programming? Um, no - waterfall. Continuous deployment? Are you crazy?

But please remember that there are sometimes very good reasons for the bureaucracy. Do you want your bank doing continuous deployment? Pushing code to the production instance during normal hours? Do you want the NYSE to do this? It's fine when you're doing your precious little webapp (I'm doing them too, so I'm not disparaging!), but when you're talking systems that power billions of dollars of revenue, you make sure all the 'i's are dotted.

Hell, I was in a Scotiabank the other day. The PC was running XP.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#46

Post by oz » Sun, Nov 27, 2011, 5:22 AM UTC

knieveltech wrote: post #41

fuzzix wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Definitely shame on your IT guys for not blocking outbound connections to your own proxy at the firewall" So, are you going to try to distinguish between me using my https banking service and my VPS with sshd bound to ports 22 and 443? In the EU you may find yourself in an legally ambiguous situation deploying the level of packet inspection required to achieve that.

No. I'm going to have monitoring software installed on every piece of computer equipment in the office and run daily reports on installed software. The second I come across something not on "the list" I'm going to pull the network cable for you cube out of the switch and then confiscate your equipment. Have fun explaining any missed deadlines to whoever you report to.

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. But in a well-run network, they wouldn't be able to install the software in the first place.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#47

Post by oz » Sun, Nov 27, 2011, 5:28 AM UTC

knieveltech wrote: post #40

gatlin wrote: post #3

I feel like ranting - maybe this will generate a good discussion. Most of my experiences with IT have been fine. I worked at a Texas state agency once, though, that caused me to dream about throwing IT workers out my office window. For starters, I was not allowed to use my own equipment. They rattled off some gibberish about security and support even though my mail client supports SMTP and I can read Office files jus…

If any of my "users" where to pull any of the bullshit stunts you've listed here on my watch I guarantee you I'd have them fired within five business days if it meant I had to send spoofed mail from their address containing horse porn to the head of HR to pull it off. In a medium to large company, IT's job isn't to make you happy. This is typically impossible thanks to a combination of understaffing and budget issues…

You're being downvoted because of the 'spoofed email' line, but I understand where you're coming from.

"Spend 32 hours over a weekend quarantining and disinfecting an entire network because some dickhead decided he needed to bring in his malware-infected laptop to work and the standard company policy banning private equipment comes into focus pretty quickly."

Bet it was unpaid overtime too, wasn't it?

Take one instance I've seen: group of guys decide that they want wireless access on their floor. One brings his home WiFi router, and plugs it right in. So now anyone walking by with cursory knowledge of WiFi hacking could get all our data.

Just because they wanted Youtube on their BlackBerries.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#48

Post by gatlin » Sun, Nov 27, 2011, 5:43 AM UTC

oz wrote: post #43

gatlin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like if you'd been my IT guy at the state agency, I'd have had a much better time - simply because I would have had intelligent arguments :) The reason the printers were like this is some initiative by our dumbass Governor called "Team for Texas," I'm told. It's not my IT guy's fault but it is dumb IT policy which is definitely why IT people get bad reps (even if it's not their fault) which I think is relat…

"I can't imagine it would take more than a cursory look at Notepad++ to vet it." This, right here, is the issue. You simply don't know what is involved. "I can't imagine why you need to draw blood to see if I have AIDS, Doctor" The specific program is not the issue. IT in the enterprise is all about centralized/standardized management and configuration. Every deviation from the standard is gonna increase the burden o…

I do. This has been an elaborate troll and I can't for the life of me understand why it was upvoted. Of course they're over-worked and under-staffed.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#49

Post by 10100101001 » Sun, Nov 27, 2011, 5:44 AM UTC

10100101001 wrote: post #11

I don't hate the IT dept.

I got downvoted for not hating the IT dept.

Re: Why everyone hates the IT department

#50

Post by mkopinsky » Sun, Nov 27, 2011, 5:52 AM UTC

Locke1689 wrote: post #27

cletus wrote: post #5

There are three big problems with IT departments (IMHO): 1. Anyone who is sufficiently skilled to be good at his or her job in the IT department is almost certainly overqualified so the system self-selects out good people; and 2. Like any other support role people only tend to notice you when things go wrong; and 3. My general experience with DBAs, sysadmins, techs and the like is that they generally resent you for a…

I think Google is also exceptional because the tech support is for other technical employees. When I went down to a Tech Stop it didn't feel to me like I was "going to see tech support," it felt more like I was going to see another technical employee who happened to do tech support. Then again, I was only an intern so my time there was limited.

I imagine that being tech-support-for-techies, you also end up with interesting issues, rather than "can you put that link back on my desktop" or "my printer's not working again". No self respecting techie will do tier 1 or tier 2 support if he can help it, but in a tech environment it might actually be interesting.