I Saw the Sign
February 16th, 2010
Signs you work for the wrong IT department:
- You have responsibility but no authority
- The default answer to all questions is “No!”, especially when a true-false answer is entirely incorrect, eg, “How’s your day?”
- It takes a two year old virus running amok on your network to make The Powers That Be finally upgrade the fourteen year old antivirus package
- You’ve been running a fourteen year old antivirus package
- Said virus came to the network by a completely unforseeable vector, like perhaps an infected thumb drive
- The reaction from TPTB is to ban all personal equipment from the network – laptops, printers, mobile devices – but thumb drives are still allowed
- Paranoid Powers demand network usage policies so strict and unforgiving that you feel nearly apoplectic when friends email youb at work
- Said powers then routinely dog-and-pony fancy new web2.0 tools “that we think might be really useful”
- When it’s pointed out that the network nazi filter restrictions won’t let said tool actually work here, the response is not enlightenment or a loosening of policy. The response is, “Oh. Well, it works for us.”
- It’s 2010, and you still have Win2K boxes on the network
Oh, great. Now I’ll have Ace of Base stuck in my head all day. Thanks, dude. (I s’pose it could be worse, though.)
For what it’s worth, your IT department has at least one member who “gets it” and is trying to help. I know you’re helping people, and this is even more important in such an environment. (I know; bits and pieces of Drexel’s and BCC’s IT policies resemble these. It still takes me a call to Public Safety and a 15-minute wait to get into our computer labs.)