Almost too simple
After a break-in at this company, CFO acquires a security system without IT’s input. It never works quite right, the vendor is fired, and now it falls to IT to support it. “One day, the system freaked out and locked down two floors,” says a pilot fish there. “The computer that runs the security system was locked away in the data centre. My boss was trying to break into the impenetrable data centre to fix the problem when I suggested, ‘Why not use the keys we got months ago for just such a scenario?’ He sheepishly took the keys and unlocked the door.”
Un-ruly users
Pilot fish gets the job of making sure all changes to production systems are documented according to the IT department’s procedures. “But I found that most program changes that were carried out on our distributed applications were not following the rules,” fish says. “When I raised this issue, it was obvious that the application programming and network staffs did not comprehend the concept of change management. One response I got was, ‘All we are changing is executables.’”
Vacation time!
Net admin pilot fish schedules her vacation months in advance and makes sure her predecessor is available as backup while she’s gone. “Imagine my surprise when I dialed in on my first day of vacation and saw e-mails about some serious problems at work — followed by my predecessor’s e-mail telling me she’d decided to take off the rest of the week also,” grumbles fish. “I canceled my vacation and went back to work the next day as she left for vacation. Someone obviously needs to define the concept of ‘backup’ to her.”
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