New job...

[docskurlock.livejournal.com]

So I was recently hired to be the IT Manager for a company in Dallas. The former IT Manager left and took ALL of the information about the servers with him. Now, I know there is no code of ethics, but honestly, just because you're pissed, does that mean you screw the new guy over? What do you guys think?

Comments

Re: screw the new guy over?

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Last time I was transferred to our organisation's UNIX team, they had no documentation on anything. Literally. I asked for some on Day 1 so I could start getting an idea of what was in their area of responsibility, and just got a blank look. And half of them knew some piece of mission-critical stuff but wouldn't tell anyone else. If any of them ever fell under a bus (and believe me, by the end of the first week I was tempted to arrange such a bus), it would have screwed over a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure in many, many bad ways.

They still didn't have any documentation (apart from what I'd personally collated) by the time they were dissolved and moved to another area. Fortunately, by that time I was doing something else.

Perhaps your ex-manager knew perfectly well that there was no documentation and no password repository, had advised management of this and been fired on the spot for being a troublemaker. It wouldn't have been the first time that's happened.

The frantically-grabbed replacements usually come in two flavors - the Oh-God-I'm-screwed type and the "You guys are screwed; It will cost $huge_budget to repair all your problems. Or it can all fall apart. Your call" type.

Perhaps he really was a dick. Or perhaps he walked for other reasons. Or was fired for other reasons. Who knows? If he deliberately wiped all the infrastructure information from every source (including all of the tech staff's brains) before leaving, he was a dick. But if there was never any information to begin with and he was booted before he could compile it, it's hardly his fault.

Re: screw the new guy over?

[docskurlock.livejournal.com]

Situation resolved. He spat the information out.

I hear you on that though. A lot of people find a piece of info and then hold on to it, so that their job is secure.