Could you carry on?

telboyo

Quote, A situation ive been in with every single job ive had. Recently I pointed out a very big hole in their security and went into great depths as to how it could be exploited.
I then pointed out how they could very simply fix the issue......
/quote
So you have got time in your job to go to great depths to expose perceived shortcomings and then show them how to their job?

Obviously the IT dept has fixed one security hole by restricting your priviliges, now they have time to go to to great depths and find out that you are spending your time doing some one elses job and not your own.
Result IT dept put in a monsaving saving idea: Sack you.
and the whole system will be safer, since you confess that you have been messing up peoples networks since you were at school.

KiKi

Hi OP

I totally agree with you that if you can see a better way of doing something, then it should be shared, and the right department should be good enough to listen and take heed of any expertise others have. If other people can do things better than me, then I hope I'd listen and take it on board rather than assuming I know everything.

However, people are proud about their work - and no-one really likes to be told they're not good enough or not doing their job well enough. It's a very human reaction to be put out when someone who doesn't work in your area tells you that you should be doing things differently; I'm sure 99% of people would feel that way!

So the way one communicates a 'failure' on their part is always critical. The way to influence other departments where you don't work is to make them feel like they're in charge, that they are the ones with the answers, and very humbly suggest other solutions. That may seem like a game, but it's about helping out the business without making other people feel incompetent.

I don't know how you communicated it, but if you did with the words and approach you've used in this thread then I can understand that they felt you were arrogant and now they don't want to talk to you. In my experience, a whole business or department doesn't turn on someone who has tried to be humble and helpful. They don't look on others with disdain unless that person has behaved in a way which has genuinely upset others.

Sorry that's not what you probably want to hear, but it's just my observation on what's been posted.
KiKi

Strider590

billydino wrote: »

I understand your frustration but not everyone in any given department has the same skill set and you must always take this into consideration (I've been battling with it for 10 years!).

In my last place of work I saved them a fortune by automating the sorting and archiving of log files from various pieces of machinery from across the plant. I was requested to do this and it worked great for around 6 months....

Then someone put a USB drive into a random PC and pulled it out without shutting down the program which was accessing that drive, they lost all their data and the drive was corrupt beyond repair (couldn't even be reformatted).

I got the blame for this!!! I was then accused of writing virus's and spreading them across the networked PC's. My archiving program was removed (despite me presenting the full source code in a management meeting) and they then spent some £30'000 on some fancy rubbish that was half as fast and didn't even do the job properly!


In this current job i've very much kept things to myself, there's a distinct "not invented here" syndrome feel to the place.

sagalout1954

Someone in your company certainly seems to feel 'threatened' - do you think it might be YOU, feeling undermined because they won't listen to your concerns, won't let you fix it and won't fix it themselves because they are not as concerned as you seem to be.

You raised it, went into it "in depth" but seem unwilling to let it go, and the manner in which you raised it seems to have pi££ed off the IT staff actually employed to deal with such issues - were you as tactful as you should have been, or did you take the opportunity to show how dim they were and how clever you were?

If you do indeed know "a darn site more about IT than everyone at work, including IT support" then it should be simple to gain the paper qualifications to match (& exceed) theirs, then join THAT field of work instead of whatever it is you are supposed to be doing.

I appreciate it wasn't your intention, but you have rather written in the manner of a know-it-all !!!!, which is probably why you've had negative responses!

Perhaps your company aren't bothered about this security 'hole' you've identified purely because you know more than everyone else, which may mean none of staff would have the knowledge (or be bothered) to "run commands on any networked PC". Perhaps the staff are angry that you've suggested any one of them might even give it a try.

There is a way for suggesting improvements to security, I don't think you've mastered it I'm afraid. You may have burnt your bridges at this company, unless you are prepared to open a dialogue with management/colleagues and explain that you hadn't intended to stomp all over IT's toes.

This isn't about "acting dumb", it's about being tactful, helpful and diplomatic when you make suggestions, NOT about making IT colleagues look inefficient and inadequate compared to yourself. You may have knowledge they don't have, but they have qualifications and therefore recognition in the IT field that you don't!

November5th

I am from the commercial marketing / account management side of things and usually had a lot of contact with the IT dept. Chalk and cheese.
I also know a little too much about IT for their liking, and wouldn't let any of these guys anywhere near my PC.

Thing is, I need to know when they are fobbing me off about development time (they will say weeks for something that is days) tell them how long it should take and boy do they not like that! I have not found a solution to this seemingly eternal conundrum.
Too nice and humble they walk all over you like you are a simpleton, too firm and they sulk. Should of seen their faces when I made it apparent they didn't know anything about ruby on rails! (This when fed up with their arrogance).

Like the OP I sneaked into the back end to make design changes to some of my projects so I didn't have to wait while the deigned to decide when to change the colour of some text ordered by clients, all the account managers started doing it out of frustration, we kept quiet about it.

Keep away from IT unless mission critical and try to make your suggestions through management I guess.

getmore4less

It's not about what you know, it's about how you communicate and deal with other people.

You sumarised the issue here in a few words there was no need to go into great depth

FYI the security hole was found when trying to access a shared network printer, it still exists and still allows even low level users FULL access to run commands on any networked PC.

That would have done, you tell IT copy your boss and let them get on with it.

In most companies this is not that big a risk anyway, the chances of someone doing something by mistake is there, the malicious insider will have plenty of other options.

Strider590

getmore4less wrote: »

It's not about what you know, it's about how you communicate and deal with other people.

You sumarised the issue here in a few words there was no need to go into great depth

FYI the security hole was found when trying to access a shared network printer, it still exists and still allows even low level users FULL access to run commands on any networked PC.

That would have done, you tell IT copy your boss and let them get on with it.

In most companies this is not that big a risk anyway, the chances of someone doing something by mistake is there, the malicious insider will have plenty of other options.

Negative..... Tell boss, boss asks supposed IT experts, they say nay and boss believes them because they read some text books and got a degree that's not worth the paper it's printed on.

As everyone who's technically minded will tell you, nobody ever believes a word if you can't prove it OR confuse them with bullsh!t.

November5th

Strider590 wrote: »

Negative..... Tell boss, boss asks supposed IT experts, they say nay and boss believes them because they read some text books and got a degree that's not worth the paper it's printed on.

As everyone who's technically minded will tell you, nobody ever believes a word if you can't prove it OR confuse them with bullsh!t.

The nightmare situation is when the boss knows zero about tech. The IT dept used to accuse our dept of 'breaking the code' when they messed up. He would believe them!
They could describe the unicorn dust down the rabbit hole infrastructure that needed implementing and that it would take a year and he would go for it.

SevenOfNine

November5th wrote: »

Thing is, I need to know when they are fobbing me off about development time (they will say weeks for something that is days) tell them how long it should take and boy do they not like that!
QUOTE]

Would the development time not depend on what their existing schedule of work is. Perhaps it would only take days not weeks if they've nothing else on and prioritise what you want done to the top of the list.

Unfortunately, like most departments/staff nowadays, maybe they are trying to keep all the plates spinning, not just yours!

Strider590

^^ Two of my friends do IT for local schools and they both literally get lumbered with anything remotely technical, from changing an ink cartridge in a printer to replacing a plug on a television.