Some people have no common sense

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bilingual-german@reddit

Make a plan. Number the steps. Put exact dates next to them. Scream test is great, but nobody screams for backups as long as the original services keep running without issues.

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If I have to micro manage to this extent in my kind of environment it’s easier and quicker for me to just do it myself. i have spent countless hours training this person but they simply lack common sense which is very frustrating. They are not long for this role unfortunately.

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redcc-0099@reddit

I'm biased towards this, but does this person have ADHD? While not the same stakes, it's the same type of issue we've had with my significant other's son for a chore. She told him 7 steps verbally, texted him the 7 steps, and had him confirm that he understood the brief. The next afternoon rolled around and he did steps 3, 4, and 6, thought he did a great job, and then didn't understand and/or care why he failed to complete the chore as asked and was frustrated that he was in trouble for it. I'm not saying you should micromanage, but if this is how this person needs to prepare and operate, they need to be responsible for laying out the tasks as a project plan based on what you give them, you sign off on the project plan, and then instruct them to follow it. If they don't follow it then you at least have a document that says when they were supposed to do the tasks and that they agreed to it per process.

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UnexpectedAnomaly@reddit

As somebody with ADHD I struggle with the fact that my brain wants to omit steps it thinks are useless. So I have to actively make sure I do every single step regardless of how inefficient it seems. You might explain to your son that hey I know these steps seem redundant and dumb but they're there for a reason.

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redcc-0099@reddit

You actively take that step, though; at the time - years ago - he didn't want to bother with doing a fair share of things how he was instructed regardless of being told why all the steps were important, he just wanted to get back to gaming. He's been out on his own for a couple years now and has had to learn how to do these things, since he refused guidance on them at home.

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Doubleucommadj@reddit

You're looking for an out for someone that can't do their job. WTAF

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redcc-0099@reddit

I'm not looking for an out for them; I gave you a similar example of an experience of mine with someone diagnosed with severe ADHD who was punished for not meeting the brief, and I said to have documentation of them potentially doing or not doing their job as instructed. It should be a double edged sword or enough rope to hang themselves with from your perspective. If you want them out, then use a method like this as part of the paperwork for your PIP process.

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Doubleucommadj@reddit

Exactly. Lose them.

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redcc-0099@reddit

If they're out after a PIP or constant violations/write ups with no improvement, sure. Just be careful if they do have ADHD if you're in the US, because it's covered as a disability under ADA. I'm not saying everyone with ADHD would or should be let go, just that the appropriate steps have to be taken to accommodate them under ADA and terminate them appropriately if they still can't get the job done with accommodations.

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TheLordB@reddit

They have to actually request an accommodation for disability. Until they do they can be fired for even things that would be a reasonable accommodation. Reasonable accommodation means just that... tweaks or similar that might inconvenience a company a bit, but the person can still do the job they are hired for just with some modifications. There are very few jobs (probably none) where a reasonable accommodation would include being allowed to skip steps when given explicit instructions. Lots of companies may do a ton of CYA and I would certainly talk to a lawyer before denying a requested accommodation. But just because they do a ton of CYA doesn't mean someone is likely to succeed in a claim if the CYA isn't done.

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redcc-0099@reddit

>They have to actually request an accommodation for disability. Until they do they can be fired for even things that would be a reasonable accommodation. Right, but we're potentially not getting the whole story, so I'm throwing it out there as a possibility. >Reasonable accommodation means just that... tweaks or similar that might inconvenience a company a bit, but the person can still do the job they are hired for just with some modifications. >There are very few jobs (probably none) where a reasonable accommodation would include being allowed to skip steps when given explicit instructions and a manager needing to micromanage the employee. Yeah. What I proposed (written instructions that are project plan created by the employee and for the employee to follow and signed off on by the manager/lead) would be the accommodation, not skipping steps because they like to hit Delete instead of waiting two weeks. >Lots of companies may do a ton of CYA and I would certainly talk to a lawyer before denying a requested accommodation. But just because they do a ton of CYA doesn't mean someone is likely to succeed in a claim if the CYA isn't done. Potentially. This would be a CYA for OP.

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Doubleucommadj@reddit

Ur funny.

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Valdaraak@reddit

He's also correct.

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Doubleucommadj@reddit

You sweet, summer child. You can be fired at any time for any reason.

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BemusedBengal@reddit

As much as I like sysadmin tea, this is bordering on something you shouldn't post on social media. If you're thinking about firing or demoting them, especially so.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

this is an anonymous rant on reddit so i’m genuinely confused as to why I shouldn’t post it. It’s not facebook.

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AtarukA@reddit

Never underestimate OSINT. You may think this is anonymous, but it might not be.

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kuroimakina@reddit

Seriously, one of my previous bosses got fired for a post where he complained about the lack of security on one of our email servers. It was just a job at a state university, and it was a small email server only serving one department. But they found the post, and he got told “you can leave on a clean reputation, or you can be fired. It’s your choice.” Which can be a hard decision, because it’s reputation vs “no unemployment benefits,” but, play stupid games win stupid prizes. I admit I’ve made similar type “oh my god, my place of work is stupid” type posts, but I’m unionized - I’d have to REALLY fuck up for them to fire me, and I’m not stupid enough for that

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oyarasaX@reddit

yah, and OP talks about "common sense" ... sheesh ...

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RikiWardOG@reddit

Ha can related to this so much. Have a coworker who's historically a mac admin but occasionally needs to image a windows pc. He can't seem to get it right... ever and it's a basic aad intune enrollment... and he runs circles around jamf but just gives excuses every time when it comes to windows and complains about how none of it makes sense.... I cant

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Valkeyere@reddit

Fucking. Read. Only. Friday's. JFC. Also who deletes things wholesale AND the backups AT THE SAME TIME? This guy might not be a suitable senior resource. I don't want to make a change Friday, wait two days and find out I broke them. I also don't want to have to work Saturday/Sunday because I broke them and found out fast. This sort of change happens on a Tuesday. Any backlog from Friday is dealt with Monday so staff aren't struggling, and you don't have mondayitis. If you haven't heard a screen by Friday, you delete on the following monday as you can now be confidant that this doesn't matter to anyone. You hold backups AT LEAST month after the final shutdown/deletion of the servers because they're backups.

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Excellent_Milk_3110@reddit

Rule number one never delete, always shutdown and then wait 2 weeks before deleting. And wait another 2 before deleting the backup. I know how you feel, college wanted to delete 80 email accounts as discussed with finance. I told him no first disable and wait 2 weeks. Phone kept ringing the next day, needed to enable 40 accounts. There where backups but still it takes effort.

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jkarovskaya@reddit

University I worked at, we'd wait one full year before ever decomissiong a server

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nullpotato@reddit

Yeah there are a lot of "unused" servers that only perform tasks quarterly or annually.

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Sushigami@reddit

Do not touch the mystery as400

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sephresx@reddit

Caution tape all around.

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RememberCitadel@reddit

I would say then that there are a bunch of candidates for consolidation, but sometimes it's hard to recognize that. Team 1 may have a server that's only used one day a quarter and team 2 might have another that is also used once a quarter but different days. Hard to tell if they don't talk.

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fresh-dork@reddit

disk space is free, may as well keep it around

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yParticle@reddit

At some point you have enough defunct VMs to shut down multiple servers so it's worth periodic review.

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ILikeTewdles@reddit

Same here. I make a copy of the latest backup and keep it in long term storage. Everyone is doing the 3-2-1 backup strategy anyways, right?....right? :)

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jkarovskaya@reddit

grandfather, 321, whatever, dumping backups after 4 weeks is grounds for termination

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Immortal_Elder@reddit

This is my approach. Call me extra cautious.

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Contren@reddit

We always do 30 days after shutdown before we delete, and then hold backups for at least another 3 months minimum. If any stakeholders raise concerns during the change, we'll do a year hold just to be safe.

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prepare3envelopes@reddit

Hell, I have some VMs that have been powered off since last year that I'm still nervous about deleting.

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Sirbo311@reddit

Also pray the servers aren't used quarterly or yearly only.

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iwantdatgold@reddit

Maybe not a KB, but at least write down a plan and any details. Make a systems topology. Have them update it as they go. Show them exactly what to do on vcenter and before they delete anything in any way, to let you know first. Go over what you would do and show them on your computer/screen share. Then, find a capable employee who doesn’t need their hand held. A tier 2 tech can do better than that. A script to do anything is a tier 2 or lower basic IT tech.

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EchoPhi@reddit

How high into 6 are we talking? Might know a replacement.

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KindlyGetMeGiftCards@reddit

Have you considered you maybe communicating to them ineffective? I find what works well, is to speak to the person, say what I want as the outcome, what the timeline should be, then follow it up with an email with the dot points. They are in that job for a reason so they should know how to do the job. Yes it's extra work, but some people respond differently from verbal to written, this way you do both. Also remember not everyone communicates the same way, so find what works for each person and do that, what is the best way to find this out, well ask them directly, in person, not around other people. They are usually taken aback by it and will respond positively. If you do this you are showing you are a leader who wants to work with them and are willing to accommodate them.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

Its too much of an accommodation at the point like i said the backs

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KindlyGetMeGiftCards@reddit

> So I go through the steps needed with him, to shut down and remove the servers, to stop the backup jobs, to remove the servers from vmware, and eventually when we are good to remove the backups and the servers completely from vmware That is literally micromanaging for a senior tech. So you are already doing it. I suggest ask yourself some questions, do you trust the person to do their job? if not, is the issue the person or that you can always do it better? It's being truthful to yourself, you don't have to prove anything to me, just be honest with yourself, are you the issue, part of the issue, can you be better, what can you do to make your team better, having a rant on reddit isn't going to improve you or them, having honest conversations will. That being said it's not easy I get that, but it's the best way forwards.

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KnowledgeTransfer23@reddit

Then why do you continue to employ someone who needs micromanagement?!

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BeyondRAM@reddit

After reading your post, I think I deserve 7 figures now

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kg7qin@reddit

Reading this post and then through your replies tells me all I need to know. I'm wondering how long it will be until this is cross posted to r/shittysysadmin. Listen, it is great to be a fast moving environment with 1k employees and needing to work both independently and as a group, but judging from what I'm seeing here you are playing fast and loose with things. I'm guessing you are constantly putting out fires and shooting from the hip, and when people don't meet your lofty expectations you disparage them for lack of common sense. I get it. It can be incredibly frustrating to manage people, have a vision in your head, and then try to make that vision both a reality and communicate it to others. My advice. Take a step back. Realize that you can be the smartest person in the room and still don't know your ass from a hole in the ground. Work on your soft skills and get some damn documentation/KnowledgeBase other than policies in place. They don't need to be formal documents and work best as living documents that can be updated by anyone. They can be as simple as word documents with notes others have put together so that in 6 months the next person isn't "WTF is this dumpster fire?" having to fix things while Karen in accounting is screaming to the boss that you are losing $6k/minute due to being down. I recommend spinning up something as simple as a docuwiki or tikiwiki and have a few rules of use like no passwords or other login info (pointers to where it is instead like password manager). Then use this as a starting point. You want to make an impact on the employee without being a total dick? Have them write up those steps you showed them for decommissioning systems and see what they put, and then look at it and provide feedback without coming across as an ass. I've worked in places with both almost no documentation and a kb like above. The difference is night and day, and I don't care how many snippets you can remember or what standard or references you can quote verbatim, the simple fact is nobody can remember everything. This is even more true in a "fast moving environment". Just my 2 cents.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

You are being judgmental without having any of the backstory or details. I never said we had no documentation, just that we do not have SOPs or checklists for every single task. Most of what we do is not complicated anyway, you just need experience and common sense. I hired someone else into the same team recently and it is night and day. Sometimes the problem is with the employee, my job isn’t to idiot proof my entire operation.

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kg7qin@reddit

Like I said, and the other poster below, have your employee write up the steps. Minimizing risk isn't idiot proofing things. It is eliminating the aptly named Bus Factor. You get hit by a bus (or have a heart attack based on the replies here, seriously relax a bit), and only you know/knew such and such, then what? Everyone can be replaced. Repeat after me. Everyone. Can. Be. Replaced. Yes I am coming off as being judgemental based off of your posts here, I even make that clear. If you hired an employee who isn't up to par, then maybe it isn't the employer who is the problem? Unless you aren't the final say in hiring. Remeber, people make mistakes and we are all human. Yes it sucks they nuked everything. If they were a "stellar performer" (my quotes not yours), and now they are having problems, then take some time to check in with the employee and see if everything is OK. Maybe they have something personal going on, or maybe they doom scroll too much and the current political climate is affecting them a lot. It is ok to rant. We all need a release. But seriously fix the documentation, it isn't idiot proofing things as much as you think. It is insurance against the 2am call to fix something when you are half awake and need to make sure you aren't forgetting a step.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

I didn’t hire this person. Well agree to disagree. We have documentation for the things we need. The other person who works on this team has no issues. I don’t need to write documentation to cover the basic tasks that the vendors all have documentation for. We work now in a time where it has never been easier to look stuff up. But what this rant above all else is common sense, having the foresight to imagine what might happen if you make a mistake (which we all do.).

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KnowledgeTransfer23@reddit

> We have documentation for the things we need. The very story you're telling us proves this is wrong.

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kg7qin@reddit

Ok Just remember that common sense isn't really that common. I wish it was, but it really isn't. Sometimes people just need a checklist to follow. Or as the Space and Missile guys I knew used to say: Get a checklist, do a checklist. Get a banana, do a banana. (Check an item off the checklist, take a bit of the banana).

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KnowledgeTransfer23@reddit

> You are being judgmental without having any of the backstory or details. You're the one who doesn't have time to provide the details or backstory (yet you have enough time to post and participate so heavily in this thread...)

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Maro1947@reddit

To be fair, I've read your responses to other posts and you do come off as "I'm great, I don't need your advice" The big question is what happens if you disappear - is the company screed because you don't do knowledge bases? I've cleaned up companies after these exact situations and it always costs a lot

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

Well to be honest this is a rant, not asking for advice. I also never said we don’t do knowledge bases. Just that I can’t document and list everything for every simple task. I took this job 3 years ago and did just what you’re taking about. I cleaned up everything on the network and server side from zero documentation other than some passwords. If i disappear, the other person who I hired who has the right experience and common sense would be able to handle things, either get promoted or they would hire a new manager eventually. Nothing we do that is unique to us exists only in my head. Still, people need to use common sense and good judgement.

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Maro1947@reddit

Nothing I wrote really changes despite your reply I get you need to rant but you do sound cowboy

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

I guess I am cowboy, not the person who nuked the servers and the backups the same day. lol. Have a good one.

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Cynicalbeast@reddit

Have your employee write the article for knowledge base. You then validate it. Doesn't have to be a novel, basically a cult and paste from your original post.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

That’s a good idea in general, thank you.

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Bourne069@reddit

Been saying it for years now... common sense isnt common anymore.

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Ok_Conclusion5966@reddit

lesson for both, dumb move by a senior engineer dumb move by the manager not providing clear written instructions

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

I’ve learned over the years there’s no pleasing everyone. Someone like you will criticize me for not providing step by step instructions for simple tasks and common sense timing to a senior engineer. And others would criticize a manager who ran his team/dept like that as being a micro manager who never allows his team to do anything. I’m aligned with ownership and running the department how they want, with the resources they want to provide, working on the goals they want to achieve.

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KnowledgeTransfer23@reddit

Imagine posting an extremely judgmental rant on the public internet and then getting mad that other people are judgmental back at you.

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Ok_Conclusion5966@reddit

of course you can't please everyone, but did you have the change described in a ticket? was it documented anywhere? how are you reviewing the change was a success, how are you rolling back if it was a failure? > step by step instructions for simple tasks I didn't say that, but the task should involve clear instructions because a senior engineer fucked it up, the lesson learned it to be clearer in the future so another team member would understand the request

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

The person who fucked it up did so because they lacked a shred of common sense. We don’t operate under this kind of change control, and most small companies don’t either. In my 30 year career I have worked for companies of every size and am very experienced in change management. Based on how this company is run (from leadership/ownership) that is not practical. Could we slow things down and focus on documentation versus output, sure. If that’s what ownership wanted (which they don’t). We operate under the principles of common sense.

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Ok_Conclusion5966@reddit

that's fine if you don't want any documentation but it's not asking the world for a ticket, that's IT 101 if you don't want any documentation, but no tickets either? What's done is done, but take what happened, review why it failed (you said common sense), and then implement something so it doesn't happen again in the future. A ticket is literally the simplest solution which should take under a minute...

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highdiver_2000@reddit

Stop server. Delete server, delete backup should be separated by weeks or months. Unless you have that in iron clad policy and comm to the users.

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KnowledgeTransfer23@reddit

But you don't understand! They have no time, their company culture demands them to move fast! Except for the subject of this rant. No, not fast like that!

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East-Background-9850@reddit

I worked with a tech like that. I wasn't his manager but I was his senior. He had been in this job for 8 years but his skill set was probably the same as someone who had been working for 6 months. I used to work at multiple schools and one day I'm on the way to my scheduled school when I get a call from the assistant principal from one of the other schools telling me that no one can get internet access. I tell her that I'm 5 minutes away from getting onsite and I can check then when I can get my laptop up and running. I get onsite and start checking things remotely and I discover that I can't get to the web interface for the squid proxy so it's probably crashed/unresponsive. I try to RDP to the Hyper V host and that's not working and neither is iDrac so I can't reboot it. I speak to that tech who happened to be onsite and he's like "yep I know what to do, leave it with me" so I was like ok sure. I wasn't confident he could do it but I figured surely he couldn't fuck this up. He goes off and reboots the host (I think) and then messages me a few minutes later telling me it didn't work. No internet access in a school of 700 kids and 50 staff is a big deal so I leave the scheduled school to go there and deal with it. I get there, plug in a monitor and keyboard into the host and discover that it's PXE booted and on the MDT deployment page. I also discover that the boot order has mysteriously changed to boot off of the NIC rather than the disk so I fix that, reboot the host, it starts up properly again as does the squid proxy VM and sure enough internet access is restored. None of this was that hard to diagnose and fix but it's that he didn't bother checking which was mind boggling.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

my guy is also nicknamed “Mr. Reboot” because while of course that is sometimes a useful step, his go to before trying to diagnose or troubleshoot anything is to reboot everything.

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KnowledgeTransfer23@reddit

Doesn't sound like your company values someone wasting the time to troubleshoot instead of just doing the quickest and easiest fix! At least, based on what I'm reading in this thread. So, do you want them to move fast, or to take their time and be careful?

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trail-g62Bim@reddit

> None of this was that hard to diagnose and fix but it's that he didn't bother checking which was mind boggling. There is a severe lack of willing to try in our dept. Someone will see a problem. If they immediately know how to fix it, they will. If they don't, they will then work on figuring out who else to send the problem to. Also, the number of times I have been asked to help someone only to look at their screen and see an error box that explicitly explains the problem is too damn high.

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heg-the-grey@reddit

Not taking his side here. I can't fathom just deleting them like that. Including backups. Wow. But........ Is the process documented and available in your knowledge base? There's clearly been a misunderstanding between what you thought you were asking him to do and what he thought you were asking him to do. At least if it's documented, you have clear evidence he did not follow the standard process provided to him.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

No, we have nothing like that, and never will. We are a small fast paced department in a company of 1000 people. He’s not being paid to follow a script.

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Reedy_Whisper_45@reddit

Whew - I had to re-read that. I'm in a small company - fewer than 100 employees. You could say we are fast-paced, but we are not. Because as Doc Hudson put it, slow is fast. EVERY task that has to be performed more than once is documented with a checklist. I follow those lists every time, though I absolutely HATE it. This helps me - because I have been known to skip the easy parts. I like the hard things. This helps my company - because I don't miss something stupid. This helps the next guy - because he'll be unfamiliar with the company when he starts, and this will ease the transition. In the time it takes to write an email I can create a checklist. I put that in my knowledgebase and follow it every time. This poor guy got a verbal list. He didn't write it down (obviously) and you didn't give him a script to follow. I see two errors, both relatively easy to correct.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

I won’t judge your environment without full details so please don’t judge mine. I work a very efficient 50-60 hours a week. My team and I have zero downtime, just prioritizing what is most important for ownerships goals. Writing task lists for simple shit does not align with that. We have documentation that pertains specifically to our company. Actually I quite often do follow up verbal conversations with written checklists for this individual, even though I shouldn’t need to at his level. Because he lacks experience, attention to detail and common sense. I’ve asked him repeatedly to take notes and he doesn’t. Often times he only reads a portion of my email. Often he will call me the next day to ask me to restate or clarify what I outlined him in detail. Often he will call me to “discuss” or update me on his progress of a simple task, for him to pull more info out of me and basically show him exactly what to do. Simple stuff that he should have figured out on his own.

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Different_Back_5470@reddit

all that and still be paid as a senior lmao i guess its time to re evaluate your hiring process

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

I didn’t hire him and the person who did is gone.

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KnowledgeTransfer23@reddit

So you didn't hire him but you said in another reply that "I tell people who I am interviewing how it is." as if this guy should know that. Maybe you established that when you came on, I don't know. Still, you're the manager, no? Ever hear the phrase "The Buck Stops Here"? Or "Extreme Ownership"? Take some responsibility and quit blaming this guy who you keep employed and keep setting up for failure.

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Reedy_Whisper_45@reddit

Brother, if someone hadn't said something like that to me 20 years ago I might be in the same boat. My comment was meant to be constructive, not critical. My apologies. I wish you well.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

No worries. I have been in the field for 30 years and have worked in all different types of companies and positions. This is the smallest one. I’ve been in bigger companies that had very detailed change control and that works well. I can also only assume that if you are in a very small environment, and don’t have as much work or changes, that you can dedicate more time to documentation. I am in alignment with ownership as to how I approach management of my team and our function.

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Valdaraak@reddit

> small fast paced department "Break first, fix later" is how I read that.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

More broken than a larger slower moving dept? Sure. With the right people, who are experienced, careful and with good common sense. Very little is broken. This is up to ownership btw.

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heg-the-grey@reddit

Not a script. SOP's are super important. For this exact situation and for new starters. Maybe your instructions were unclear. Maybe they weren't. Knowledge articles solve this problem. If I was in an interview and asked about knowledge management and was told "No, we have nothing like that, and never will. We are a small fast paced department in a company of 1000 people. He’s not being paid to follow a script." - I'd think twice about taking the job. Just my opinion of course.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

I respect your opinion and that’s fine. I tell people who I am interviewing how it is. that I need people who are experienced and comfortable working independently as well as with a group. We are a small team and we do many, many different things from desktop to servers to network and more. We have key documentation on how to do things but SOPs for everything is unrealistic. I agree it’s not for everyone.

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Le_Vagabond@reddit

As a senior comfortable in this kind of environment and gifted with the magical superpowers of "common sense" and "experience"... * you absolutely need to start writing the plan in the ticket prior to action, this would have been obvious (probably even to him) and avoided * you will get bare minimum SOP out of this approach, which is great for future reference * how do I get a 6 figures job like this ffs? They're all in office and in the US I bet :(

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Ok-Carpenter-8455@reddit

As an IT Manager I NEVER give instructions verbally unless I communicated in writing first. Especially if this is something a staff member has never done before. \- Ticket with detailed instructions first \- Demonstration next if needed. PYA - Protect YOUR A$$.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

Written or verbal, do you have to outline every single step for people, exact dates and dining, basically treating people like children. I don’t have the time for that I need people I can trust.

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Ok-Carpenter-8455@reddit

If it's something they have never done before.. Yes. I don't want the headache of having to go back to fix it myself. It's not treating people like children its being a good detailed thorough Manager that puts your staff in positions to succeed. Poor employee performance is a reflection on the Manager too.

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Unable-Entrance3110@reddit

Sounds like a real go getter, with upper management written all over him...

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ColfaxPerry@reddit

This sounds like a bit of passive-aggressive behavior -- someone doing what you say, more or less, rather than doing what a reasonably competent person would think you meant. How comfortable is this guy with authority figures? Is he a team player, or does he find ways to throw you or other people under the bus? Is he happy with his position in the organization, or does he feel threatened? Are there things he does well? Is he aware that actions have consequences, or is he genuinely clueless? Does he learn from his mistakes?

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

He is a great guy and a team player. He just lacks the skill, attention to detail, and common sense needed for this kind of role.

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6-mana-6-6-trampler@reddit

That list is a few items too long for someone with his responsibilities. He should lack at most one of those areas, and experience can make him better at it.

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1a2b3c4d_1a2b3c4d@reddit

> Swear to god…… Nope. You better start writing down all your tasks and requests for this employee. Send them in email or other recorded format. This person sounds like an idiot, and will cause more pain then they are worth. When that happens, you will have all the documentation you need to put them on a PIP. Just be sure to follow up after each fuckup politely, and document what went wrong.

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CowardyLurker@reddit

Hah, you should see your face. April fools! (oh wait, that's next week.. wups)

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NeedAColdBeerHere@reddit

Your backup retention policy should never allow backups to be deleted immediately.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

Irrelevant to my rant about having no common sense. I’m not asking how to fix my backups but thanks.

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NeedAColdBeerHere@reddit

*Common sense* would dictate that having proper policy in place to prevent this issue. Sounds like you are both lacking... An incident like this should have audit and cyber security all over you. I am guessing you haven't reported it, either.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

lol brother we don’t have anyone in those roles. You’re making judgements and assumptions. I told the owners that’s who I report to. It’s a small company.

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sleeper4gent@reddit

your probably should fix that

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

thanks so helpful!

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sleeper4gent@reddit

anytime

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GMginger@reddit

Was going to write the same - if he can nuke the VMs and all of it's backups then they're not prepared for a cryptolocker attack.

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punklinux@reddit

Former job, we had a server that was the the central hub of everything. It was a huge, but outdated beast. It was once the AD controller, fileshare, Exchange server, DNS server, and DHCP server... like everything in one. We had long since moved those to other systems, but the request to shut it down always had a lot of "yebbut" stops. "We're shutting it down on Friday." "Yebbut department Foo still needs application Bar on that system!" and then it got pushed back 2 months. When we finally shut it down, we had to boot it back up 3-4 times again because someone forgot something. What a fucking PITA. Bit finally, it was shut down, and then the IT team took it out of the rack, and put it on the floor in the work lab (it was a massive 6-U beast with SCSI drives, must have weighed over 100lbs). Twice. TWICE over the next three years, it had to be hooked up to power and fired back up again for some bullshit department reason. "Oh, all the files for client Baz was on that system! And they want to renew their contract!"

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DickStripper@reddit

Tons of idiots out there. I learned today that our new so called 10 years experience off shore Windows Engineer guy didn’t know what a SMTP relay is. Abominable he made it through interviews. Goes to show how horrific off shore IT really is.

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Taikunman@reddit

"10 years experience" can just as easily mean "10 years in the same narrow scope, never bothering to keep up with changes in the industry and forgetting things you actually used to know from lack of using those skills".

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DickStripper@reddit

Not about keeping up with trends and changes. This is about knowing a basic foundation of knowledge that most 3rd party tools and products in’s windows environment use a relay to send emails and what not.

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trail-g62Bim@reddit

I wouldn't slam him too much just yet. We all have blind spots. I do my best to keep up with things but every now and then I learn something and think "how the heck did I not know that already?" You don't know what you don't know.

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DickStripper@reddit

Yah, I agree. But if I’ve been a 10 year Wintel guy I should know that many products send emails using a relay. He had no idea of the concept. It’s just odd to me. 🌞

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phillymjs@reddit

Let me replay a bit of an interaction I had 13 years ago, with an offshore guy with whom I was doing a Mac support knowledge transfer: Me: "...okay, so to publish a new package to the update catalog, first you SSH into the server..." Him: "What's SSH?" Me: *<feels my soul leave my body>*

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

this person the post is about also did not know what putty was when he was hired as a network engineer.

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DickStripper@reddit

The interview process can be brutal. I was drilled on adding Linux to AD years ago by an arrogant young prick at a very very well known retail chain I was dying to work for (everyone does) and he walked out of the interview when I said I’d never set up secure Linux communications in AD domains. I felt like an imposter asshole but I really never set it up. All I said was blah blah LDAPS 636 blah blah and I was pre-fired. I weed them out quickly by asking what a subnet mask is for the first question. Most IT imposters can’t really explain what it is. I work for managers today who have no clue how to open a command line but that’s the state of American IT.

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spaceman_sloth@reddit

I can't imagine going on reddit and seeing my boss talk shit about me lol

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

that’s why it’s an anonymous rant, right?

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Gene_Clark@reddit

"Common sense" is a bit of nebulous term. The more I'm on internet forums there more I wonder where critical thinking and awareness skills disappeared to. Nuking servers tho. This is too much. Its almost a rite of passage that you'll get a call a week, a month or even a year about a server you pulled, despite your most thorough efforts to inform all of the change.

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mindphlux0@reddit

people like this you can't even give a leading question with. like, "asking him why he thought it was a good idea to go from shutting down to nuking" suggests he did something wrong, or worse, that you know he was going to do something wrong, and you could have prevented it. im(h)o, it's usually better when you just let the shit hit the fan - assuming it's not entirely your responsibility - and then when someone asks something like "hey could we bring those servers back online" - you respond with something along the lines of "per your e-mail, you nuked them, we're shit out of luck." I dunno, it also really depends on if you're in a mentoring sort of position versus a colleague sort of situation. I've had plenty of clients (MSP) who did stupid shit, and it was way more productive to be very nice and talk them through what happened, and why, and how it could have been better, and how it will in fact be better in the future (aka Doing Our Job) - than just being a BOFH.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

I’m his boss and I’ve mentored him constantly.

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EEU884@reddit

no change friday is there for a reason.

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gurilagarden@reddit

Well, if you discussed this with your team member in the same manner as you've told this story to us, I'm not surprised he went about this in a manner that didn't work for you. I'm pretty confused as to what took place here. I know virtual servers, and their backups were involved. Apparently the scenario started on a Friday afternoon, and ended on a Monday morning? I mean...you told the guy to blow the shit up. If he's proudly proclaiming, that looks to me like a guy that believes he's done exactly what he was instructed to do. Seems to me your instructions had holes in their coverage. This is a failure of policy, not common sense. There should be a hard and fast rule. A well communicated and documented process for server decommissioning. Don't blame a lack of common sense for a lack of proper leadership. Good leadership doesn't rely on common sense. You sound like you've been at this for a while. Long enough to know common sense isn't common, in this or any field. If those servers had business critical data on them, the guy's on the top floor aren't going to be interested in excuses or the blame game. You know this. You know they're going to be looking at you, so it's absolutely on you to ensure that things get done how they're supposed to, and that includes not leaving things to chance, or some fleeting hope that common sense exists.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

There’s always one…..I was waiting for it. Someone who is in the IT field for 15+ years, is a senior engineer and makes well over 100k needs to have basic common sense in addition to experience. Such as don’t delete your servers and the backups the same day. We don’t need policy for absolutely everything. I am never asking this person to do anything this important again, i can’t watch over people like children. The owners of the company have wanted this guy gone for a long time and I have actually been trying to give him changes to prove his worth.

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vogelke@reddit

Exactly. This isn't daycare for middle-aged children with no useful skills. I grit my teeth when someone starts waving ADD around like a get-out-of-jail-free card. I usually reply "Adequate Discipline Deficiency? Sounds like a you problem, not a we problem."

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gurilagarden@reddit

I'm really trying to NOT be the/an asshole here. I want to have your back. I'm 30 years in, i've seen some stupid shit. But I feel like...you're not getting it. I mean. I hear you. I want to agree with you. You shouldn't have to babysit. I've lived my life for three decades under the mantra that the only reason for my existence is data integrity. But I'm telling you. If your guys are deleting servers, and their backups, on your watch, it's because this is how they think things are done in your shop. This is an egregious error. It's beyond the pale. If one of my guys did this, I'm escorting them out, immediately. No exit interview. No discussion. Gone. But. It would never happen. Everyone within 20 square miles of me knows the rule is 30 days minimum before anything gets deleted. Servers, or backups. The fucking end-users know my rule. I've told my bartender. I'm telling you. Straight up. If this guy was so impressed with himself with his ability to follow direction. It's because he followed YOUR DIRECTION. This isn't simple misunderstanding. This is instructions unclear, so I stuck my dick in the blender. Either the guy is a hopeless moron, and has no business being anywhere near production systems, or you are not providing adequate instruction and direction to your team, and I'm leaning towards the later. If it's this bad, seriously, you should have listened to your boss weeks ago. this guy is going to fuck something up so badly that it's going to cost YOUR JOB. And maybe that's exactly what you both deserve. I'm coming across a little too harshly here. Sorry. But, this isn't a line of work that can tolerate that. It's like having a nurse that injects the wrong shit. She either injected exactly what the doctor told her to inject, or the hospital deserves to get sued for having hired the dangerous idiot.

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Claidheamhmor@reddit

We had something like that last year. We had some servers that ran web services for several different apps. One business unit decommed their app, so they had the infrastructure team decom the VMs, and wipe the backups. We scrambled for a week to rebuild the app because the team that built it was long gone, and we were working off ancient copies of the code stored on servers.

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tanzWestyy@reddit

No change request? Mad lad.

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pawwoll@reddit

>...to remove the servers from vmware... o7

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DRONE6@reddit

Common sense. So rare, it should be considered a superpower.

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Le_Vagabond@reddit

[Shhhh, my common sense is tingling. ](https://i.imgur.com/UBZpH.jpeg)

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TheAuldMan76@reddit

\+1 - But the bugger is, you don't get hired for having it!!!! ;-)

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FarToe1@reddit

What we do is difficult and sometimes people mess up. You gotta learn to live with it.

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Hot_Broccoli3718@reddit

I’m right there with you! I have someone on my team I have asked to switch out an old printer for a new one we just got. They did just that, moved old one to the side, plugged in new one to the power and all done. I have to micro manage, give them all the steps to complete if I want a job done right. To me it’s common sense if I am brining this down that if functional. What I am setting up to replace it should also be functional.

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rjchau@reddit

> Swear ~~to~~ ***at*** god…… FTFY

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SmallBusinessITGuru@reddit

I got to the part about deleting the servers and was already done deleting the servers. That's what you wanted right?

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dansedemorte@reddit

that's why I triple verify if one o f my offsite coworkers needs me to unplug network or power cables. and the network ones I often leave nearby ready to plug back in if needed.

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phillymjs@reddit

Just reading this gave me pangs of anxiety. Even if there was an honest misunderstanding that led him deleting the servers, I cannot imagine the thought process that would lead him to wipe the backups, too. That's like sawing off the tree branch you're sitting on.

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itmgr2024@reddit (OP)

He was trying to be a hero and proudly proclaim to me that he had saved space. He was completely shocked at my reaction. Then he started asking me did I want the servers back. I tried to explain to him “I” didn’t want them back but I would be concerned that someone else might.

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