Did I Do Something Wrong?
Posted by notRea11ySure@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 188 comments
I work at a small company as an IT technician. I am the only technician. Our IT department consists of me and my boss. This is my first professional IT job, but I also have a degree in Computer Science, so I am at least somewhat knowledgeable across a broad area of computer and tech domains. I've been working at this company for about 7 months now.
The other day I noticed that all of our support ticket responses were going to quarantine, so users were not able to see replies. I checked quarantined messages in EAC because I thought it was weird that no users were responding to any replies that I sent through tickets.
I informed my boss about this and he said he would take a look. Being curious, I inspected the headers of a quarantined email and found that DMARC wasn't aligned with our domain, so even though DKIM and SPF were passing, our anti spam/phishing rules were quarantining the emails. I know policies were tightened down recently in response to a bunch of phishing emails going to our users.
I didn't mention any of this to my boss, as I assumed he would find the issue and fix it. I was only looking out of curiosity and wanting to understand what the problem was. There has also been incidents in the past where I've tried to help but it has backfired.
I eventually noticed that there was a typo in our DNS records for the DKIM key records for the ticketing platform that we use. Our domain was duplicated in the hostname. So instead of dkim.ourdomain.com, it was dkim.ourdomain.com.ourdomain.com.
I brought this information to my boss a few days later, when I noticed that some emails were still being quarantined and that replies that were going through showed "unverified sender" inside of Outlook.
Long story short, he called me and was very direct about how I shouldn't be looking into that and that what I found in our DNS records didn't apply. Keep in mind I don't have access to our domain provider, I only used nslookup to query them. Emails were technically flowing again, but some support emails were still being quarantined and it looked like he created a bunch of rules within Exchange to force the support emails through.
He said that nslookup doesn't tell the full story, and that he wants DMARC to fail sometimes so that he can create rules in Exchange to allow certain mail through.
He kept asking me questions about SPF and DKIM and mentioned that he didn't know how much I actually understood, and that he didn't want to get too much into the weeds because he wasn't sure if I would understand.
I am not an expert on DKIM, SPF, DMARC, or mailflow in general. I did setup my own home lab with an M365 Business Premium trial so that I could break things and learn at home, and I also set up a free trial of our ticketing software so that I could reproduce and understand this issue better at home. That's mainly what gave me the confidence that I found the proper fix, because I was able to fix the support emails being quarantined in my lab by adding the correct records given by the ticketing system.
By the end he told me that the duplicate domain that I saw didn't matter, and that is how DNS is supposed to work. However, when I checked the record again about 15 minutes later, I saw that it had been fixed (it has a TTL of 5 minutes, so the cached record cleared pretty quickly). In addition to this, support emails are now coming through with DMARC passing, and our support email no longer shows up as an unverified sender.
The whole experience was fairly demoralizing. I was excited that I found the fix, and that it was just a simple typo in the DNS records, but my boss drilled into me about how I wasted my time and that I need to let him know before I go off exploring like that because he doesn't want me wasting my time.
I feel really bad about this now. Did I do something wrong by exploring this issue on my own? Is my understanding of DKIM and DMARC incorrect? I assumed that you always want DMARC to pass, and that you don't really have any control over whether it passes or fails outside of making sure your records are correct.
My understanding of SPF is that it passes when the sending IP has permission from your domain to send email on your behalf, and that DMARC passes via SPF when the return-path matches your domain. My understanding of DKIM is that a message can pass if signed, but DMARC will only pass if the signing domain matches the From field.
Opposite_Second_1053@reddit
Your boss is an idiot. I would be thrilled you took a load off my hands. That's the only way you will learn. But to play devils advocate in terms of processes and procedures it is important that you and him are not working on the same thing at the same time. You always want to divide and conquer. Technically his argument is I was already working on this you could of been assisting other users or working on other things you already had assigned. If I were you and that curious bug hit I would look into it on the low to gain the knowledge but let him figure it out. He seems like the IT guy that always wants to be right and flex his skills.
kissmyash933@reddit
You didn’t do anything wrong, you did what any good SA would do. Your boss is butthurt that you uncovered his error and he would have preferred that you not know he made a mistake.
The_Original_Miser@reddit
This.
If I was the boss, I would not be butthurt, I'll be saying "good catch".
The thing that everyone needs to learn (and most do eventually if they aren't a sociopath) is "I don't know" and "I'm not sure."
7thSlayer_@reddit
Yeah, exactly. Egos don’t help anyone.
I’d be grateful for the assist and glad that we’d hired someone that actually took an interest beyond their day-to-day.
Josepepowner@reddit
I work at an MSP. I'm a complete fucking idiot. When I catch stuff like this I just tell the vCIO and they just go. "Fuck, thanks for letting me know Jose."
We make a million decisions a day. We are human. We are going to miss something.
My most recent save was a compliance policy mismatch that was going to take an entire company offline. We swapped rmms and the policy still stated it required the old software and our new software had a flag to remove the old one a month later. The automation had already removed the software and I simply noticed the policy. Luckily we updated it and swapped it to read only mode for now. In a few days we will turn the policy back on once most machines have grabbed it. But man 100+ end points going out of compliance the next day would have been insane.
ryoko227@reddit
Seriously! I had no issues saying that while I was a CTO, because not knowing is the first step in learning. It's the knowing HOW to find that information which was always important to me.
There are FAR too many companies where it's small teams, or hell, one man armies, that keep everything running for anyone with a modicum of intelligence to ever expect you or anyone else to know every detail about every issue.
Good initiative on the OP. Boss man should have owned it, and gone through it with him, documented it together, rather than scold/berate him about wasting time... Loss of a good learning experience, for both of them really. All he did was teach OP not to bring him possible solutions in the future...
MitochondrianHouse@reddit
If I were the boss and was butthurt I would start with oh, I dunno, freaking access control for things he doesn't want OP poking around in.
But I guess a verbal warning not to do it has been secure up until now, what a clown
The_Original_Miser@reddit
A good point! Don't want someone poking around? Lock it down.
However. Can't really stop nslookup/other public queries.....
Ur-Best-Friend@reddit
In my experience, confident sysadmins (and generally people in IT are never afraid to admit they made a mistake, because mistakes happen in our field a lot. As long as you make sure you don't make a mistake that can totally fuck up you're company, you're fine. You make a mistake, you spot it, you fix it.
Only shitty sysadmins who got their positions by pretending to be more of an expert than they really are are afraid of admitting when they've made a mistake.
Pyrostasis@reddit
This.
Good catch and a high five is the right response here not a dressing down and a quiz.
RoloTimasi@reddit
Had I screwed that up and a coworker or direct report caught it and notified me, I’d give a big thanks and lunch on me. If they provided the answer as well, I’d probably have them take a half or full day on a Friday on the house or something like that. That’s an impactful issue and makes the department look bad if clients aren’t getting replies.
OP, this job market sucks right now, but I would try to find another opportunity. Your boss is likely going to hold you back.
Drew707@reddit
Exactly. The thing I miss the most about having a team was the ability to delegate shit.
"You, there! I have no idea what is going on, and I don't have the time or mental capacity to figure it out right now. Please look into it and come back with a solution."
What's the point of having minions if you don't task them with shit?
davidbrit2@reddit
Yeah, those pylons ain't gonna construct themselves, damn it!
SonicPimp9000@reddit
Bingo
imei2011@reddit
Some grace could have been saved by being like “oh the standard must have changed or they were serious about enforcing” or something like that don’t be defensive just cuz your title is higher than the person who found the issue. Good on you for catching that. How else do you know
igiveupmakinganame@reddit
i was thinking the same
gettogettin@reddit
I would say this to anyone in any job, if your boss does not advocate for you, then find a new boss or a new job. Your boss speaks to your ability and reputation across the company, he also puts your name in the hat for any raises or promotions. Dead end boss, dead end job. If he’s treating you like this, there’s no telling what he’s saying about you when you are not around, and it will impact your future in a negative way. And like others have said, humility is important in leadership. It sounds like your boss wants to be the smartest in the room, and is intimidated by your natural ability to dig into technical issues. I’ve been doing this for 25 years, in tech it’s ALL your job; especially in a small firm. This “Not Your Job” bs is a huge red flag.
CuckBuster33@reddit
>because he doesn't want me wasting my time.
what a manipulative rat he is. I'd be careful around him
Darkhexical@reddit
While he's likely an asshole and incompetent based on his responses I'd still warn against doing things outside your duties when you have other work to do. If he spent a couple hours on this when he could have closed 10 tickets in the same time I'd rather he closed the tickets personally.
GenerateUsefulName@reddit
I would much rather my team is working proactively and digging into things I might not have the time or brain capacity to dig into. Not to mention that closing tickets is going to be hard if no one receives the ticket responses.
Honestly, sometimes with everything going on I wouldn't mind switching and doing tickets for a day instead of breaking my brain trying to troubleshoot a bigger issue or working on complex projects.
I also want to work with a team I know I can leave by themselves when I am on vacation or sick. The only way I enable them to do this is by letting them learn the same way I was able to learn - by following their curiosity.
Enough_Pattern8875@reddit
10000%
downundarob@reddit
Did you raise a ticket and document your findings in said ticket?
Not the first time Ive seen the lack of a . in a zone file cause breakage.
KillingTime1212@reddit
Fawk your boss. Look for a new job.
smcclos@reddit
Here is the lesson that you should learn: your boss will chastise you for being resourceful. I say continue to be who you are, but don't volunteer solutions you aren't asked to give
Practical_Shower3905@reddit
Yeah, I don't trust you.
But, on the DKIM/DMARC/SPF, you're 100% right. Your boss is clueless and was in the wrong.
The way I see it:
DKIM = Handshake to let it pass. Generate the key from the service in question and enter it in your DNS. Has to be entered HAS IS or it will fail.
SPF = Whitelist.
DMARC = What to do if both fails.
notRea11ySure@reddit (OP)
Don't trust that I have the degree? Or don't trust me because of the degree?
I know it doesn't automatically make me an expert in IT. I've learned a lot in the 7 months that I've been here. However, I do think the degree is relevant when it comes to at least a basic knowledge of IT.
Practical_Shower3905@reddit
Let's put it that way.
The most inept colleagues I had in this field had a lot of education. The most competent people in this field barely have a high school degree.
To me, education is to hide and justify incompetence and inaction. It's my biases... but In my 15 years of work, I haven't seen the exceptions often.
battmain@reddit
Haha. So agree. I remember it was barely 30 days before I got rid of one. The logic needed to start to troubleshoot a simple issue, just wasn't there. Mind you, Google was all grown up at the time.
Different time was the manager that had two f'ing lines of certifications but didn't know a scsi drive couldn't fit into an ide only chassis. There were plenty more over the years.
ImperatorKon@reddit
Keep learning, keep looking at things, and don't stay too long in places that don't help you grow!
Witty_Formal7305@reddit
Your boss is butthurt that you found his fuck up, that's all it is, he should have thanked you for taking a look at it and even encouraged it, both because you now understand more about the systems and how they work but because you took the initiative to do it yourself on your own accord.
If there's one thing to take away from this its not to be like your boss. Everyone makes mistakes, they're always something to learn from and IT is one of those jobs where you never stop learning, your mistakes just have a bigger blast radius as you move up, but they'll still happen and you'll still learn.
There's plenty of admins out there that will love your initiative, i'm one of em, if you find my fuck up then tell me because I wanna know, and 9/10 times i'll ask you how you think we should fix it even if I already know because maybe you have a better way you found today, or because you deserve the W of fixing it because you figured it out.
battmain@reddit
Chuckles at the last part. Queue windows that has umpteen ways of doing anything. Don't think it really means it is better but simply another way.
badaz06@reddit
Sounds like your boss isn't as knowledgeable as he's told everyone he is, and he's scared you'll out him. And that he's a shitty boss to boot.
You going to him one on one was the exact correct thing to do. If he's not mature enough to deal with it, that's on him.
Keep up the good work.
Shadowdane@reddit
Yup I ran into something like this at my first IT job. Got hired as a desktop support guy at a very small insurance company at the time they had about 18 employees. My boss had been doing all the IT duties but had no IT background at all. The IT staff was just me and him, he only had a little bit of knowledge about computers. Then over the period of the next year they exploded in growth to about 100 employees. I started to uncover all kinds of issues my boss didn't know what he was doing. Hell I found the main domain admin account had a password that was 3 lowercase letters only. I should preface this was also back in 2001 or 2002. So security practices were pretty bad at a lot of small businesses.
He would always try to sweep it under the rug and come back that I shouldn't be digging into those kinds of things as I was just supposed to be doing desktop support and taking support calls.
Darkhexical@reddit
It is important to understand the boundaries of your current role. While your duties might expand with future promotions, taking on tasks outside your scope right now can be risky. In some environments, it is a fireable offense. Even when it isn't, doing someone else's job takes time away from your own, resulting in a dereliction of duty. Curiosity is fine, but your primary focus must be completing your own tickets and fulfilling your actual job requirements.
jadedarchitect@reddit
if we're worried about techs taking 75 seconds to run an NSLOOKUP, well - the problem isn't the tech. It's the boss/company, bub.
Darkhexical@reddit
This guy setup a whole lab to run nslookup.
jadedarchitect@reddit
.....at home.
None of your business what the guy does at home. Continuing your own education by setting up a personal lab is A) None of your employer's business, and B) F*cking great.
Again, a company problem, not an employee problem. I'd promote the guy.
Darkhexical@reddit
But it does show to what extent he dives into things. Reading the setup documentation would be all he would need to verify.
notRea11ySure@reddit (OP)
I should have clarified in the post that I didn't spend a lot of time working on this at work. I spent a little bit of time investigating the headers and developed a theory of what it was, but all the experimentation took place at home. I used nslookup at work for the convenience of the screenshot to show my boss, but I learned about the DNS record misconfiguration at home.
I understand that I shouldn't be taking time to look into something outside of my responsilities if there is other work to do, but it wasn't keeping me from responding to tickets. Things move relatively slow where I work, so we don't really get inundated with tickets.
The home lab is something I had setup prior. It was originally to verify claims that my boss had made about Exchange delegations because there have been a few things that he has told me that I don't necessarily think are true. I saw that the ticket software that we use has a 2 week free trial, so I figured I could just set it up and try to verify that it was as simple as adding DKIM DNS records in order to get past spam filters.
Not necessarily setting up a home lab to use nslookup, but moreso as a sanity check that I understood what I had read through research. I know I am new, but there have been several incidents that have led me to not trust my boss's technical intuition. I don't really have a way to validate what I'm learning or what I'm told outside of hands-on experience.
I know it sounds extreme just to find a misconfigured DNS record, but I consider it a Sunday evening well spent because it was more of a hands on lesson of mailflow, DNS records and email authentication which I now feel like I understand much better than I did previously.
I also made the same exact mistake with the DNS record when I was setting it up in my home lab. I understand how easy it is to do because it's something that I did myself.
paulpur1@reddit
you did an awesome job, sounds like hes just pissed you found his mess up, probably threatened by you and thinking youre after his job now lol
cwolf-softball@reddit
On his own time at home.
xXTheBigBearXx@reddit
That's not at all what OP says
badaz06@reddit
I understand your point (and agree) to a degree. When responsibility it segmented out and there is a desktop support team, server support, email, etc., typically you stay in your lane, and in that situation emailing or calling your Email team and saying, "why is this happening?" is the standard protocol. I've never had an issue though with someone reaching out to me with something like what OP did - he went to the email team, showed some initiative (which most people dont have these days).
Where I do take exception is when someone brings up and issue, makes a beeline to my bosses office complaining about the issue I just learned about, or those that hear me say "No" and then go to my boss thinking he'll give them a different answer, or (and this really gets me), goes to all the different departments involved in an issue either personally or in email - so now there are 18 people working the same issue instead of the 3 that are needed.
Lachiexyz@reddit
No point looking at tickets if the replies aren't getting through though... OP did the right thing stepping up and figuring it out.
The boss is clearly incompetent especially considering OP was able to replicate the issue in their home lab and figure it out. It had clearly been dragging on for days.
Jeez, give them some credit for solving the problem...
Darkhexical@reddit
Idk.. sounds like he has a pattern of doing so "I didn't mention any of this to my boss, as I assumed he would find the issue and fix it. I was only looking out of curiosity and wanting to understand what the problem was. There has also been incidents in the past where I've tried to help but it has backfired."
jadedarchitect@reddit
I'd be more concerned about the concentrated power in the hands of an obviously non-technical supervisor who made up a BS story about how DMARC works and what it's used for. Having support offline for days isn't justifiable for "Exchange mail flow rules" - and why are you doing email sender authentication there?
Shadowdane@reddit
lol you do realize this happened 25yrs ago. It was a 2 man IT shop just my boss and me, between the two of us we had to do everything. Most of the time I had been sitting around with little to do as it was a such a small company. Anyway was going to write more on this but honestly doesn’t matter as it happened soo long ago. I’ve moved well beyond that type of role in my career.
Darkhexical@reddit
Nah I get that. It's just in ops case it sounded like they still had quite a few tickets in the catalogue.
Shadowdane@reddit
Yah makes sense... originally thought you were directing that at me. The IT landscape has changed a lot also in those years.
alficles@reddit
Agree, but I'd add that he should probably get as much experience as possible at this place, but be keeping an eye out and even actively interviewing elsewhere. This boss isn't one that will foster growth. This is exactly the way you wind up with one year of experience ten times instead of ten years of experience.
Kazen_Orilg@reddit
Yeah, there are a lot of insecure and shitty middle management. I lost my first tech job because I wrote something that accidentally out my boss for falsifying changelogs so he could take credit for a bunch of stuff.
Beefcrustycurtains@reddit
Yup Boss sounds like a dumbass. The worst kind of dumbass too. The one that's too dumb to realize he's too dumb.
Cum_Dad@reddit
Every time ive encountered this with a higher up they leave within a year without knowledge transfer and you spend the next year uncovering messes.
That may not be the case necessarily here， but that reaction is not at all cool or chill， and is not on you.
jfoust2@reddit
Some web-based zone editors make it easy to do it this way - that is, do it wrong. How are you editing your DNS?
notRea11ySure@reddit (OP)
I am not sure as I don't have access to our domain hosting service. We are all in the cloud, but I know it isn't Azure DNS.
pdx-dot-one@reddit
You boss is insecure and is blaming you for pointing out his mistakes. Then gaslighting you say you would not understand when clearly you understood better than him.
dkim.ourdomain.com.ourdomain.com
That's just is wrong and caused by a common error. In dns records if you include the full domain it needs a period at the end. Ie:
dkim.ourdomain.com.
You boss entered with out the period. Ie
dkim.ourdomain.com
Without the period, it appends the domain name to the record.
You need a better boss......
jimmyandrews@reddit
Yep. DNS is resolved in the reverse of the way it's written. "." Lookup is root "Com." Is root for com. "Ourdomain." Nameserver lookup "Endpoint." Nameserver lookup/local DNS lookup.
Ad-nauseum
GoodEnoughThen@reddit
As a 30-year veteran, I say good job on you. The fact that you went over and above on your own initiative with your curious mind, all the way to suggested resolution for a test that's not even yours, is exactly what we're looking for. Be careful around the sky. He obviously Thrills threatened and don't be surprised if you get fired at some point, but consider it a blessing you'll be free to go find your people.
MCHellspawn@reddit
Yeah, it seems others have said it already but it really feels like you boss is frustrated he messed up and you found it, and he doesn't want to admit it. Which could be argued is a red flag. But as a boss myself, i too share concerns about staff wasting time on things that are other people's jobs. That being said, when these concerns were brought to me in the past, i simply answered with "i only wasted my personal time off the company clock" (may or may not have been true each time).
F0rkbombz@reddit
Yo, your boss is an idiot.
notbullshittingatall@reddit
Your boss is a dick.
Library_IT_guy@reddit
Worried that you're more competent at the job than he is. And you very well might be. Probably worried that if the company finds out how incompetent he is, they will get rid of him, and in this job market that's a death sentence.
You could see how, if the big boss (CEO or whoever your boss reports to) found out that the guy in charge of IT was less competent than the lower level IT guy, that might cause issues... might cause your boss to loss his job.
Doesn't excuse his behavior, but it does explain it.
libertyprivate@reddit
Your boss is an idiot
cwolf-softball@reddit
You have a very insecure boss, that's sucks
Synikul@reddit
Your boss is not only an idiot, but has a colossal and undeserved ego. You didn’t do anything wrong.
Nexzus_@reddit
The only "wrong" thing you did was make your boss look and feel like an idiot. You seem smart and talented and eager - traits that should be encouraged.
Market sucks, but I'm sure you can move on to better pastures.
ResponseContent8805@reddit
why does that matter whether this person is male or female, lordy!
ohioleprechaun@reddit
it shouldn't matter, but there are a lot of men who do not take being corrected by a woman very well.
Grrl_geek@reddit
And women receiving the "mansplain". We're not fond of that, either.
Fearless_Rice_8752@reddit
Careful.
Speaking condescendingly doesn't belong to one sex. Women do this too, but there is no common term called womansplaining. So the term mansplaining itself is sexist and unnecessary.
Also, some people don't even used rhe term properly and misinterpret a regular explanation as "mansplaining." Maybe the real problem is you lack patience. At work, I hear people explain things I already know about that may even be below my competence and level, but I don't roll my eyes and think they are mainsplaining me. I listen carefully and respond.
Grrl_geek@reddit
Oh no, this was totally mansplaining - ran it by my colleagues at the time. The TL;DR was that I offered to help a vendor with an issue, but he told me, "it's too complicated, you wouldn't understand." It was changing the email server in their software after we'd migrated from on-prem to the cloud.
Darkhexical@reddit
That's not really mansplaining. Mansplaining requires one to explain. Saying something is complicated isn't explaining anything.
Grrl_geek@reddit
The "you wouldn't understand" is awfully condescending however.
Fearless_Rice_8752@reddit
That's not even mansplaining though (i hate to even use the word as it is sexist but for this discussion I will) so your colleagues were wrong. For it to be mansplaining there has to be some kind of explanation. The condescending part is just half of mansplaining.
TheTeralynx@reddit
If you've been friends with women in a male-dominated work environment before you should already know the answer to this one.
Nexzus_@reddit
First day in IT/the modern workforce?
notRea11ySure@reddit (OP)
Haha I am a male. I am not very confrontational though, which is why I think this interaction affected me so negatively.
I appreciate the responses of everyone here. It has given me much more confidence in my abilities and reassures me that I'm not out of my depth or in the wrong line of work.
I'm going to do everything I can to find another job somewhere else. This is just one of many red flags from this boss that I've seen since starting here.
Hg-203@reddit
Not to take away from this, but now that you know your bosses personality. You may want to learn how to navigate his pride. i.e. learn to phrase questions that will him look into somethings first. I've never managed the trick myself. So I've built a history of tortured relationships with my seniors, but if you can pick up the skill it will help you in the future. It may be even easier with AI to help find nice ways to point to a potential problem.
But you did nothing wrong, and your boss is someone who doesn't know how to build up talent.
NDaveT@reddit
My response to bosses like that has been to stop taking initiative and try to stay in my lane. That's not a good practice long-term.
Hg-203@reddit
Yep, I did the same thing while I was looking for another job. As someone new to the field. That's not the best option.
Learn what you can. Make do with what you have to, and look for another position once you feel like you're able to.
thisguy_right_here@reddit
I once told another sysadmin at another company how to the fix to an smtp relay for scan to email in exchange on prem.
He was adamant it was as i said it should be. I asked for a screenshot of the settings and gave instructions where to get what I wanted.
He sent it through and the screenshot of the panel which displayed the last modified time. Which was minutes before I got his reply.
Was adamant He didn't change anything. But it started working all of a sudden.
"Good to hear its working now, not sure the cause".
Sometimes people's ego is the issue.
In the future with this boss, just dumb down your suggestion. "It says dmarc failing. Thats weird. Why would it be failing?".
Let him be the hero that fixes it. That is what he wants.
Making someone the hero is like tossing a kid an easy ball and he hits a home run. They feel good and you say "wow! Good job! Amazing!".
Be that to your boss, because he is still that child.
Learn what you can in the job, both IT and dealing with people like your boss.
RhymenoserousRex@reddit
You work for an idiot who has "Smartest man in the room syndrome" when he is not in fact the smartest man in the room.
He shouldn't be chewing you out for catching this, he should be thanking you. We all make mistakes.
Separate_Database_60@reddit
No, you showed initiative and the ability to diagnose an issue in which you were not familiar. you should’ve been congratulated.
if you were working for me, I would’ve congratulated you on a good catch and I would’ve took you to lunch as a reward.
But as a leader, it seems I may be a bit of an odd duck. I want my team to be as competent as possible, willing to take on a challenge and learn to have some ability to work independently so that I don’t have to do everything myself.
I feel it is my responsibility to encourage the next generation of leadership rather than holding onto my job.
jdptechnc@reddit
You did nothing wrong. You have a bad manager who didn't like that new guy found a mistake.
For this job, you now know that "swim in your own lane" is the MO based on this interaction with your boss.
Your takeaway from this should be to not treat others this way when you are the senior guy. Everyone misses things from time to time and no one can know everything about everything. A little humility goes a long way.
Mostliharmed@reddit
Keep your head up and keep doing a good job. My first boss in IT was the exact same way.
djgizmo@reddit
yes. you did multiple things wrong.
1st, you accepted a job where your only person you can learn from is a boss, not a leader. Get the 1-2 years in and bail.
2nd, you need to learn some people take offense from being taught something from someone younger.
3rd, you posted in sysadmin when you’re not the sysadmin, you’re a minion or a support tech. Sure it’s great that you want to explore your career and ask for help… but this really isn’t a sysadmin question, it’s a career / help desk question
4th, you haven’t made your 3 envelopes yet.
Kyky_Geek@reddit
I’m over here like… some staff wouldn’t have even looked into why people weren’t replying to tickets and this here Technical finds a dns issue because they wanted them tickets closed sooo bad… 🤩 need me one of these.
If one of my peeps walked up to me with this level of info, I’d just increase their permissions so they could go fix it without me! I ain’t proud. Then I’m buyin them whatever food/drink/treats I kno they like haha.
roy_hill42@reddit
Exactly this!!!!!!
RylosGato@reddit
wow, an employee that goes above and beyond their job requirements.
DomainFurry@reddit
When I was trying to lean and troubleshoot this site was super helpful worth taking a look at. https://www.learndmarc.com/
bUSHwACKEr85@reddit
Great site and very easy to use. super useful
JoeyJoeC@reddit
Unfortunately people like this exist. I had a manager like this, and he was especially out to get me because I could see he was faking his entire IT career and was nothing more than a good sales person.
Suaveman01@reddit
Sounds like your boss doesn’t know shit, which is very common in the small business IT. Get some experience, then find a job in a bigger company is my advice to you.
eoinedanto@reddit
He is a spoofer and you will only learn bad things/strategies from him. Get away as soon as possible.
Mountain-Cheez-DewIt@reddit
Guess it's time to start looking for a new job.
If your boss does not respect your dedication for helping without being asked, he doesn't deserve your skills to do work when asked. He's definitely butthurt and manipulative. I've worked under several power issue managers that hate being disproven or called out. They'd sooner die on that short hill than ever acknowledge yours is bigger. Your boss is certainly one of them. They will never respect you or show appreciation. They rule by degrading you and telling you that you aren't good enough. It's a sick and twisted way that they treat good workers. So long as they keep you feeling like a small fish, you'll never leave their small pond. As for good workers? They're typically quick to fire those too.
Attention_Bear_Fuckr@reddit
I could be off base, but based on this and the rest of your post, your boss doesn't know as much as he thinks he knows.
Proud-Ad6709@reddit
Your boss is going to be a pain. You may know more than he does. And any time you find a little mistake he has made, I know your not trying to find them, your just trying to fix what's wrong he's going to thing your personaly trying to victimise him.
This type of person is far to common in IT. I worked in a slot of small teams and they all usually have one of these that has far too much power and management loves them
zqpmx@reddit
DMARC tells others how to handle the emails you send to them. Or the emails claiming to be from you.
What he mentions about wanting DMARC to fail a little bit to make exchange rules makes no sense.
Check r/DMARC
Use a tools like
https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx
To check your DMARC, SPF and DKIM records and the general health of your email (DNS records)
deadnerd51@reddit
Your boss being an dick is the only issue here. You poking around and being inquisitive is literally exactly what you want to see in IT. Your boss seems like a guy who failed upwards and is insecure about himself and so is trying to shut you down.
Not a good place to work, and your growth will be stunted here dude.
You should have been rewarded or acknowledged at least for finding out DKIM and dns records weren’t lining up, not reprimanded.
Lachiexyz@reddit
You're 100% being gaslit by your boss. Being inquisitive and getting into the weeds is exactly how you learn things and get better at your job.
Well done for figuring it out. Your boss is just salty that you figured it out before he did, and that the root cause turned out to be his mistake.
People don't intentionally have stuff fail so they can put additional rules in. He's taking you for a ride.
No doubt this will be a pattern of behaviour, so start taking notes when this sort of stuff happens again and don't be afraid to sit down with his boss and have a word. It's easier when you have the receipts.
Good luck in your career!
urM0m69p3nis@reddit
Wow. What an insecure prick.
sysadmike702@reddit
F your boss! You did exactly what you should have done! You did great work should be proud of learning and figuring this out!
brispower@reddit
don't get too comfortable, he sounds like a bad boss - we've all had them. what is actually really depressing is going from an S tier boss to an F.
FormerLaugh3780@reddit
First thing you learn when you start a new job: your boss is an asshole who got his job as a result of the Peter Principle or simple nepotism.
ilkhan2016@reddit
Your boss is an arrogant ass who fixed what you found because he was too incompetent to find it himself.
Sounds like you did everything correctly.
pdp10@reddit
That's not a typo. It's a very common configuration error from failing to end an FQDN with a
.in DNS zones, compounded by a failure to check one's work with lookup tools.Any human can make a human error, but most SAs who work with DNS on any kind of routine basis are on a sharp lookout for that one, because they made that error at least once or twice when they started.
Drakoolya@reddit
I would thank my stars for an SA like you. Listen dude never ever think you did something wrong by investigating Something further.
You need to understand that your growth is tied to your success, not your boss's success or you company's success. Keep doing what you are doing, you are on the right path.
NabrenX@reddit
Honestly, not only did you do everything right, I would start looking for another job. That sounds like a very bad situation if he's going to belittle you and act like you can't handle things when you clearly know more than even he does in this situation.
To be THAT worried over time management as well. Honestly, run. The grass isn't always greener, but in this situation it might be.
Thecardinal74@reddit
Your boss is human, he was probably a little embarrassed and more than likely triggered the imposter syndrome we all feel every day.
Azuree1701@reddit
You did the right thing. Most of what I do and have done is just poking at things and finding out it was done wrong or is now misconfigured. Talking to your boss about it was correct. He was wrong in his response. Who knows why. Maybe he doesn’t understand it very well and is just getting by. Either way you did good. Keep doing that. And maybe interview for another job elsewhere, it seems like you have “the gift” of doing this kind of thing and can go far.
PhoenixVSPrime@reddit
Your boss is a loser
bakonpie@reddit
your boss is an asshole and you followed your curiousity to the solution. don't let his poor demeanor and ego demoralize you.
vgullotta@reddit
Yeah this is my answer too. If I looked into something and asked my boss, right or wrong it wouldn't matter, he would thank me for the right answer or explain to me why it isn't. OP's boss decided that OP wasn't worth their time to explain it, that is an IT department doomed to be riddled with problems. No one will ever want to give their ideas on ways to fix or improve things if they're met with contentio, so that entire department will be full of stress and frustration, just like OP is feeling now.
Intelligent-Pause260@reddit
Sounds like you are working for a covert narcissist with a fragile ego, rather than someone who wants to mentor and help you learn and grow.
Rustycake@reddit
Are you me? I am dealing with this rn except I have less knowledge then you (didnt get a CS degree, just running certs and home labing my companies set up like you).
I also have a boss that set everything up and recently saw some errors pointed it out and he was a little butthurt.
seabass101dg@reddit
You’re crushing it. Your initiative is top notch and your eagerness to learn is rare. Your boss sucks, but keep following your curiosity and keep learning. You’ll find a better job (and boss) sooner than you think. It’ll be hard, but keep your head up. Keep on keeping on.
Financial-Marzipan88@reddit
He’s a bad boss. I have one of those too. You find or fix something, and then they take credit for it while basically pushing you to the back. It’s annoying but be prepared for more bosses like that.
It’s good to be curious, don’t quit looking for answers, and remember how you feel so when you’re the boss someday, you don’t do this to your employee.
Lerxst-2112@reddit
You did nothing wrong. If I was your boss I’d be thanking you and offering opportunities for some Exchange On Line training, as you have aptitude and initiative.
afcujstrick@reddit
Absolutely not. That boss is threatened by how thorough you were. As long as you aren't causing tickets or neglecting other work, by all means expand your knowledge.
Eventually managers realize you're saving them future headaches by finding problems before the end users complain.
BitBurner@reddit
Look for a better job with a more supportive boss.
PapaDuckD@reddit
Was anyone in the room when you told him? Like, could it have been interpreted as you showing off and not resolving the issue within your chain of command to allow the messaging to be controlled?
Factually; you’re on solid ground. But I’ve seen people - rightly or wrongly - catch flak for sharing a deficiency too widely and it cause egg to be on the wrong person’s face.
notRea11ySure@reddit (OP)
I told him via a Teams message along with screenshots of the output from nslookup showing the duplicate domain in the hostname. No one else knows about it.
He initially tried to tell me that the output was incorrect because it uses our DNS server here in the office, which confused me a bit, but I told him I also used Google's DNS server to look it up and that was in the screenshot as well.
He mentioned that our DNS server here in the office doesn't handle DNS for our domain. I think he thought I was confusing the DNS server with our domain hosts DNS server/nameserver.
PapaDuckD@reddit
Yeah.. you did nothing wrong.
He’s butt hurt. Plain and simple.
Normal advice is to keep this job while looking for a new job and hope people at the new one aren’t as butthurt.
Much easier said than done right now. Until then…all you can do is hang on and hope for the best. These people aren’t strong enough - technically or as people - to change this behavior.
AnalyticalMischief23@reddit
The only thing I would have done different is looked for the solution before I presented the problem, and then go to the boss with the problem and a possible solution.
sleepmaster91@reddit
You're boss is just mad that you found the issue and he didn't. Now he's scared you might steal his job
AlaeddinDZ@reddit
Becarfull arround that boss his ego is off the chart .
Gabelvampir@reddit
It doesn't sound like you ignored more pressing stuff to explore the problem. You also didn't try to correct it yourself but brought it up to your boss, so I think you did everything right. It sounds like your boss either doesn't understand the mailflow and rules and relevant DNS records all that well himself and/or did not want you know he made an easy mistake. All of that is bad on him, as is trying to stifle your curiosity. Stay curious, it's essential to be great in IT.
nikolakion@reddit
Boss should have said: "Well done grasshopper" and bought you a pint.
DespondentEyes@reddit
That just doesn't happen anymore. Before I was fired I think it had been a good three years since the last time a higher up complimented any work.
Attaboys are free, yet scarce.
tpwils@reddit
I say you did awesome, you sound like you understand it more than he does and he was embarrassed that you found that.
Gorby_45@reddit
I will give you access to manage DNS for the domains! You surely understand it..
tarkinlarson@reddit
Consider this... a Good boss will praise your ingenuity and be proud that you discovered the error.
He would also ask why this error occurred in the first place and ask how it could be prevented in future (even if it was him who made the mistake)
Perhaps a change management process, or atleast a review.
Do you still think you did something wrong?
notRea11ySure@reddit (OP)
No, I no longer think I did anything wrong, and this entire thread really brightened my day. I'm still feeling pretty crappy about my situation, but the unanimous support I've received here is great. The conversation was genuinely stressful enough to make my heart pound.
I'm extremely grateful I decided to make this post. I was genuinely wondering if I had done something wrong or if his response was uncalled for.
This is just one of many red flags about this guy that I've experienced while being here.
Grant_Winner_Extra@reddit
lol your “DNS records do not matter”
Way for him to clearly state he doesn’t know what he’s doing
Jolly-Ad-8088@reddit
You did great. Today you found out you work for a sensitive asshole who isn’t a good boss.
compmanio36@reddit
That duplicate hostname thing is so prevalent many DNS providers now warn you if you're going to do it. It's a simple mistake and one your boss got butthurt about. You did nothing wrong and found nothing anybody else couldn't find with dig or nslookup, as you said. Now, I'm not going to say "go find a new job" or anything like that, but this is something to keep in mind as you work with your boss moving forward (an attitude/ego problem).
ApolloAkaJosh@reddit
Good job - nothing you did was wrong
Also if he had DKIM configured with a typo, it means he meant to configure it and messed up. If he wanted it to fail he just wouldn't bother configuring a DNS record for it... and I can't think of a use case for wanting DKIM to fail
Computer-Blue@reddit
Hurt his pride. He’s scared.
penguinjunkie@reddit
I’d have been a bit annoyed you took so long to tell me you found something wrong. Not at all about finding it
Hot_Ambassador_1815@reddit
Sounds like your boss doesn't like those hits to his ego. He's lucky he has a motivated sysadmin like yourself
Pyrostasis@reddit
Sounds like your boss has an ego and is embarrassed and doesnt like the new guy making him look bad.
He should have told you good catch, said he (or whoever did it) fucked up, and thank you for finding the solution and being proactive about it.
I could seem him being pissed if you emailed his boss instead of talking to him privately but you didnt even do that.
Honestly I was expecting you to see the problem, try and fix it, and then break the mx records for your entire company. You didnt do that... so yeah fuck your boss, good work bud, start looking for work now and hopefully by the time you hit a year you can find something better that has a supportive boss instead of an asshole.
dethanjel@reddit
Keep your head on a swivel, that guy will try to get you fired one day
Hjarg@reddit
You did a stellar job troubleshooting and going beyond call of duty. Congratulations, if you keep this up, you will have a stellar future in IT. Your boss, not so much.
Fireb1rd@reddit
I'm a manager. If I was your manager, I would have thanked you for figuring it out. Your manager is not doing right by you.
sdrawkcabineter@reddit
The mummies occupying our thrones are mostly concerned with not being blamed for using all the toilet paper.
igiveupmakinganame@reddit
exchange admin center has been low key fucking annoying recently, just a side note
UninvestedCuriosity@reddit
Haha you did your job well and used your tools within permissive scope. How the workplace decides to solve the issue is irrelevant after due to hierarchy and ego. This is pretty common as a frustration. Now in the future. Make sure you communicate those things with the person in writing. You work for you first. Even if the person is upset that is also irrelevant.
Skim, dmarc, SPF, DNS and domains are not one of those things all people know well unfortunately. In a perfect world they would absolutely solve the root cause. This is explained in ITIL as incident vs problem but the world is not rational.
Nyrrix_@reddit
This reads like a Columbo monologue. "Jeez, i really thought the DMARC was always supposed to pass. I thought i was onto something. Well I'll get out of your hair now... Just one more thing."
Icy-Agent6600@reddit
Boss sucks, I would be thrilled if my techs were this thorough and actually helped
awetsasquatch@reddit
A big problem I see with younger workers is the lack of initiative. Fucking bravo for you doing that, keep doing it your whole career, you absolutely did the right thing here and your boss sucks. Polish your resume up and just passively apply. Plenty of companies would be thrilled to have someone like you. Proud of you!
whatdoido8383@reddit
Lol, you found his mistake and instead of laughing it off and giving you a pat on the back, he tried to cover it up so he didn't look dumb...
Says a lot about his character, keep that in mind going forward. I bet he'd toss you under the bus in a heart beat due to his ego.
If you worked under me I would of thanked you and given you a "atta boy/girl" for digging into it.
BarracudaDefiant4702@reddit
Unless you spent a significant amount of time (many hours) and did not complete other work because of it, you did nothing wrong. Even if you did waste too much time looking into it, he should still thank you for your initiative (assuming you didn't let other stuff fall behind). It sounds like someone missed a trailing . in a DNS entry, which can cause the duplicate nested domains. Depending on the exact specifics, it's possible the duplicate doesn't matter, but certainly isn't optimal under any cicumstances...
Leather-Arachnid-417@reddit
People don't like it when you discover that they are lazy and / or dont know what they are doing.
yepperoniP@reddit
This sounds just like my previous boss, and your story sounds like it could be mine three years ago. Really, check out my rant at the time. Feels like it could fit right in with story 3. https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/x5bbc4/
My old boss was a real pain to deal with and always seemed to have a weird ego problem whenever I’d try to improve things or bring even minor things to his attention, and trying to talk to him always stressed me out.
If it gets any worse, I’d honestly recommend looking to apply for a job somewhere else. I honestly waited way too long to leave that place and I kind of regret waiting so long. The place I’m at now isn’t perfect, but it’s still miles better than where I was before.
NotAnOwl_@reddit
Shitty boss, even more so when you are only 2, it always should be a team effort. This is also how you will learn the most.
Be careful; he is 100% ready to throw you under the bus if he needs to.
loupgarou21@reddit
It definitely seems like your boss is in the wrong. Nearly everything you did was correct. The only thing I'd say you did that was incorrect was not bringing it to his attention when you first noticed the problem. That being said, based on his reaction, he's probably conditioned you to not bring issues to his attention.
Most likely, your boss is extremely insecure about their position, and is feeling threatened by you being able to figure out something they screwed up.
Master-IT-All@reddit
Not really something wrong, but something pretty standard where a manager doesn't want to be upstaged by a junior. It's also clear that while you're new and don't have all the knowledge your boss isn't new and definitely doesn't have all the knowledge.
SPF lists the IP addresses or hosts that are allowed to send email using the DNS domain. So if you have include:protection.spf.outlook.com -all then you're only allowing Exchange Online to send email as your domain.
For SPF you should have the minimum required includes, and -ALL to reject anything not from those.
DKIM is a public/private key method of signing email as it leaves a system for confirmation that the email received by another system in fact came from your server. So your server uses the private key, the public key is kept in DNS as a TXT record. Receiving systems check that the public key matches/works with the private key for the signing.
DMARC is a system of using SPF and DKIM to verify a domain and then instruct receiving systems what to do if they receive email from your domain but not from a system that is in SPF and has signed the message with DKIM.
DMARC should be set to aspf=s,adkim=s,p=reject to be strict about reading SPF and DKIM, and reject outright anything not conforming.
Your boss is incorrect when it comes to that line about letting things through DMARC. He's basically saying, let phishing and impersonations in and we'll see if the Exchange rules will deal with it. There is zero valid reasoning to allow impersonation/phishing to your domain from the External.
NOTE: This is all about what RECEIVING systems do with YOUR mail, not what your MAIL server does with RECEIVED email. Your boss may be got that backwards, SPF, DKIM, DMARC only apply to mail in your system when it's an impersonation attempt from outside. So logically it's always phishing/spam and should be blocked.
Wolfram_And_Hart@reddit
You would have gotten an attaboy from me.
Icy-Impression-8417@reddit
Your boss is insecure. Research how to work for an insecure boss and you'll be fine.
degantyll@reddit
Your boss is an incompetent idiot. Move on from there.
WorldsWorstSysadmin@reddit
If I was the boss, I'd be cussing at myself for forgetting a .
Valkeyere@reddit
Youve got a problem when the person youre answerable to is insecure and childish about it. And probably less knowledgeable.
The most important feature of us techs is that we are inquisitive. Anyone who isnt, isnt cut out for the job.
When you do notice an issue what wpuld he have you do? If you arent meant to go to him, and you cant trust him to be honest with you then what recourse do you have? Can you go above him, because it sounds like rhats exactly what youre going to have to do.
If I were you, I would be considering this a resume generating event. Ask for another chance to sit down with him and ask him point blank why if you were wrong, why has he now updated it to be how you thought it was supposed to be.
If he cant be honest, smile and back off, and start sending out the resume. Its a matter of time till he uses you as a scapegoat for a bigger issue, which you're likely to find/fix and when his boss wants a head, it will be yours. If he is THE boss with noone above him all the same youre fucked.
If you stay it will crush your inquisitiveness.
NDaveT@reddit
Good bosses like it when their reports take initiative and try to learn things on their own (without breaking things).
Bad bosses feel threatened by it.
I suspect you have the second kind of boss.
Evening_Plan_2302@reddit
Polish up that resume and find a new job, with curiosity like this i'm sure you could find another help desk gig in no time. Working with people like that is a sure fire way to hate IT. My previous employer was an MSP ran by an egoistical dickhead like this and made me start to hate IT. 2 years later and all the skills I developed from that shithole landed me a nice job. Good luck and good job with this.
Enough_Pattern8875@reddit
Your boss sucks.
He is insecure and you bruised his ego and made him feel threatened by your ability to identify the root cause as being his mistake.
A good boss would have laughed it off and used this as a learning opportunity for the both of you and would have encouraged your curiosity.
MonkeyMan18975@reddit
I'd have bought you a fucking coffee and sent you home an hour early for taking the initiative to do your job.
The best thing you can have in this job is an inquisitive mind and the desire to do well. Please don't let territorial admins break your spirit... time and users will do that for them :) lol
L3TH3RGY@reddit
Exactly! What OP did is what I want my guys doing. Find the nail, hairpin, needle faster than I can, please and thanks.
Confusias1@reddit
100% this. 30+ years in the biz and I know I'm not God's gift to IT. We all make mistakes and we all learn on the daily. Finding and encouraging a newb to succeed where we may fail is one of the most rewarding things we can do for the next generation. The moral and loyalty it builds is priceless...
BlotchyBaboon@reddit
Right!? That's exactly what I would have done too.
braytag@reddit
There also could be something more... "fishy" going on. Like nefariously fishy, but if you investigate further, it's at your own risk. (Is he trying to catch soome emails not aimed at him? Without anyone noticing? While keeping plausible deniability?)
That's not in anyway how I would react if one of my employees did what you did. I would praise you, but explain my reason.
Secret_Account07@reddit
Your boss is butt hurt but in the interest of you I’d try and stay in your lane and do what he wants you doing. Bosses are wrong all the time but maintaining a good relationship is more important than being right.
I’ve had dickhead bosses before and unfortunately you just gotta play their stupid game.
40513786934@reddit
This is a common mistake to see, not specific to DKIM but on practically any DNS record. It happens because somebody used a FQDN where a relative hostname was expected (and/or didn't explicitly indicate it was fqdn by including a . at the end where they should have). Used to happen more often but the big web based DNS consoles are pretty good at catching it and correcting you these days.
mcshanksshanks@reddit
Pro Tip, ditch nslookup and learn how to use dig. If you don’t have WSL installed on your laptop install it and choose your flavor of Linux.
shokzee@reddit
You did nothing wrong and your understanding is correct. The duplicated domain in the hostname is a classic DNS provider gotcha, some UIs auto-append the zone and some don't, so you end up with dkim.ourdomain.com.ourdomain.com. That's a misconfiguration, full stop.
Your boss is gaslighting you. "I want DMARC to fail sometimes so I can write Exchange rules" is not a strategy, it's the opposite of what DMARC exists for. The fact that he silently fixed the record 15 minutes later tells you everything.
We rolled out DMARC across ~40 domains a couple years back and the single biggest source of "weird quarantine" was exactly this kind of typo. Keep learning, keep your home lab, and document what you find in writing going forward so there's a paper trail. If you want to sanity-check records without DNS access, domain health checker will show you alignment issues in seconds.
tekmunki@reddit
I'm going out on a limb and making several assumptions, this network is probably largely mismanaged, is poorly designed and a number of the tickets you receive are probably due to poor end-user training and/or bad preparation and planning or corner-cutting, and/or using archaic patchwork systems for no good reason.
'Boss' is threatened by your fresh takes and energy and would rather you work on backlogs of mundane busywork emptying toner bottles than bettering yourself or the company.
It's a bit toxic and I hope you get promoted into their position soon.
Remember whistleblower protections are largely mythical when you start realizing said boss is very underqualified, read the room and see if the bosses boss knows this already before acting on it.
Elensea@reddit
Your boss is an ass. I’d love someone who would show some initiative like you.
HowardRabb@reddit
Polish up the ol resume and apply somewhere else. I run an MSP, I'm boss and my team find issues with each other and my work all the time. IT means you're always finding things. I never yell at my team when they find a mistake... Especially mine. The goal is to do better. I can't stand people like that. Sorry you're having to deal with that.
Direct-Expert-4824@reddit
I wish you worked here. We could use the extra competence.
godzillante@reddit
nothing to add, just joining the “your boss is a moron” team
RadiantWhole2119@reddit
We’re hiring if you’re local to Texas, lmao. Curiosity and ambition to learn are what I dream for in a candidate.
jrwnetwork@reddit
You did the right thing. Your Boss needs to relax and appreciate you having taken the initiative to debug the issue.
eaglevision93@reddit
You did a fantastic job!!!
WWGHIAFTC@reddit
What. A. Dikuvaboss. Absolute dickhead boss.
BeefHotSweetDipped@reddit
Nah, sounds like boss is just embarrassed over his mistake. Sucks he was a dickhead about it. Good catch.
TheLexikitty@reddit
Even if you were entirely up the wrong tree, I’d be so happy about how deep you looked into it and (in a parallel universe where you were incorrect) would have also probably geeked out to you as to why you were close and what the actual cause would be. Stay eternally curious, it’s fun and can be useful as hell.
usernamedottxt@reddit
If you shouldn’t see something, he should limit your ability to see it technically.
If he’s trying to limit your ability to see things that are internet visible by design requirement he’s naive at best.
It quite literally exists so people can look you up and check if it matches.
Hatman_77@reddit
You’re not wrong and seems like a power trip issue. A good manager should praise curiosity and make discussion of it. You did the right thing checking DNS records because it can affect a lot more like third party services that tie to your mail records.
N3rdScool@reddit
DIG doesn't lie.
Especially from multiple places, I would come at him with that. It's too fast for him to be upset about wasted time.
And yes you are overall correct everything must match, that's the whole point of DMARC.
You can probably point out that p=quarentine and that's what you see happening
Fuck I hate managing email servers and I don't even have some boss micromanaging me.