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Left Hanging Again, What Happens When Your IT Department Falls Apart

Posted by n8 • 5/30/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: it, Linux, web-design

I don't know how many of you out there can relate to this, but I feel the need to blow off some steam so here goes.

I've been working on the web for a little over 8 years now and have seen a lot of people come and go. For a number of reasons people are pretty mobile when it comes to employment in the IT industry. Better jobs, more money, better opportunities, travel. Whatever the reason is people tend to not stick around forever.

Recently, this has happened again in my little corner of the universe. The person in charge of all the server side work at my company has left and left me hanging. He's a Linux guy and I don't think my company has any interest in hiring anyone new at the moment. So that means I have to learn Apache now. Not the worst thing in the world and it will make me more rounded when I do know it, but dammit I'm getting sick of always playing clean up. This is at least the 3rd time I can think of that I've been in the same position. I mean what are you supposed to do when you lose a key part of you're team?

Sorry about the gripe folks, but I don't have anyone else to spout off about this stuff to. Can anyone else relate?

User Comments

5/30/08

richrf

I feel your angst. People, nowadays, are being pressured, for various reasons, to do more and more work, for less pay (on average). I am semi-retired now, but the pressure seems to be fierce, with no relief in sight.

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1. 5/30/08
  
  n8
  
  Isn't that the truth. More for less. Grrrr. I need a raise...
5/30/08

techfun

I certainly can, from the other side thankfully.

In the 90's I started working at an ISP and Web/Mail hosting company in the 90's when your Internet access options were dialup, ISDN, frame relay, or a fractional or full T1.

We were a small family owned company with small budgets and everything spent had to get maximum bang for the buck. As a result we had some amazingly jury-rigged ways of getting stuff done. (I once earned a several thousand dollar bonus for writing spam filters before spam was a worldwide issue because it let us eke out a few more years of life from a couple mail servers.)

Over time DSL and other technology became available so these new offerings were kind of wedged in wherever they fit and everything worked because there was a team of us who had kinda grown up with our infrastructure and knew its quirks and capacities because we had applied most of the bandaids.

Our customers were always trying to hire us away from the ISP and eventually due to the one remaining founding owner - making a desperate attempt to increase revenue - ruined the company's culture and in a matter of 10 months or so the company went from an IT department where most people had been in place for 5-7 years (almost 9 years for me personally) to one where nobody has over two years in the job.

On top of that, the owner burned bridges and and pissed off lots of people who left to the point where they won't even consider answering questions for the people back in place.

So, I feel for you needing to learn Apache, and I'm sure you will have no problem, it is very straight forward really, but sometimes when you are doing IT for a place and the company doesn't respect what you've done, the urge to jump ship can get overwhelming.

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5/30/08

n8

Thanks for the quick response folks. I really needed to vent. I was IM'ing my girlfriend earlier and I could just feel the blank expression on her face as I typed.

I'm not so miffed that I need to learn something new. That's never an issue for me. It's just the time frame. Something that I'm sure would take him 5 minutes to do will likely take me a day to figure out and I have some pretty tight deadlines making it that much harder.

That and no one here is an IT person. It's a building full of sales guys. There's one other girl I work with, but she does software and hardware support.

techfun - I've been here for a little over 2 years now. The guys that built the back bone of our network are now gone. I hope this company doesn't get rid of the IT dept. It only consists of 2 other people and myself, but getting the axe was the first thing that ran across my mind when I heard the initial news. If they let me go someone else would be left holding the bag.That would be a tall order indeed as I have a pretty intimate understanding of how our many web sites work and operate.

It's the digital equivalent of duct tape and wire hangers. Everything works and looks pretty, but has been jerry-rigged to the enth degree. I have no idea how long it would take a new person to come in and get a grasp on how everything works. On top of it all, there is next to no documentation to set you on the correct path.

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5/31/08

jackpayne

At last. Somebody has tackled the problem. Hip, hip, hooray. Hip, hip, hooray. Hip, hip, hooray.

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