- Pharenhite
- Mar 11, 2013
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Oh what the hell
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Recently was freed from the unenviable position of being hired on to work for an active imposter. This individual boasted like none other, and despite being a bumbling desktop tech who could make the occasional AD change, became the head of the IT department by being the most senior person left after back-to-back retirements.
Almost immediately the promotion went to his head (tongue clicks and finger guns became common), and began referring to previously-unmentioned experience in IT management/project management -- having apparently led teams at Boeing. This reign of terror lasted 18 months. Thought I'd share some stories.
- Bragged about being a security expert to a vendor for disabling their home wifi's SSID broadcast. Actually, talked quite a bit about his home setup to vendors who did a spectacular job of nodding along while ostensibly dying inside.
- Frequently confused product names for types of equipment when trying to sound like an expert (IE: "I like Lenovo's PowerEdges more").
- Blocked access to Github as he believed it was for distributing malware ("bad codes").
- Tried to help programming staff make fee schedule changes to the accounting software by opening the PowerBuilder libraries ("java codes") in Notepad++ (oblivious to all the NULL characters). Proceeded to print out the .PBL and using a pencil scribbled out every value associated with the old schedule and wrote in the new ones. Including variable names. After being told that's not how you deliver code, scanned his penciled changes back in as a PDF, not recognizing some characters had been cut off.
- Asked a staff database admin how to set something equal to NULL ("query codes"). Later wiped an entire metrics database with an unconstrained update.
- After other data began to silently go missing, had his very own profiler trace filtered to his desktop's hostname.
- Tried to create an SSRS report using a series of text boxes in a grid to make a matrix.
- When speaking with a staff database admin, insisted that missing historical data could be found by performing "key triggers" (we think he meant joins?) emphasizing his word choice by making a back and forth motion like he was scrambling a Rubik's cube.
- His incompetence stressed the de facto development lead so badly they started to go temporarily blind with ophthalmic migraines after meetings.
- Printed off the "java codes" for program used to access a vendor's API (this time it actually was java) double sided on 40+ sheets of paper delivered in an accordion folder for a programmer to research.
- To document nightly ETL process run from a PowerBuilder executable, he screenshotted, printed out, and scanned back to PDF the contents of the batch file that kicks off the executable.
- Spent 3 days (albeit off and on) trying to debug an IIS HTTPS configuration on a webserver. The webserver was actually running Apache 2.4.X on Ubuntu 16.04LTS.
- Traumatized a new programmer by saying he sees a lot of himself in them.
Some stories before my time:
- Tripped in the telco room carrying boxes and sent his shoulder through a core switch, taking a floor's net down.
- While working on a support ticket regarding the exchange server, restored a backup into production.
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Jun 11, 2018 03:23
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Apr 25, 2024 17:10
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- SteelReserve
- May 12, 2018
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This is called "leadership".
I actually see this a lot in companies that care more about "politics" and "political correctness" instead of "accomplishing the mission". When I served in the military, if I could prove that I was more competent than my "superior", then I would be given his or her position, and they would be demoted to an inferior position.
I suppose someone could say that I was probably not the most desirable subordinate if someone was incompetent.
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Jun 16, 2018 17:24
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Jun 11, 2018 03:23
