Politics... oy

[Sky-Knight]

And I don't mean US politics thankfully, just the normal interoffice stuff. I'm gearing up with a meeting with a customer's steering committee this afternoon. They have a division that was acquired about two years ago. This division has its own internal IT guy, who we're directed to escalate all issues to in the event of a fault in that hunk of the company. That IT guy has the protection of the VP associated with the larger org that also got his position thanks to the purchase.

Here's the problem... the IT guy can't spell IT. It's April 2024, if you're an "IT Professional" responsible for a division of an organization that has ~50 employees ONLY... you've already got problems. But when you're such a "professional" that you support those 50 people spread over two offices via 5 pieces of hardware, none of which are activated, and the only Server 2016 equipment you have are hypervisors with all other production workloads on 2012 or 2008 servers... we've got issues. When you manage to make your AD 4 domain controllers large, with the FSMO holder being an ancient SBS 2008 box you've hacked the SBCore service out of so it doesn't die... you've got even larger issues.

My problem? Scoping the task of lift and shifting all the workloads that matter to Azure. Which patently cannot be done, and now I get to present all this from a technical standpoint only to watch this idiot try to defend himself, fail, and run to his VP to try and get my org fired. There is no winning in this situation, and I hate it.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

When you manage to make your AD 4 domain controllers large, with the FSMO holder being an ancient SBS 2008 box you've hacked the SBCore service out of so it doesn't die... you've got even larger issues.

Ahh that old "SBSCREXE.EXE" service to block via a registry edit....to prevent those hourly reboots once you ripped the fizzymo roles away from her when doing migrations....lol. Haven't seen or had to do that in like...over 15 years!

Yeah you've got a near vertical uphill battle here! I feel for ya!

 

[Sky-Knight]

Ahh that old "SBSCREXE.EXE" service to block via a registry edit....to prevent those hourly reboots once you ripped the fizzymo roles away from her when doing migrations....lol. Haven't seen or had to do that in like...over 15 years!

Yeah you've got a near vertical uphill battle here! I feel for ya!

Oh, he kindly LEFT the FSMO roles on the poor thing, along with all the redirected folders!

Oh... and the three 2016 Hypervisors? Yeah one of those has Veeam v10 on it, replicating VMs among the three hosts so he has a "backup" and each of the replica servers is living on 2-3 year old snapshots on the Hyper-V Side.

Then the vCPUs are misconfigured... but at this point I'm starting to nitpick.

By the way, this organization runs call centers for fire departments over a good portion of the US. This specific division handles the Portland OR area.

So if you're in that area, and the fire department doesn't make it to you or can't answer the phone... you'll know I failed.

 

[ThatPlace928]

That IT guy has the protection of the VP associated with the larger org that also got his position thanks to the purchase.

This is going to be your biggest hurdle. I hate office politics but have experienced it many, many times over the years, when I worked for an actual employer.

If it looks like you're beating your head against the wall in this meeting, perhaps you'd consider walking away to show the VP what his IT is not capable of?

I do sincerely wish you luck in this.

 

[britechguy]

I've been in this sort of situation, and the only thing you can do is "present, then walk."

Either the people "in charge" will see the merit of what you have presented, and change course, or they won't (for whatever reason doesn't matter).

There is absolutely, positively no use in "girding for battle" when you should not, under any circumstances, engage in battle. You're presenting the best options in your professional judgment, and that's all. It's up to the receiving end what is, or is not, done in light of those.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

By the way, this organization runs call centers for fire departments over a good portion of the US.

And people act shocked when our critical infrastructure services get ransom-wared...lol. Can't help but roll eyes!

We have a meet 'n greet at a potential new client next week, a firehouse over by my old home town. Hope to land it!

 

[Sky-Knight]

Turns out I was way over thinking this. The division has heavy equipment so old it's no longer licensable , it's also capable of doing rural fire rescue / emergency access construction. The CEO was expecting things to be a challenge at best, which helps.

Meeting excluded the errant VP and the problem IT guy, did include the current CEO. She's onboard, she gets it, knows it's no longer quick AND they're going to have to hotfoot bringing this errant division online with the new ERP. So all I have to do is map out all the applications, figure out where the user data is, and plan a migration for all the endpoints into the current production AD supporting the main enterprise.

A 50 endpoint migration isn't nearly as hard as fixing this mess... so now I'm off to develop an application and functionality map, downside... I'm going to have to lean on the IT "asset" to generate it. There's going to be so must trust but verify going on.... But it'll get done.

The hard part is going to be keeping this dumpster fire functional for this calendar year, because it'll take that long to get their financials moved.

 

[ThatPlace928]

Turns out I was way over thinking this. The division has heavy equipment so old it's no longer licensable , it's also capable of doing rural fire rescue / emergency access construction. The CEO was expecting things to be a challenge at best, which helps.

Meeting excluded the errant VP and the problem IT guy, did include the current CEO. She's onboard, she gets it, knows it's no longer quick AND they're going to have to hotfoot bringing this errant division online with the new ERP. So all I have to do is map out all the applications, figure out where the user data is, and plan a migration for all the endpoints into the current production AD supporting the main enterprise.

A 50 endpoint migration isn't nearly as hard as fixing this mess... so now I'm off to develop an application and functionality map, downside... I'm going to have to lean on the IT "asset" to generate it. There's going to be so must trust but verify going on.... But it'll get done.

The hard part is going to be keeping this dumpster fire functional for this calendar year, because it'll take that long to get their financials moved.

I'm really glad it went better than expected. I would have had the same thoughts and anxieties you did.

Nothing wrong with overthinking. It gave you the opportunity to run worst case scenarios through your head so you didn't expect peaches and cream, then have the meeting go the other way.

I'd rather be relieved than crushed.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I'm really glad it went better than expected. I would have had the same thoughts and anxieties you did.

Nothing wrong with overthinking. It gave you the opportunity to run worst case scenarios through your head so you didn't expect peaches and cream, then have the meeting go the other way.

I'd rather be relieved than crushed.

True, but it's bloody exhausting and it's just 1 of 17 projects I'm trying to get off the ground right now.

 

[ThatPlace928]

True, but it's bloody exhausting and it's just 1 of 17 projects I'm trying to get off the ground right now.

I can imagine how stressful it must be. But you got this.