Long the Anonymous Cogs in Corporate America's Back Office, Work-From-Home Crises Have Put the IT Department in the Spotlight (bloomberg.com) 76
In ordinary times, they moved among us largely unnoticed. Now we can't get enough of them. The Covid-19 pandemic has thrust once-anonymous IT support workers into a new role: corporate saviors. From a report: As millions of employees make the transition from well-maintained office equipment to jury-rigged kitchen table setups, information technology departments have been called upon to keep companies online and connected. Requests range in size and scale, from replacing employees' $5 mouses, to speeding up networks, to keeping multimillion-dollar data centers up and running. For many departments, the result has been virtually unprecedented workloads. On March 12, Qualcomm told all staff to prepare to start working remotely in three days. Vice president of IT infrastructure, Zeeshan Sabir, and his team then worked about 72 hours straight trying to prepare a lot of laptops for secure, remote access and get other corporate systems ready. "I just saw heroics," he said. "I didn't see a blip of complaint from anyone."
[...] The way most IT departments are set up has meant many directors have been juggling major issues alongside relatively minor ones. At Bay Area transit agency SamTrans, IT manager Edward Kelly got help from AT&T to quickly increase the speed of connections to the agency's networks once its 200 employees made the switch to remote work. At the same time, Kelly's team of five was flooded by calls from employees who'd forgotten their computer password and guessed wrong too many times. He said he's also hoping people learn to use the "reply-all" button on group emails more sparingly. As many employees' home computers infuriate them, tensions can run high, said Jennifer Reed, a consultant at IT outsourcing firm Viqtor Davis North America.
[...] The way most IT departments are set up has meant many directors have been juggling major issues alongside relatively minor ones. At Bay Area transit agency SamTrans, IT manager Edward Kelly got help from AT&T to quickly increase the speed of connections to the agency's networks once its 200 employees made the switch to remote work. At the same time, Kelly's team of five was flooded by calls from employees who'd forgotten their computer password and guessed wrong too many times. He said he's also hoping people learn to use the "reply-all" button on group emails more sparingly. As many employees' home computers infuriate them, tensions can run high, said Jennifer Reed, a consultant at IT outsourcing firm Viqtor Davis North America.
Wait, didn't I read a report just a day ago (Score:5, Funny)
that all IT is going to disappear?
What happened, is it Opposite day today?
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Long the Anonymous Cogs in Corporate America's Back Office, Work-From-Home Crises Have Put the IT Department in the Spotlight
Now you apologize
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We apologize for the faults in the post. Those responsible have been sacked.
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Yea, right. More likely scenario: "IT budget exceeded expectations in second quarter of 2020. Need to make XX IT positions redundant to offset extra costs by end of third quarter 2020."
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Done. Quarterly layoffis dumped another 45 or so folks.
[John]
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Re:Wait, didn't I read a report just a day ago (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the Bean Counters never had an Essential Expense bucket to classify groups into.
But companies have always seemed to have this Love-Hate relationship with IT
Here are some of the top reasons.
1. Educated labor force: Most IT workers have good education usually 2 years for entry-level most have 4 years and some people with masters and above. This for one makes them more expensive to hire. And secondly difficult to manage especially for a company that relies a lot on unskilled labor. We rarely ever do what management says, we will do what we feel like, often with the same goal of what management is trying to achieve. Often management is used to dealing with the "Yes Boss" response. Not "I won't work like that. Let figure out the specs in more detail" which drives them nuts, as it seems that we are exceeding our authority.
2. IT Staff expensive and need expensive stuff. We *gasp* have a middle-class salary, and will often need millions of dollars of equipment, for the business to operate. We are not profit centers, so IT is still an expense on the budget sheet, and often big enough to be noticed, and not stuffed under Other.
3. When IT is done right, it is like nothing is done at all. So it seems that things are running well, that you should shrink your IT Staffing because that is a lot of money that doesn't seem to be fixing anything. However, a lot of the work is to make it invisible. So the CEO doesn't need to call you or have to report the status of the latest incident. I have found within 1 quarter after significant IT Staff reduction IT problems start building up and the company usually has increasing more problems with their daily operation, and needing to hire staff again (then expensive because turnover costs are high)
4. IT has to work around the limitations of the Computer. Often a simple request isn't simple to do. The Computer is both your Best Employee and your worst. The Best AI has the IQ of your Dog, where it can learn. But it is slow, and will not be forward-thinking. But it is tireless so it will do a job even if it isn't as fast as a person would do it over a long period of time. If there is a problem, the computer will do it wrong until manually stopped. So when a request comes in we really need to know all the cases, and cover any ambiguity concerns. And this may take more time then it would for someone to do it themselves.
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Most of the Bean Counters never had an Essential Expense bucket to classify groups into.
Sure they do: CEO's pay, CEO's bonuses, CEO's hookers, CEO's blow, CEO etc.
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if IT is playing pure Mr. No they aren't doing their jobs properly; but if they are failing to analyze the details and warn people that "this thing you want is going to present a serious risk unless we do something more complicated and expensive that looks like an identical outcome from your p
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IT plays 'Mr. No' when they aren't funded or staffed properly. (or mismanaged, but that's another story)
If you stretch a department too thin and then try to add even more work...well they usually say no. The smart managers always say 'yes, but i'll need that funded' ... which works for a while but eventually becomes it's own battleground.
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all IT is going to disappear
Fear not. This pandemic is a minor speed bump on management's rush to outsource the whole operation. In spite of recent lessons learned to the contrary.
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Lesson learned if IT works 72 hours without breaks, the solution gets in place, where it would normally take months.
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the solution gets in place
Except that comments don't get added, documentation doesn't get written and the source gets misplaced. Yeah, it works. But when you bring that next group of Cobol programmers in in 20 years, nobody will be able to figure the stuff out.
Re: Wait, didn't I read a report just a day ago (Score:2)
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Exactly this.
And this is EXACTLY how IT departments have been surviving for a long while now. They're given impossible demands and pitiful budgets and ... the VP level folks who 'own IT' dgaf so they make promises to their bosses in order to make their bonuses. Promises of cost cutting, better metrics, etc. etc. etc.
So IT cuts corners where they have to...nothing gets documented. Nothing gets maintained. It becomes a huge game of whack-a-mole that you can't ever win. This is why, post-covid19, I fully
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I want to say "yes", but I'll go with "no" just to not make unsure it isn't confusing to you.
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Oh, please, IT is never "in the spotlight" (Score:5, Informative)
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No I'm supposed to help people get their work done and then get paid. I'm not required to be happy about anything.
And when this shit is all over with....you can fully expect that IT will be quickly forgotten about.
Re: Oh, please, IT is never "in the spotlight" (Score:1)
IT is still a service. And the LJ5 up on third floor isn't loading it's own toner cartridge. Chop chop, IT boy.
Really, when I worked in a firmware development lab, we didn't let IT touch any of the machines in there. Go work on the receptionists digital pendiflex.
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To be fair they were no more antisocial nuts than most of the white-collar workers.
However, after 20 years or so, these guys realized that they knew stuff that would make firing them expensive, so they were able to do stuff that other jobs would just fire the person on the spot.
Back in the 1990s the Old IT Guy who was the cranky antisocial nut, who was also the only person that could keep the mainframe working, would do things like go to the bathroom in the potted plants, dress in rags, and just be rude to
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Technology ceased to be magic many, many years ago when everybody acquired a device in their pocket that could search the world's knowledge or make Pokemon appear in the aisles of Wal-Mart.
If you work in tech you have to find your own satisfaction in making a dozen tiny miracles happen every day. It will rarely, if ever, be given to you. Ubiquity killed the mystery.
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Technology ceased to be magic many, many years ago when everybody acquired a device in their pocket that could search the world's knowledge or make Pokemon appear in the aisles of Wal-Mart.
If you work in tech you have to find your own satisfaction in making a dozen tiny miracles happen every day. It will rarely, if ever, be given to you. Ubiquity killed the mystery.
Yep. My most common issue that I contact IT for is our remote updating program disabling the wireless cards on our laptops, so sometimes when I work from home I have to plug into a wired connection, call IT, have them remote in, wait for them go through their script, then reenable the wireless card. All told, about a 30-45 minute ordeal. Or, if it wasn't locked down, I could have it fixed on my own in less than 2 minutes.
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> Or, if it wasn't locked down, I could have it fixed on my own in less than 2 minutes.
Yep, and your paycheck could be going to somewhere in Russia 2 minutes after that. Swings and roundabounts...
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40 years working with computers ( since I was 7 ) and everyday I look for little miracles. You just think for second how much kit and knowledge has gone into allowing me to type nonsense into box on a "TV screen" and then have 250 people read it in seconds and consider me a complete dickwad, they can even reply and tell you so! Tech is great! ha ha!
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Chill out, dickwad.
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The problem is we don't get the visibility that we often deserve.
The accountants have to show their results to the CEO, where they get to talk to them and know them personally. While IT are those guys in the basement. and the CEO may just talk to the CIO. So we are just a faceless expense on the books.
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Getting fucked by the unicorn doesn't count.
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Wait, are you saying PornHub doesn't count?
Around where I work IT has been heroic for a while (Score:2)
We are an exception I guess.
Password resets are self-service. If you can remember your name, you're well on your way to resetting any password, not just login, but various internal systems. I now have 31 different passwords to track. If I have my phone, I have the 2FA needed to reset any of them, even setting in a Starbucks, which I can't sit in right now.
We've converted our front line workforce from 0% WAH to 70%. No one who has an Internet connection and a place for a 14" laptop has to stop work. Worldwid
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IT was ready for this before it happened, as just about everyone seems to have laptops now instead of desktop units. The headache from working at home is lack of access to stuff that isn't computing (the lab, equipment, supplies, etc).
I have a relative who just took a new job. He accepted before the lockdown, but his job started after lockdown. He had his new computer shipped to him. But after a couple of weeks he still has not gotten access to the files he needs and IT seems incapable of helping him.
This sure aged well... (Score:1)
This headline sure aged well...
https://it.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]
IT Isn't hard but it is Complex (Score:3)
One of the things that companies don't realize is how Complex a proper IT infrastructure is. The Execs will see the jobs that IT does as nothing in particular difficult. However, there are a lot of simple steps, with many simple steps have effects that hit elsewhere, as well as planning for the future.
I will often get my request denied because I do not have a concrete example of why I need something, only to need it in an emergency (often at emergency pricing) later because the concrete example came into play.
Things like, should our VoIP office phones be able to work from home? They will often respond No, we want people to be at the office using their phones, they can use their cell phones when they are working off-hours from work. Now, that the workforce is working from home we are finding that cell phones are not optimal for telephone calls all day. So IT is rushing to come up with a solution to get this working securely. Where it could have been a no brainer if it was set up for secure home use from when it was implemented.
Part of the problem with IT is when we do our job right, it is like we didn't do anything at all. When they don't get what they need, and just don't trust them to make wise decisions, then we have problems that shouldn't be.
IT is getting the spotlight now because all the warnings and requests we had put in, is shown to be needed now. And now we are rushing to get everything in place, where companies are spending millions of extra dollars for stuff, that could have been thousands of dollars just a few weeks ago. With a couple of IT workers getting the project working in a few weeks. Without Executive oversight and when the problem did happen, we would be yea we are fine.
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One of the things that companies don't realize is how Complex a proper IT infrastructure is. The Execs will see the jobs that IT does as nothing in particular difficult. However, there are a lot of simple steps, with many simple steps have effects that hit elsewhere, as well as planning for the future.
That just seems like a convoluted way of saying it's hard.
Biggest challenge (Score:1)
The biggest challenge we're currently facing within my organization is hardware procurement... We pretty quickly ran through our warehouse stock of everything from laptops to docking stations, monitors, UPS's, to even display cables and it's been hell trying to get more in stock. Orders we placed at the start of March are only now beginning to ship out.
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FWIW, our team took desktops off the desks and issued them to converted WAH staff. We also, due to fortuitous chance, had a huge stock of spares on the shelf. Chance... Display cables were the tough spot, but the deployed desktops can use HDMI, DisplayPort, or VGA interchangeably. Cables were found.
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Yup, my wife simply brought her office desktop PC home with her. tower, cables, two monitors...
IT helpdesk experience just now (Score:2)
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Obligatory IT Crowd [youtube.com]
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Probably because IT support pays peanuts to any other tech job, so any competent staff you have will, and should, go somewhere more competent.
You get what you pay for and no one cares about this.
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IT is now a cookie cutter job. You don't go to school for it, instead you get certificates from a Microsoft indoctrination class. Then they try to upgrade your Macbook to Windows 10...
The problem with cookie cutter jobs is that 1) it is very difficult to compete against a million people with identical skills all applying for the same jobs, 2) the salary goes way down because someone can do the same job better and more cheaply. The solution to this is to stop trying to be a cookie cutter worker, be unique,
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You mean the guys who make hindi games?
Just wait until October (Score:5, Insightful)
When the pandemic is either over or became the new normal, suddenly companies will be laying off IT staff to be replaced by offshore teams.
Since everyone are already working remotely, it doesn't matter where they are anymore.
Re: Just wait until October (Score:2)
As much as I don't like saying this now or in the before article, I believe this very well may become the case. While I personally don't care where the person I'm talking to is, if rather them be at home in a different state than 14 hours away by flight for latency alone. What I hope is people get tired of being at home and want to go to work just to get out of the house and be around different people, even if they don't like those very same people. If not, IT is going to get really weird looking for the IT
In the spotlight for the same reasons as always... (Score:5, Insightful)
Scenario #1
Status: Everything is working according to user experience
Response: "Nothing's broken. What do we even pay you for?"
Headlines: "IT Jobs to Succumb to Robots, Automation, and AI"
Scenario #2
Status: Things are breaking, resources are not available
Response: "This isn't working. What do we even pay you for?"
Headlines: "IT Workers Scrambling to Keep Up"
IT people need a professional organization (Score:3)
Information cost - IT salaries (Score:2)
Great (Score:2)
Now I just have more manufactured emergencies to deal with. Nothing changed really, just more people expect me to jump when they snap their fingers.
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If Thanos calls, don't answer.
Non paywalled .. (Score:2)
Oh shut up you big babies (Score:2)
"an anonymous cog" indeed. EVERYONE'S AN ANONYMOUS COG.
Except maybe sales, they're pretty sure they're the most awesome important thing ever.
We did it (Score:1)
Whe company I work for set up and got aproximatly 20,000 workers working from home in a matter of 1 week - we were only set up for about 10% of that number, while maintainig BAU and averting outages.
Truely an amazing task
For a short while (Score:3)
In my business, we have no customers, so we have no revenue. IT is surely the last to be let go, but if there is no business, they no longer need an IT department either.
This crisis is fucking everyone. I got everyone working from home in the last few weeks, which has been put on the back burner for years before this. But most of the jobs at my org are customer facing. We are completely shut down for the foreseeable future. There has been layoffs, about half the staff 150 or so. With management desperately trying to secure government money to keep going.
Most businesses are ultimately at the mercy of their customers patronage. Besides annual licensing, and software to deal with working remotely (eg zoom), all other spending has been put on hold now. So we are not spending money, which means other businesses in the economy are not getting that money. Its a huge fucking set of dominoes that WILL effect your business very soon, if it has not already.
We are in a major depression, the effects of which will be felt for years to come.
I work in this hell (Score:2)
same old, same old (Score:3)
not much difference to how it was before, or do they think all the network connected things they have been using for years and years just magically work by themselves?