June 19, 2018 at 1:43 pm
I spend only 20% of my time in management console. The rest 80% I spend in ITSM, creating change requests, with so many many fields that it takes minimum 20 mins to fill it correctly, and in Exchange, seeking for approvals.
Recently I spent approx 8 hours approving the change, and 5 mins executing it.
It becomes worse every month. I believe it is professional degradation. Instead of learning new features I learn how the field Notes must be formatted so CAB approves it.
How much bureaucracy do you have in your life?
June 19, 2018 at 2:48 pm
How many hours per day do you work?
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
June 19, 2018 at 3:06 pm
Jeff Moden - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 2:48 PMHow many hours per day do you work?
Difficult to say. I also check the alerts and participate in many meetings, most of them are not in my time zone and are quite late, so it is spread over the whole day, but I don't work a lot... Life/work balance is good in the company where I work.
June 19, 2018 at 7:37 pm
Do you spend any time outside of work, on your own, learning new features?
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
June 20, 2018 at 1:39 am
Jeff Moden - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 7:37 PMDo you spend any time outside of work, on your own, learning new features?
Yes, I have time to learn new things. However, the situation is very depressing. 10y ago it was a startup, evolved into a bigger successful company, then acquired by even bigger monster. For some time the account of bureaucracy was reasonable, but now the old company culture is melting into a bigger company culture, like liquid terminator at the end of "Terminator 2"
And the bigger company culture... It is quite old. Imagine, you work with modern GUI, and people tell you: it looks so nice... But we have standards here, 80 positions and 25 lines monospaced, so replace all that graphics with the ascii art)
So for me this journey is going back in time. Depressing and demotivated. Not only bad but becomibg worse every day. I read email and say, OMG, now I can't do also this and that...
June 20, 2018 at 7:29 am
Heh... been there and done that. I absolutely feel for you. It's amazing how company mergers can destroy a culture.
Have you spoken with your boss about your justifiable concerns of being pigeon-holed and the feeling of no longer being able to "make a difference" or are they a part of the problem?
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
June 20, 2018 at 9:26 am
Jeff Moden - Wednesday, June 20, 2018 7:29 AMHeh... been there and done that. I absolutely feel for you. It's amazing how company mergers can destroy a culture.Have you spoken with your boss about your justifiable concerns of being pigeon-holed and the feeling of no longer being able to "make a difference" or are they a part of the problem?
Yes, many times.. Also, I have approx 5 different managers (different story, but at least this is fun). They listen, and nothing happens. Looks like until everything works, all complains are ignored. To some extent, it makes sense.
Looks like only failure makes a difference. An "Italian strike" - just follow the rules they insist on, and when some important business updates miss the hard deadline there is a s&@tstorm from business + they start to fix the system.
May be another good thing is that I train my EQ a lot and easily read between the lines even in the emails
Please share your experience, how difficult it was (in the worst case) to make a significant change to PROD?
June 20, 2018 at 6:59 pm
tzimie - Wednesday, June 20, 2018 9:26 AMJeff Moden - Wednesday, June 20, 2018 7:29 AMHeh... been there and done that. I absolutely feel for you. It's amazing how company mergers can destroy a culture.Have you spoken with your boss about your justifiable concerns of being pigeon-holed and the feeling of no longer being able to "make a difference" or are they a part of the problem?
Yes, many times.. Also, I have approx 5 different managers (different story, but at least this is fun). They listen, and nothing happens. Looks like until everything works, all complains are ignored. To some extent, it makes sense.
Looks like only failure makes a difference. An "Italian strike" - just follow the rules they insist on, and when some important business updates miss the hard deadline there is a s&@tstorm from business + they start to fix the system.
May be another good thing is that I train my EQ a lot and easily read between the lines even in the emails
Please share your experience, how difficult it was (in the worst case) to make a significant change to PROD?
Heh... having grown up mostly in Rhode Island, I definitely understand the term "Italian Strike". It's a wicked powerful tool and my phrase for it is to "Give them the opportunity to fail". That's NOT to be mistaken with "setting them up for failure". It means what you explained... they want it their way and, because your suggestions fall on deaf ears, you sometimes have to resort to doing it exactly that way knowing full well that the bottom will fall out and then being ready with not only the better way, but with the right kind of damage controls/repairs at the ready when their way rolls a 7. That's sometimes the only way I've been able to get someone to listen to me about what needs to be done in PROD. All it requires is patience and being able to very quickly reverse the damage and implement the better way. You only need to win one or two "fights" this way and people start to listen to you because you've clearly demonstrated the habit of being both right and ready. Of course, there's the danger there is that there's always that one moroff that sided with the bosses and when the bottom falls out, will suggest what you suggested but as if it were his idea. That's why timing is also a critical issue.
The only other way to get management to move on a suggestion is to really do your homework and come up with a presentation that clearly demonstrates the ROI (whether it's tangible as money or intangible as it preventing the loss of customers or new business or not being able to handle the load of known new business that's looming).
On that note, one of the most powerful tools is to create a test and test code that clearly demonstrates what's going to happen and code that demonstrates the fix as well as a plan to make the fix as painless as possible with the understanding that no change is painless. That's where that ROI thing comes in to play.
Off course, some bureaucracies are impenetrable in their DILIGAF "don't rock the boat" status quo "we've never done it hat way before" positions. That's when you have a choice... enjoy the 3 weeks paid vacation you're probably getting and, especially if you live close to work, just ride the wave of apathy or, especially since you're currently employed and don't have to "settle" for just finding a source of income, start looking for a better job now. Just make sure to ask the right questions during the interview(s) to ensure that you're not just jumping from fat to fire.
To that end, sometimes the stars align just right and when they do, you need to be ready. When I knew that the bureaucracy that was omnipresent at one company I worked for was both wrong for me (and the company) and unswayable, I actually cold-called a company that I DID want to work for (and had studied to the point where I knew more about the company than some of the people doing the interviews), landed a phone interview and two on site interviews in two days, went through the interviews (which also had the infamous "So what do you know about our company and what do you think you can do for us" questions), and had a letter of acceptance 3 days later.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
June 20, 2018 at 7:03 pm
p.s. No matter what happens, burn NO bridges if you decide to leave or even if you decide to stay. It's a very, very small world and you may have an opportunity some day that won't work out because one of the people you burned a bridge on happens to work at that opportunity. Word will also spread like wildfire amongst recruiters and they won't want to handle you if you need them to. ALWAYS be professional about it all no matter how bad it gets. Always.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
June 21, 2018 at 6:43 am
Jeff Moden - Wednesday, June 20, 2018 7:03 PMp.s. No matter what happens, burn NO bridges if you decide to leave or even if you decide to stay. It's a very, very small world and you may have an opportunity some day that won't work out because one of the people you burned a bridge on happens to work at that opportunity. Word will also spread like wildfire amongst recruiters and they won't want to handle you if you need them to. ALWAYS be professional about it all no matter how bad it gets. Always.
Sure, I don't want to burn bridges. There some bright things in the company, I enjoy 4 weeks vacation (but not more than 2 weeks in a row) + 1 week after New Year (national holidays), I can work from home any time I want, and many other good things - otherwise I would quit a long time ago. I will observe the situation for a year or so.
But sometimes I am thinking that it would be so fun work again in a startup, getting a script from a developer and putting it to PROD in minutes)))
June 21, 2018 at 8:54 am
I've never enjoyed working for a company that allowed Dev to Prod deployments in minutes. Too much time ends up being spent fixing stuff and too many customers are lost due to bad referrals, which can and does crush many a startup.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
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