Misreply.org

Whenever you get called into your VPs office almost as soon as you come in, you just have a feeling that it can’t be for a good reason.

“Luke…modo….can you come into my office for a bit?”
“Umm sure”, we both respond.
“If you have an iced tea or soda, bring that with you, we might be there a while”, says Andy.

No warning given, no topic thrown out…just a simple “come into my office” sounds almost dangerous. I almost wish I DID have an iced tea with me, so I could gulp down whatever was acting as the metaphorical blockage in my throat.

Was it something we had done? At work, I stick to my guns, and that causes somewhat of a rift between Corporate IT (me) and the customer network admins. They are Andy’s boys, hired personally, and preferred in the company. Often times, they think that they can have their say in terms of what happens on the corporate side. I disagree…while the network may be unified, I will not let anyone tell me how to run my network, my servers and how to treat my users. Sounds childish, I realize this, but having an element of control not only is self-satisfying, but also job security. What they do not understand is that people at Corporate are not customers, and should not be treated as such. At Corporate, you have the CEO, COO, and every VP and Director in the company. They do not want to feel restricted, and they want personal attention; attention that Modo and I are able to provide.

Just recently, we had a discussion about our switches. They want to replace our current switches with the latest and greatest. While I’m all for having cool new stuff to play with, I somehow do not think I would be allowed to. This would seem rather strange, to deny the network admin on site access to the local switches, but I felt that was what we were moving towards. They had already requested access to our network equipment, and I was forced to grant it at the request of the VP. No matter who you are, you don’t say no to the VP, no matter how much you disagree. I failed to see the point…why do they need telnet and enable access to our stuff? Simple answer is: They don’t. The switches here were configured correctly, vlaned properly, and connected in such a way that no single link was disastrous. We could lose a switch and traffic would still be routed around it. Well, so I gave them the passwords…I caved. However, that was only temporary, in my eyes. A week or so later, I telnetted into the switches and was going to change them again. I managed to change the enable password on all of the switches, and was able to change the telnet on all but one. That was odd…the old telnet password does not work? “sh users”. Figures…..one of them is on, and apparently doing exactly what I’m doing…changing passwords. They are already trying to deny me access to my own equipment. Are they really that worried about their jobs that they want to take over part of mine? I don’t fuck with their shit…they shouldn’t be fucking with mine. A few minutes later, I get an email from them, with the VP as a cc asking if I had changed the passwords. I told them “Well, I tried to change passwords, but my old one doesn’t work anymore.” Silence. Usually they respond instantly, but they had been caught in the act, and had nothing to say. Magically…an hour later, my old password works again. Hah….yea…nice try guys.

“Why do we need new switches?”, I asked. “These are old, they don’t support ifaliasing…[etc]“, responds x’douche #1. Ok…why is that even an issue, I thought to myself. You can still lookup port names, just not over SNMP. “But they aren’t broken, and we dont poll port names via SNMP”, I respond. “Oh, but that’s the thing… they ARE broken”. At this point we started going back and forth about how these switches have worked for years, they have a plethora of gigabit ports, and they support everything I need them to support. Apparently that was not good enough, even though it would make no financial sense at all to get new switches to replaces ones that are still under warranty.

I thought this meeting could have had something to do with coordination between CorpIT and them. Who knows…who cares?

Both of us, who make up the entire department basically, walked over. It could be something completely different, perhaps we were being reprimanded or worse? The walk around the corner does not leave you with much time to think, and perhaps that is for the better. Less time to worry, less time to overload your own brain with what is about to happen.

We sat down, and glanced at Andy’s face, which was contorted in a manner which revealed nothing. It could have been a scowl, it could have been the famous “I know something you don’t know” look, or it could have been worry.

“So, what’s up?”. asked either Dennis or I (who exactly said it are the kinds of details I don’t consider important enough to remember).
“Well…I don’t know how to say this…but the company is doing a pretty massive downsizing”
Oh shit….
Well that just sucks. I knew I should have been more responsible with money…I knew I shouldn’t have bought that motor for the Mustang…I knew I shouldn’t have fucked around with the X’douches.
“Oh, but don’t worry, you guys are safe”, he quickly added.
Whew…damn. Not sure if I should be relieved or horror struck by what he could possibly say next.
“…but Bob (not his real name) isn’t”.

“Bob” is our direct boss. He is the Director of both IT and IS for the company. Modo and I reported directly to him, and were unfortunate enough to have his desk overlooking ours. He was a cool dude, hailing from India, and having previous experiences all over the world in corporations such as IBM. He was a smart dude, and made what I assumed to be very decent money. He had just bought a new Acura MDX, he had bought a $350,000 home in King of Prussia, and just had a baby.

I understood the decision though, as remorseful as I felt about it. Bob was not a necessity to the company, and was bringing in a director level salary. Lately, with his baby’s health, and his wife starting a new job…he had been slacking a bit in attendance. He showed up late some days, took other days off (technically, they call it “working from home”, but I know better that that really means), and left early at times.

He was currently in the middle of a three week vacation. The man got canned and he isn’t even here to find out about it. How much does THAT suck…being let go while on vacation.

“But don’t tell him if you talk to him, or email him. I think I should be the one to tell him….that and I don’t want to ruin his vacation”, he added. Makes sense to me, I would not want to be the recipient of a phone call while I am sipping margaritas on the beach (as that would be MY vacation) telling me that I don’t need to hurry back. In Bob’s case, I’m sure it would involve something with curry and belly dancers, but who knows.

Among those let go were our graphic designer and some of our legacy employees left over from the satellite days. That was just corporate… there were a few people laid off from Texas as well: installers, tower crews, sales managers. But I was safe, and that is what mattered to me.

We sat there for another hour or so shooting the shit about the various changes that were going to go on in the company.

The next day Modo tells me that Apple Vacations had called him back. He was being offered a position as a Network Engineer in their PA office, with a nice pay increase. It made sense…he had been here for about eight years, which is a long time in today’s job market. It was time to advance his career, time to shake things up, and to leave for a company that has a stable future. Having just narrowly escaped with his job, it was not a feeling he wanted to experience again.

Now, nobody knows what the hell is going on. I neither have a boss nor a co-worker, so there is no corporate IT beyond me. Does this mean I am not going to change departments, or does it mean that new people will be brought in? I posed the question, and received no answer. Nobody here knows what the hell is going on.

At least I still have a job…

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