4 ms·

Talk to him, recognizing that you may be getting a very jaded opinion. Also, I think it's a perfectly relevant question for you to ask for a ballpark dollar amo

by JunkDNA 17y ago

Talk to him, recognizing that you may be getting a very jaded opinion. Also, I think it's a perfectly relevant question for you to ask for a ballpark dollar amount of your budget and what they expect you to accomplish. I've intentionally stayed away from positions where it looked like I was going to be a "team" of one doing work that really needs 5 or 6 people to be done right. I think this is a similar situation.

andreyf 17y ago
Just to chime on on the opposite: don't talk to him, because you are nothing like the last guy. Approach everyone without second thoughts, form your own opinions, and convince them of a budget the last guy never dreamed of :) That said, make sure your expectations regarding budgets/output match your employers' expectations, but that has nothing to do with the last guy.
- SwellJoe 17y ago
  More information never hurts. Talking to the prior IT guy does no harm, and might do some good, both for OP and for the company he'd be working for. This is not a time for seeking zen enlightenment in just being in the moment with no awareness of the past; learn from others and their past mistakes.
  - andreyf 17y ago
    More information never hurts Of course it does! It biases you in a way which is completely unnecessary - whatever your questions and concerns are, bring them up with the people you will be working. If you aren't comfortable asking direct questions and need to go with a guy who got fired, you shouldn't be in a management position to begin with.
    - SwellJoe 17y ago
      It biases you in a way which is completely unnecessary If you aren't comfortable asking direct questions and need to go with a guy who got fired, you shouldn't be in a management position to begin with. If you can't take in multiple opinions and judge the worth of them, then you definitely shouldn't be in any position where you have to interact with people or technology. You also shouldn't be allowed on the Internet, lest you hurt yourself or others with horrible advice. Your advice here is just so wrong that I can't even reasonably see a way for this to be a devil's advocate kind of position. Ignoring available data before you know which data sources are accurate is foolish. The guy resigned or got fired or whatever; OP only knows the non-technical hiring interviewer's side of the story (and that's filtered through CYA). We don't know that the former IT guy is bitter in ways that would make him an unreliable source of information, you're just assuming he is. We don't know that the hiring interviewer understood anything the former IT guys said, ever, about anything, including why he was dissatisfied; you're just assuming he does. I don't care anything about the politics and crap that other folks seem to want to bring up. A new IT guy needs to communicate with the old one in order to do a good job. It's not optional. The reason the old IT guy is available to talk is, I assume, because he believes in that professional courtesy even if he doesn't think much of his former employer. I have never left an IT gig without at least a day of knowledge transfer, and any IT guy that would is not fit to do the job. Have you ever worked in an IT position? Arguing against talking to the old IT guy is like arguing against washing hands. Best practices like these should not be mocked or made light of.
      - andreyf 17y ago
        The opinions of a ex-employee are more noise than signal. You're not dating, you're doing a job - make sure expectations match up, and if they do, accept the offer, and do your best. What an ex-employee thinks about the people is completely irrelevant to the job that needs to be done. Arguing against talking to the old IT guy is like arguing against washing hands We're not talking about transferring technical know-how - that would be a question of brining him on as a consultant.
- jerf 17y ago
  In addition to SwellJoe's point, which I endorse, I'd also add that this is a non-profit. You think profit-making companies treat IT as a cost center? Just wait until you've seen a nonprofit. Consider a non-profit meant to help the homeless; it is a trivial exercise to compute how many meals for the homeless the IT budget is costing you. How do you expect to compete against that? Convincing them that spending a bit more could reduce net costs is going to be an even larger uphill battle, no matter how rationally right you are. (Assuming you are at all right anyhow.)
  - sstrudeau 17y ago
    And even if the management (all the way up to the Executive Director) can see through the fog of their daily firefighting to see the potential of expanded an IT budget to make the overall mission more effective & efficient they often can't shake money loose to do so because their donors insist that their dollars go toward costs directly associated with serving the bottom-line mission of the organization (e.g., to pay for meals served at a soup kitchen); not for organizational "overhead." Grants exist for tech-oriented projects, but it's very difficult to be adaptive & iterative because the grant life-cycle is measured in years. Not very "agile." Apply for a grant to make an improvement X using technology Y this year. Next year, receive the grant but realize that improving X is no longer relevant or technology Y is no longer optimal and you risk your grant funding by changing course or stay your course and achieve a non-optimal (or irrelevant) goal. Extremely frustrating. Incentives in the non-profit world (especially for charities & social services) are really skewed because the people paying for the services are not the same people receiving the services, and the demand for services is essentially unlimited.

by JunkDNA 17y ago

andreyf 17y ago

Just to chime on on the opposite: don't talk to him, because you are nothing like the last guy. Approach everyone without second thoughts, form your own opinions, and convince them of a budget the last guy never dreamed of :) That said, make sure your expectations regarding budgets/output match your employers' expectations, but that has nothing to do with the last guy.

SwellJoe 17y ago
More information never hurts. Talking to the prior IT guy does no harm, and might do some good, both for OP and for the company he'd be working for. This is not a time for seeking zen enlightenment in just being in the moment with no awareness of the past; learn from others and their past mistakes.
- andreyf 17y ago
  More information never hurts Of course it does! It biases you in a way which is completely unnecessary - whatever your questions and concerns are, bring them up with the people you will be working. If you aren't comfortable asking direct questions and need to go with a guy who got fired, you shouldn't be in a management position to begin with.
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    It biases you in a way which is completely unnecessary If you aren't comfortable asking direct questions and need to go with a guy who got fired, you shouldn't be in a management position to begin with. If you can't take in multiple opinions and judge the worth of them, then you definitely shouldn't be in any position where you have to interact with people or technology. You also shouldn't be allowed on the Internet, lest you hurt yourself or others with horrible advice. Your advice here is just so wrong that I can't even reasonably see a way for this to be a devil's advocate kind of position. Ignoring available data before you know which data sources are accurate is foolish. The guy resigned or got fired or whatever; OP only knows the non-technical hiring interviewer's side of the story (and that's filtered through CYA). We don't know that the former IT guy is bitter in ways that would make him an unreliable source of information, you're just assuming he is. We don't know that the hiring interviewer understood anything the former IT guys said, ever, about anything, including why he was dissatisfied; you're just assuming he does. I don't care anything about the politics and crap that other folks seem to want to bring up. A new IT guy needs to communicate with the old one in order to do a good job. It's not optional. The reason the old IT guy is available to talk is, I assume, because he believes in that professional courtesy even if he doesn't think much of his former employer. I have never left an IT gig without at least a day of knowledge transfer, and any IT guy that would is not fit to do the job. Have you ever worked in an IT position? Arguing against talking to the old IT guy is like arguing against washing hands. Best practices like these should not be mocked or made light of.
    - andreyf 17y ago
      The opinions of a ex-employee are more noise than signal. You're not dating, you're doing a job - make sure expectations match up, and if they do, accept the offer, and do your best. What an ex-employee thinks about the people is completely irrelevant to the job that needs to be done. Arguing against talking to the old IT guy is like arguing against washing hands We're not talking about transferring technical know-how - that would be a question of brining him on as a consultant.
jerf 17y ago
In addition to SwellJoe's point, which I endorse, I'd also add that this is a non-profit. You think profit-making companies treat IT as a cost center? Just wait until you've seen a nonprofit. Consider a non-profit meant to help the homeless; it is a trivial exercise to compute how many meals for the homeless the IT budget is costing you. How do you expect to compete against that? Convincing them that spending a bit more could reduce net costs is going to be an even larger uphill battle, no matter how rationally right you are. (Assuming you are at all right anyhow.)
- sstrudeau 17y ago
  And even if the management (all the way up to the Executive Director) can see through the fog of their daily firefighting to see the potential of expanded an IT budget to make the overall mission more effective & efficient they often can't shake money loose to do so because their donors insist that their dollars go toward costs directly associated with serving the bottom-line mission of the organization (e.g., to pay for meals served at a soup kitchen); not for organizational "overhead." Grants exist for tech-oriented projects, but it's very difficult to be adaptive & iterative because the grant life-cycle is measured in years. Not very "agile." Apply for a grant to make an improvement X using technology Y this year. Next year, receive the grant but realize that improving X is no longer relevant or technology Y is no longer optimal and you risk your grant funding by changing course or stay your course and achieve a non-optimal (or irrelevant) goal. Extremely frustrating. Incentives in the non-profit world (especially for charities & social services) are really skewed because the people paying for the services are not the same people receiving the services, and the demand for services is essentially unlimited.