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It seems like a lot of your dislike of the IT department is a redirected dislike of these policies enforced by IT. In most law firms, government, and big finan

It seems like a lot of your dislike of the IT department is a redirected dislike of these policies enforced by IT. In most law firms, government, and big finance you will likely encounter a lot of these sort of policies. Some of these policies make sense, even though the reasoning is not obvious. The policies are created because of constraints around laws and auditing and they can result in some nasty solutions. Other policies probably just don't make any sense, but that is just life. Making IT's life hard by trying to get around the policies likely doesn't really help anyone -- it is just being an ass. Assuming a policy doesn't make sense because you can't see the reason for it is arrogant - even if you are right 95% of the time. Same goes for assuming you could come up with a better solution without knowing the constraints the IT department faces. The solution for programmers that hate this sort of thing seems straight forward -- don't work in these sorts of businesses -- develop your chops so you can land a job in a hot startup (or a business that has that atmosphere) where you get the best gear and can do whatever you want. Or maybe start your own business or freelance. Until you get there, don't take out your frustrations on your coworkers by trying to bypass them -- that is just childish. For people in IT, they should be aware if they are not in a business that requires these sort of frustrating policies, they should not be trying to implement them unless they really have to. Those are the IT guys people have the right to dislike. They try to turn a small fun start up into some sort of draconian government institution because of some personal insecurities or they think that is just how it is done. In short, be aware of the sort of industry you working in, or might work in, and what to expect there.

quanticle 15y ago
Getting around the policies just to get around the policies makes you an ass, I agree. Getting around the policies to do your job, on the other hand, does not. I worked at a firm where I was asked by a VP to perform some testing on a VM. The VP wanted the test results by the end of the week. IT said that it would take at least three weeks to approve the specific VM software for my machine, even though there were other developers already using the software. End result? I ended up installing it and doing my job without IT's permission. I had made sure to get everything in writing from the executive, so I could show IT my reasoning if I was ever called out for it. I'm not proud of what I did, but I don't think I should have to ask permission in order to do my job.
- gatlin 15y ago
  That's actually very similar to my situation, and I sympathize. I was told verbally that I could use IIS, Access, and Perl (I didn't know it at the time) to whip up my project. And then inexplicably a number of Perl tutorials were flagged by the agency firewall at the time. Also, I tend to read sites like this one in case something useful comes up - and of course, these kinds of sites are blocked. I illicitly installed IIS, Access, and Perl while waiting for approval and the day the guy came in to install I faked some meeting so he'd come back in 20 minutes, uninstalled everything, and then let him install things. But that's not as funny to me as the original telling.
gatlin 15y ago
I didn't elaborate my original story for brevity. Their firewall inexplicably blocked some technical articles I was trying to read for my job. So Firefox through my own proxy was the only way. Also, I reported all these tricks when I left. I hope they read my emails. As for seizing root on my current machine - okay, you got me.

quanticle 15y ago

Getting around the policies just to get around the policies makes you an ass, I agree. Getting around the policies to do your job, on the other hand, does not. I worked at a firm where I was asked by a VP to perform some testing on a VM. The VP wanted the test results by the end of the week. IT said that it would take at least three weeks to approve the specific VM software for my machine, even though there were other developers already using the software. End result? I ended up installing it and doing my job without IT's permission. I had made sure to get everything in writing from the executive, so I could show IT my reasoning if I was ever called out for it. I'm not proud of what I did, but I don't think I should have to ask permission in order to do my job.

gatlin 15y ago
That's actually very similar to my situation, and I sympathize. I was told verbally that I could use IIS, Access, and Perl (I didn't know it at the time) to whip up my project. And then inexplicably a number of Perl tutorials were flagged by the agency firewall at the time. Also, I tend to read sites like this one in case something useful comes up - and of course, these kinds of sites are blocked. I illicitly installed IIS, Access, and Perl while waiting for approval and the day the guy came in to install I faked some meeting so he'd come back in 20 minutes, uninstalled everything, and then let him install things. But that's not as funny to me as the original telling.

gatlin 15y ago

I didn't elaborate my original story for brevity. Their firewall inexplicably blocked some technical articles I was trying to read for my job. So Firefox through my own proxy was the only way. Also, I reported all these tricks when I left. I hope they read my emails. As for seizing root on my current machine - okay, you got me.