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My first reaction was: ha, funny and a nice way to leverage your power as an IT person. Kind of revenge of the nerds towards the ‘suits’. But then I realized t

My first reaction was: ha, funny and a nice way to leverage your power as an IT person. Kind of revenge of the nerds towards the ‘suits’. But then I realized that IT abused their power and lied to the suits which is outright wrong. At the end of the day you’re in IT and the suits are in charge. Don’t like that? Find another job or grab a position that gets you this power. The problem is: you don’t always oversee the consequences of your roque actions. In this case the stakes were low, but where do you draw the line? If I were a suit and found out that you deliberately throttled the connection to force us in a decision I would be furious. That is simply not your call.

te_chris 3y ago
That sort of bootlicking has a history of leading to ‘problems’.
- threeseed 3y ago
  Your job working for a company is to respect the decisions of your manager. Choosing not to undermine them is not bootlicking. It's called being a professional.
  - hibernator149 3y ago
    Your responsibility as a professional is towards the customer and company. Not towards incompetent individuals. Don't call yourself a professional when you are reday to do unprofesssional work at the first sign of resistance.
    - threeseed 3y ago
      Your customer and company doesn't approve your paycheck. Your line manager does. Going behind their back because you don't agree with their decisions or actions is not professional.
      - A_non_e-moose 3y ago
        > Your customer and company doesn't approve your paycheck. Your line manager does. Here's a quite common problem. Execs tell you to listen to the customer, that's where the money comes from. Your direct line manager cares exclusively about himself at the customers' cost. What do you do? Which level of the hierarchy would you obey? > Going behind their back because you don't agree with their decisions or actions is not professional. Should you go behind the back of your manager and report his corrupt behavior to their manager? Please don't take this as snark, I've been in this situation multiple times and it's actually a difficult moral decision depending on the stakes.
  - tremon 3y ago
    When will people learn that there's a fundamental difference between obedience and respect? Respect has to be earned. My job as a professional is to execute the decisions of my manager, not to respect them.
langsoul-com 3y ago
Then, in the end you'd be blamed when the entire network died. They saw the car sliding towards the cliff and did something about it. Nothing that would cause immense damage, just a minor annoyance. To skirt rules to get shit done, or watch everything burn and say I told you so. What's your choice?
- crazygringo 3y ago
  > Then, in the end you'd be blamed when the entire network died. I mean, you clearly have a paper trail showing you raised the issue at the highest levels twice. Not really sure how you could be blamed. > To skirt rules to get shit done, or watch everything burn and say I told you so. What's your choice? A couple of months of inconvenienced customers isn't exactly "watching everything burn", nor is anybody childishly saying "I told you so". You're just respecting the choices management made. It's 100% their responsibility, not yours. It's not your job to save the world, or save management from their mistakes. This isn't a situation of life or death, where you're in the military being told by your commanding officer to commit war crimes, where you have an ethical obligation to disobey. This is just going to inconvenience some internet banking customers. Your job is to raise the issue and let management deal with it and abide by their decision. Not to go around management.
  - D-Coder 3y ago
    > > Then, in the end you'd be blamed when the entire network died. > > I mean, you clearly have a paper trail showing you raised the issue at the > highest levels twice. Not really sure how you could be blamed. This is sarcasm, right? The "highest levels" can't possibly be wrong, so either it's space aliens, witches, or you.
    - crazygringo 3y ago
      Not at all -- I've seen it happen many times. Higher management tries to blame somebody, that person shows a paper trail, and higher management shuts up. They can't do anything, there's nothing they can put in the employee's HR file. People literally generate paper trails so that they can cover their ass. Many times after a particularly controversial meeting, I've immediately written out a summary of what was agreed upon and why, e-mailed it to everyone in attendance, and included the note to reply if anything is incorrect. Then when somebody's upset 4 months later and tries to blame you, you show them the e-mail and the lack of any disagreement. Obviously at the end of the day, legally a company can fire you for mostly any reason at any time. But generally speaking in corporations, there are processes in place around penalizing employees that require documentable facts. Of course I'm talking about places that have at least a couple hundred employees, with an HR department as such. (Smaller companies are much more at the whim of their founders, for good or bad.) But this bank certainly sounds large enough.

te_chris 3y ago

That sort of bootlicking has a history of leading to ‘problems’.

threeseed 3y ago
Your job working for a company is to respect the decisions of your manager. Choosing not to undermine them is not bootlicking. It's called being a professional.
- hibernator149 3y ago
  Your responsibility as a professional is towards the customer and company. Not towards incompetent individuals. Don't call yourself a professional when you are reday to do unprofesssional work at the first sign of resistance.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    Your customer and company doesn't approve your paycheck. Your line manager does. Going behind their back because you don't agree with their decisions or actions is not professional.
    - A_non_e-moose 3y ago
      > Your customer and company doesn't approve your paycheck. Your line manager does. Here's a quite common problem. Execs tell you to listen to the customer, that's where the money comes from. Your direct line manager cares exclusively about himself at the customers' cost. What do you do? Which level of the hierarchy would you obey? > Going behind their back because you don't agree with their decisions or actions is not professional. Should you go behind the back of your manager and report his corrupt behavior to their manager? Please don't take this as snark, I've been in this situation multiple times and it's actually a difficult moral decision depending on the stakes.
- tremon 3y ago
  When will people learn that there's a fundamental difference between obedience and respect? Respect has to be earned. My job as a professional is to execute the decisions of my manager, not to respect them.

langsoul-com 3y ago

Then, in the end you'd be blamed when the entire network died. They saw the car sliding towards the cliff and did something about it. Nothing that would cause immense damage, just a minor annoyance. To skirt rules to get shit done, or watch everything burn and say I told you so. What's your choice?

crazygringo 3y ago
> Then, in the end you'd be blamed when the entire network died. I mean, you clearly have a paper trail showing you raised the issue at the highest levels twice. Not really sure how you could be blamed. > To skirt rules to get shit done, or watch everything burn and say I told you so. What's your choice? A couple of months of inconvenienced customers isn't exactly "watching everything burn", nor is anybody childishly saying "I told you so". You're just respecting the choices management made. It's 100% their responsibility, not yours. It's not your job to save the world, or save management from their mistakes. This isn't a situation of life or death, where you're in the military being told by your commanding officer to commit war crimes, where you have an ethical obligation to disobey. This is just going to inconvenience some internet banking customers. Your job is to raise the issue and let management deal with it and abide by their decision. Not to go around management.
- D-Coder 3y ago
  > > Then, in the end you'd be blamed when the entire network died. > > I mean, you clearly have a paper trail showing you raised the issue at the > highest levels twice. Not really sure how you could be blamed. This is sarcasm, right? The "highest levels" can't possibly be wrong, so either it's space aliens, witches, or you.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Not at all -- I've seen it happen many times. Higher management tries to blame somebody, that person shows a paper trail, and higher management shuts up. They can't do anything, there's nothing they can put in the employee's HR file. People literally generate paper trails so that they can cover their ass. Many times after a particularly controversial meeting, I've immediately written out a summary of what was agreed upon and why, e-mailed it to everyone in attendance, and included the note to reply if anything is incorrect. Then when somebody's upset 4 months later and tries to blame you, you show them the e-mail and the lack of any disagreement. Obviously at the end of the day, legally a company can fire you for mostly any reason at any time. But generally speaking in corporations, there are processes in place around penalizing employees that require documentable facts. Of course I'm talking about places that have at least a couple hundred employees, with an HR department as such. (Smaller companies are much more at the whim of their founders, for good or bad.) But this bank certainly sounds large enough.