Chronophage.net Blog

An unfortunately common trend across the IT world is this: Your IT infrastructure is running great and everyone is happy. The budget cuts have to happen and the boss looks around, and decides that their good, but expensive IT professional is no longer worth paying. So they replace him or her with someone cheaper, with less experience, and problems set in. Often major problems. Usually, at this point, the company goes back to their original IT professional with their hat in hand, or their IT offices start to resemble a by-the-hour hotel.

It’s easy to want to compare IT to Sales and Marketing. But those traditional roles have a direct correlation to performance and results. Sales does well, money comes through the door. Marketing does well, and your company is on the lips of Jane Q Public. If IT performs excellently, nothing happens.

Nothing.

It’s hard to justify nothing. Nothing doesn’t make the books.

So, the person in charge of the purse strings looks around, sees someone who apparently does nothing, and gets rid of him or her.

Then something happens. The network goes down. The un-patched server is compromised. Money starts flying out the door. Consultants are called, the emergency fixes is done. The new IT guy or gal is fired, and the boss goes looking for a better qualified IT professional. Lesson learned, right?

Unfortunately, not. Often, the new IT Professional comes on, gets everything working again, and what does the boss see? Nothing.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

There are really two ways a professional deals with this: 1) He or she rides out the cycle with his or her reputation intact, but has to deal with scrambling for a new job more often than not, or 2) He or she implements Operation Job Security.

Operation Job Security is a simple formula really. Implement arcane solutions that are fragile, and prone to break often, but not too often. Don’t document anything. And play the martyr whenever you have to fix anything.

The last time I talked to a small business owner who loved his IT guy, I was at a bar after work. The conversation went something like this:

“I love my IT guy,” he tells me, out of the blue. Well, not really. Our conversation went from the weather, to our jobs. The standard Midwestern small-talk. He owns a small manufacturing business, I do IT.

“Anytime anything breaks, my guy is there, 2 am, whenever. He’s amazing.”

“Oh?” I take a sip of my Guinness.

“How often do things break?” My question hangs in the air while he thinks about it.

“About once a quarter.” he says.

It doesn’t click. Yet.

“Reliably?” I ask him, with a touch of irony.

“Well, yeah…” There’s a moment of awkward silence. Realization sets in.

“Oh.” he says.

“Oh.” I say.

Oh is right. Mr “I love my IT Guy” is a victim of a master of Operation Job Security.

The word “victim” is right. I don’t blame IT Guys or Gals who implement Operation Job Security, we all have to eat and pay bills, but it *is* a con game.

Sabotage is not cool, it’s not professional, it’s not ethical, and ultimately, it gets you nowhere. It’s predatory, and violates the trust between a client and his or her paid professional. It breeds resentment, on both sides of the equation, and makes the whole industry look bad.

Take the high road. Take pride in your Nothings. Do it right.

Then again, that’s easy enough for me to say.