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- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+40On the first one, the VP was probably relieved that the evidence of his porn habit had been wiped out.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+33A "professional blunder" is different to the "amateur blunder" in that you can potentially bring the whole company to it's knees with your mistake :)
- Torqued, on 10/12/2007, -1/+29re: Deleting the VP's porn...
True Story: We had a VP that had a well known porn habit. He was having issues with his PC and when the desktop support guys went to work on it, they found over 2 gigs of porn. They burned a CD of the best stuff. The "strangest" file they found was one called "*****.avi".
We also had short period of time where people were getting new PC's with porn on them! Turns out the problems was that the desktop support guys had taken an image of the VP's PC since he had all the "management applications" loaded on it.. and were using that image for the new PC's coming in for the managers.
The really sad thing is that ***** eventually became the CIO, did a crappy job for a couple of years, and then got a sweet severence package. - terrya64, on 10/12/2007, -2/+28Very interesting read, lots of good points made.
- JDines, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20... well, no cliffzdude ... but you have shown yourself to be the Forest Gump of the reading comprehension world, since it states explicitly in the first paragraph on the page that *Becky Roberts* is a woman ... ROTFL. As they say: "People in glass houses ...."
- aphexcoil, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19Excellent article. He covers a lot of the technical but also (and probably more importantly) a lot of the moral and politcal aspects of the IT job. This is a well rounded list and everyone in this field should read and reread it a few times and let it sink in.
I remember swapping backup tapes out for a month without ever checking the logs. Come to find out, nothing was getting backed up. Don't think that because you are doing the mindless physical aspect of an IT job that you are fully covered. Logs are extremely important and exist for a reason.
1) You can never have too many backups
2) Go over your entire system and run scenerios for each box. Ask yourself, "what would happen if this server went down?" and write up a contingency plan.
3) Work smart, not hard -- a lot of hard work in the beginning will yield huge paybacks when something does go wrong.
4) Know exactly where your most important tools are and keep them near you or with you at all times -- especially if you are a WAN director (multiple office locations like I have to deal with on a daily basis)
5) M A K E F R I E N D S ! ! This is so amazing. Don't be an arrogant *****. Nobody in IT is a God of all things. Remain humble but confident in your abilities and learn to network with other like-minded IT professionals. The old "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" is amazingly powerful when you need a helping hand after the ***** hits the fan.
6) Never lie. If you made a mistake, admit to it. If you get fired for it then learn from your mistake and move on. Every time I've been fired or laid off I've gotten a job that pays much better and I've received more opportunities from the experience.
The last thing I can think of that isn't necessarily a major point is to remember to keep a diverse lifestyle. Don't let computers and networks rule your life because you'll find yourself eventually going wacko. The craziest thing I ever did was take up landscaping and construction on the side and it is amazingly theraputic to work with your hands after spending an entire week working with your brain.
Thanks! - 5thfreedom, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18How can you say that? People learn by making mistakes. The only way to get around having to make the mistakes yourself is if you are wise enough to learn from the mistakes of other people. Don't tell me that you are one of those horrid IT nerds that thinks he's perfect and everybody else is stupid.
- foshizol, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15"#6: Creating inadequate self-documentation. "
This is my f@#king problem also. I know I should , but I never do. I always tell users backup, Backup, BACKUP!.
I'm going to hang a sign over my desk document, Document, DOCUMENT. - 5thfreedom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14This is a fantastic list. I am going to condense it and print it out to tape up in a prominent place in my office. Some of his mistakes give me chills, because they sound like mistakes I would make. Very good digg.
- karch, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11well, it WAS over _16_ years.
- ChewyBass, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I think we've all blundered in our haste. I once admin downed an ATM circuit remotely to fix a problem, it worked locally so why not, then I suddenly realized that I'm 55 miles away and it's not going to let me in to up it again. Needless to say I'm glad there were no troopers on the interstate that day.
- WermerSkoch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Heh heh, is there such a thing as a "professional" blunder? ;)
- adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Lol, I've seen some of these done where I work. The back up blunder being the main one. Lucky for us that our boss did an internal audit on all that stuff on a whim and found out that our backups for the past 2 months were missing important files. Glad that wasn't my job...
- Crypty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Ahhh the IT business. I had a go at it in my earlier days, fixing peoples computers in my town for money. One lady told me her CD drive wouldn't open. I popped the case off the PC and would you know it? There was a cinnamon raisin cookie lodged in the drive. The thing was also full of ants.
To make things more amusing, she scolded her 4 year old right there on the spot. - Zero82z, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8There ARE ways of getting data back after a format, and every IT professional should always have a good data recovery program on hand. I learned this the hard way after a partitioning incident where I lost 100GB of data, though I was able to recover it.
- karch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10& project manager
- ramsinks.com, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11@Panique.
It's evident you are not in the IT industry, or have just started your journey.
Any big boy IT pro, knows better.
sh. - creepyman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6How about one of mine?
Happened long long ago to me. Small company. 3 IT people, one is the IT boss. 6 year guy (our boss) was on a trip to a client. I'd been there for 2 months. Third guy had been there for one week.
My boss called. He needed a disk sent out with some updates on it stat and send via overnight. I was out of disks, so stuck a floppy in and ran Del *.*. Yep, forgot the A: and didn't notice when it prompted "are you sure?". Worse, because the default network drive was also the database directory, I'd wiped out all the files not currently being used.
Unfortunately, I was rushed and didn't realize. Started trying to copy my files to the disk when I started getting calls about database errors.
I was in full on panic mode, didn't think about the network maybe having an undelete utility, I came up with a "quick" fix, or so I thought. We'd just spent the previous few days copying database files from our old network into our new server, but we were doing them individually. So I just copied the old database directory to the directory I'd run delete.
Yep, it stomped on most of the files that the delete process hadn't. 5 minutes later the qa person asked me why I hadn't just run undelete. (it was my first job out of college, basically not even 2 months into the job yet.)
On top of this, the database file format was such that each database table was actually stored in 2 disk files. If either one is corrupted, the database table is corrupt too. So I'd managed to step on pretty much every data file we had.
Our backups consisted of copying, once a week, the biggest files to the boss's 160 meg d: partition. The rest were backed up to tape, but the tape couldn't handle files over 10 meg or so. (this was LONG ago.)
So basically I spent the rest of the night trying to fix the database so that the database could be used. I came in late the next morning after only getting half done because I was so tired.
The best part though was coming in to people telling me the system was down, and that the new guy was working on it. Remember, he'd been there only about a week. I found him sitting in the boss's chair with the database user's manual open to page 1, while scratching his head and trying to deduce what was wrong.
Ever since, I've been hellacareful. - ramsinks.com, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Please, as if it's never happened to you.
If you pretend they have not or do not - you would not be a desired IT candidate. - awhiteflame, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6You missed the point. The article is not, "Nine things I did at my job ! ^_^", it's "Nine Biggest Professional Blunders". They're mistakes over the course of SIXTEEN years. It seems like the IT people are looking at this and going, Wow, I hope I never do that, and taking the article's advice, while everyone else is going "Man, this person SUCKS!"
- Litespeed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Lesson #10: Never assume that only guys work in I.T.
"Becky Roberts decided to come clean and share her worst career moments". - covertbadger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It's interesting how many comments here (as well as TFA) mention that it takes a backup disaster to really appreciate why backups are important. I think people aren't being taught properly. If I was teaching, I'd give everyone a term-long project to maintain a wiki page on the importance of backups, and then trash the server the day before the deadline. See how many people took my lessons to heart.
- tekmage3000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Great read and I have been there for a few of the mistakes myself. Got in trouble while working on a disk and had no backup. Recovered it all by using a disk tool but it was a VERY near thing. I learned from it and started stocking a nice set of disk tools and recovery software.
My backup plan when I'm transferring data on a new machine.
1) Normal daily backup to the server ( I don't control it so I don't trust it, but it's there )
2) Total disk backup to my logitech sonic Hd duplicator, which I move to a external hard drive to archive for a few months.
3) After building the new system I leave a backup file from the old computer. You never know when a user is going to ask for a file they forgot. I just do a quick restore and I'm all set. If they managed to delete the backup file see step 2.
Test all of your backups, never assume it's going to work.. make sure! It's a small amount of extra work that pays off.
This works for me and ever since I have not been caught without access to a working backup. It builds your rep among the users and makes life a bit more easy.
Now I get called org wide for data recovery, and it's been a great chance to make friends out of very worried people. Even if I fail I win since people are happy just to see someone really trying help them out of a bad place. Making friends is so damn important in IT, yet I see so few people doing it. We all see lots of problems which I know the user/IT person are to blame. You don't need to rub it in , just work with them and help guide them to some better habits. Make the users your friends, it never hurts to have people saying good things about you.
Great comments and a great article!
Dugg! - aphexcoil, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5hahaha! I've been down that road. I was working on some Cisco 1721 Routers and took down an interface for testing. As soon as I hit enter to take the interface down, my ssh connection was terminated. Once the logical impasse set into my head, I screamed and made a phone call to the remote office and had the receptionist power-cycle the router.
- wicked9, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9vice president
- JDines, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Panique - Why do you keep going on insisting that you have never made these mistakes and never will? It merely flags you as someone who has minimal experience with such matters. There isn't a truly competant and highly experienced technology guru on the planet who hasn't commited similar blunders, I assure you. It is clear to me from your posts (and to others as well, I assure you) that you are a rank amateur!
- jlabs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5the first one could have been resolved. I have recovered drives using various utilities out there..after a person has reformatted/re-partitioned. As long as the data has not been touched, it's still possible to get most if not all the data back
- cmiz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I'd agree that although these are 'rookie mistakes', every IT worker makes a few of them.
One time I locked the key to the server room in the server room... boy was that a headdesk moment! (There was no backup key on site, the VP had to run home to grab one. At least nothing was lost/damaged/broken though, and no, I haven't been in the industry for too long.) - illegalamigo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6zm, you're an idiot.
- Bullsnot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I've also found that sarcasm never translates well in instant messaging. :) Little smileys always work though.
- zenn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Second week at a new job. Hooking up a switch at my desk so I can have multiple network connections for ghosting. See 2 patch cable under my desk, plug them both into the switch. It creates a loop and kills the network for half the building, IT staff and managers running everywhere to locate the source, in the meantime I'm plugging the patch cables in and out wondering why the network keeps connecting then dropping, This goes on for almost 1/2 and hour before I realise what I did. Thankfuly Instead of getting fired we had a good laugh over it. Still with the company more than a year later
- hurfydurfur, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3How about mine? Unplugging a Sun keyboard on a production database cluster. Hey, some Sun/Solaris keyboards aren't hot-swap! Who knew! *crash* Then Sun goes to USB keyboards.
Live and learn, that's the short version. - tfogarty, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5This is a fantastic article on what I would consider common mistakes in businesses. This is like looking at the source code to someone else's life, you can see the errors and try to avoid them when coding your own.
Oh, and I can definitely vouch for having emails totally misunderstood when I was trying to make light conversation. - ekstasis16, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3wow, someone thinks their ***** don't stink. i got a news flash for ya buddy...
- joeblough2005, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think a lot of these lessons can be applied to almost any career. As a project manager in a non-IT related career, I can see a lot of lessons to be learned in this article. I definitely agree with the email lesson; we take a lot of our body language and tone for granted when we speak face-to-face; email does not include those important aspects of communication. I’ve also found it’s best to just “play it straight” in email.
Frankly, I’d like to see a web collection of personal blunders and the lessons learned. Anybody know of such a place? If there isn’t one, there should be, I’d much rather learn from somebody else’s mistakes! - Istari6, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2ruprecht
I disagree that it's a matter of 'rolling over and taking it'. I think the point that tekmage3000 just above you makes is right in that when looking at careers, it's always better to be the guy people like and respect than the guy who's always right.
While the colleague was no doubt overly sensitive, making a big deal out of a misunderstanding makes you look petty and small. Apologizing immediately deflates the overly sensitive hag and gets you the respect of any decent boss. Half the battle is knowing how to pick your battles. - panique, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6They got a special section in hell for guys like you. At least fess up and own your *****...how are you to learn if you avoid the pain of making the mistake?
- signal15, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've been in the industry for about 12 years, and after reading this, I tried to think of something that I seriously screwed up, and I can't really think of anything. Some of the people I worked with made some pretty serious mistakes, like stuff that got the attention of high-level govt officials.
About the only think I can relate to is not writing sufficient self documentation. I keep thinking I'm going to set up a private wiki where I can put things like that, but I never get around to it. If I have something I need to remember, I just send myself an email. Oh, and I'm definitely not a "yes man". If I see a problem or a way to make things more efficient or reliable, I'll speak up. My manager at a previous job HATED me for it, but I think that's his problem, not mine. It's not my problem that some people are fine with mediocrity. - ramsinks.com, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A couple of those are associated to being trapped into a corporate environment.
But a few of those are good lessons we all could learn from. - retnull, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2zm, where do you work -- in the 18th century?
- Litespeed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's written by a woman.
- rockyrobins, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Actually a serious read. I was hoping for more funny and entertaining stories. But a good read for the more serious
- Snuffkin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Um, everybody makes mistakes. It's not like he did all of these in the same week.
- sanza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Refreshingly honest through and through. And it proves that no matter how much you know, Murphy's Law can still bite you on the ass when you least expect it.
I have to say that I think Becky is a real upstanding employee. Too many other people would try to run from their mistake or blame someone else. - WinterSolstice, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I work at a company that had similar issues - everything was peachy until we did a re-directed restore (system copy). Then we just happened to hit a bad log. Then another one. Then, we realized to our horror that nearly 20% of our database logs (and some full db images) were corrupt.
It took 3 mos with the backup vendor and shifting strategies entirely to fix. Amazingly enough, just about when we felt it was solid, we lost a SAN volume containing 2/3rds of the production database. The DR system was 20 hours behind, and the restore was our only choice.
It worked. A gruelling 48 hours later we knew that backups were serious. We never play fast and loose with those anymore.
-WS - lb3ll, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2She did say it was sixteen years of mistakes.
- creepyman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I've performed, witnessed, or been burned by all of these mistakes too, although not all of them are mistakes.
The sensitive email problem is an issue with statements as well. Some people will take anything you say, verbally or written, in the worst possible way. Verbally, they have to have witnesses, but at least written text won't necessarily burn you as bad. The blunder in that one was giving the passive aggressive user any ammunition at all. If she had really wondered if Becky was being mean, she could have asked if Becky had meant before going to the boss to complain. This wasn't an overly sensitive employee. She was someone looking to find something to bitch about to the boss.
#9 isn't really a blunder, IMO. I consider it merely a lost opportunity.
But the only problem I have with the article is that it's written too preachy. This wasn't a description of her blunders. It was a description of common blunders IT people make and how to react. I have a feeling that Becky isn't really a single person, and her reactions to them are simply what the editors decided are what the perfect IT person would do.
Note there was no personal information about Becky other than she is a female IT person who has worked in IT for 16 years.
BTW, I finally am able to post to digg, I think. I had to install firefox to do it, but I can finally see the code image and text field for submitting posts. - Kielrandor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I swore under my breath at a printer I was working on one time and wa overheard by a user. She took it into her heard to mean I was swearing at her and got extremely offended and went to HR and reported me. I was hauled into my managers office reprimanded, written up for harrassment, forced to apologize to the user and told that if I ever swore around anyone ever again I'd be forced to go for sensativity training.
When the user left the office, my manager turns to me and says, "Now THAT was some serious *****!" and apologized to me for having to put me through it. - 511pf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Although it may seem that possessing unique knowledge and skills within a company should offer some job security, not only is this a delusion but the possession of such knowledge can also become a burden that negatively affects your personal life. On several occasions throughout my career, I have allowed myself to be in just such a situation, where my failure to share my knowledge led to interrupted weekends with the family, phone calls at all hours of the night, phone calls while on vacation, and my favorite, a phone call to the ICU less than six hours after brain surgery.
Lesson learned? Document, share, and train."
*************************
Wrong. Lesson learned is that you set reasonable boundaries before you start a job and you turn off or don't answer your phone when you're in the freaking hospital. -
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