Sys Admin Woes: The Friend Syndrome
I?m not sure if this is a ?series? or not, but I figured the more descriptive title the better. Today I want to talk about something I?ve ran into quite frequently over the years as a sys admin: The Friend Syndrome.
What is the friend syndrome? It?s when you give breaks to your work buddies. Now I?m not speaking of co-workers, because IT departments pretty much police themselves (and are capable of doing so, an important distinction). No, instead, I?m talking about letting Joe User install Program X because they?re your friend. Or giving them the local administrator password ?for legitimate uses? but knowing they?ll go behind your back and install something else as well.
These ?Friends? generally get by with their behavior knowing that you?ll have better things to do than snoop in their systems often enough to catch them running whatever it is they?re running. E-Mule, Limewire, etc etc.
The problem is that as a Nice Guy it?s tough to call them out on this behavior. Specifically on those who you feel a camraderie with?I can imagine this situation is much the same in a plant situation where one of the same-shift guys get a promotion?What is a good way of telling friends that something is bad? ?I?d never endanger the network,? they say. But they do. If not diluting it in traffic they?re compromising their systems and others.
The scale for strictness can simply be slid up and down based on the size of your organization. The bigger the place the tighter the strings, it seems, while companies in the single or double digits are a much more dangerous wasteland: Either you try and they laugh, or you try and they simply circumvent those safeguards.
I wouldn?t even call these people bad eggs. I?d simply call them misguided. If they don?t realize their impact, even if you try to explain it to them, they may nod, smile, and go on with whatever it is they were doing. About 99% of the time this is simply for Music, but there?s a pretty thick line between iTunes and E-mule or whatever.
What I?m curious about is the best way of handling these situations, if any of my good readers have some suggestions (blanket policy distribution? One-on-one talks?), and if you guys have incurred this problem before.
Now I return to my day job, which is currently Dealing With Macintosh Bullshit. But more on that later.
Once on the bus it was quite possible
You?d be the jailhouse queen
4 Comments:
The question to ask yourself is: Would my "friends" pay my mortgage if I was fired for letting them install unauthorized software on their computers?
Make a reasonable policy, put it in writing, publicly post it, and stick with it. More importantly, make sure everyone in IT sticks with it. I hate it when I deny a request because it is clearly against policty, only to have the user go to someone else who caves. I look like the asshole for doing what's right, and the other guy gets to play hero. Don't be that guy.
What happened to Tuesday's entry?
So I don't know shit about IT or anything even remotely related to anything electronic. But, I can tell you that being the good guy makes you the bad guy - in the end, you have to set boundaries and then all of the other people who are playing bad guy because you played good guy hate you and never trust you again.
Relate it to parenting, Evan, if you need to. If you were always giving your girls what they wanted and Ericka was the only one enforcing the rules, you may end up with one pissed off wife and spoiled rotten kids.
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