Today I have a general question on handling office politics in a large company.
You see, I’m responsible for managing backups on a large, profitable, but under-funded division of a large company. In recent months, I’ve noticed that the amount of time builds of our software remain on the file server get shorter and shorter. Most recently, they moved to a two-week retention of software builds on the server.
Well, that’s not my problem, except that now we receive an overwhelming crush of restore requests every week. And these restores are coming from tapes which are supposed to be for disaster-recovery purposes, vaulted off-site in case our building gets destroyed. But at this rate, they hardly leave the office because I need them almost every single day.
Basically, critical permanent archival tapes are being used as a slow file-server powered by a monkey on the keyboard (me). The workload is up to around 20 hours per week spent just on this duty. The bigger worry, though, is that we’re one truck-crash, mishandled tape, or flood/fire/earthquake away from losing all of our precious builds for the past several years. We’re contractually obligated to provide many of these within 24 hours for high-profile customers who require them.
I’ve told my boss, and I’ve talked to the boss over the team responsible for archiving builds. It’s obvious we need a large 40-60TB file server to accommodate a year or two worth of builds before going off-site for permanent storage.
And, of course, the day that the fit hits the shan and a build is permanently lost due to a mishandled tape or other mis-hap, it’s my butt on the line. And I’m not nearly important enough for anyone to be worried about blaming me for the problem.
How would you handle this? Would you start escalating up the management chain until you get a response, regardless of who you tick off? Or would you follow some other tack?
Document, document, document
When you alerted your boss and the other boss, did you do it via email? If not, I’d write an email detailing the problem and possible repercussions, and make sure you have that email in many places. Put a read=receipt on it.
Once you have that showing you’ve done your best to alert your superiors, then if you “happen” to run into a higher up during the day, you could mention it to them as something that’s been bothering you. Use all the usual caveats (“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but I’d hate to see the company get burned.” blah blah blah), but that way you’ve protected yourself AND made moves to get the problem fixed. At least then if they throw you under the bus you can get a job elsewhere while your wrongful-termination suit works its way throw the courts. If you’ve document properly, it should be a slam-dunk win, as long as you have the resources to wait the 3-5 years it’ll take to play out.
But I’d definitely say something higher-up, but I wouldn’t make it formal quite yet, until you’ve documented your attempts to do it “correctly”.
My $.02 Weed
A Different Way Of Thinking
Adding on to Weed’s excellent suggestions, it’s also prudent to store the documentation in certain areas. It’s not enough to send one email since, obviously, the data’s not getting backed up! 🙂 I would print out the notice and then have someone in HR sign it before placing it in your ‘permanent record’. That way, someone outside the chain of command has acknowledged receipt. Make it clear you’re writing because you’re doing your job and that’s what they’re paying you to do.
Now, an aspect to consider, is that by submitting notice of risk exposure, you are essentially documenting a trail of willful negligence. This has enormous implications if something drastic does occur and an insurance claim is initiated. You are subterfuging any defense your employer could stake that all measures were in place to protect against loss. This is likely to turn a simple flame of office politics into an incendiary mess of corporate trauma.
Thus, I offer a different approach to resolution. Don’t think about this as a ‘CYA’ reaction to protect yourself against potential blame. Think of this as an opportunity to solve a much larger business problem. The perspective is understanding risk tradeoff vs. containment costs. If a new 40-60TB file server cost $50 don’t you think they’d implement today? Look at it from their perspective. You are suddenly waving a huge red flag of corporate doom and calling for a $250,000 fix. You are trying to force an expensive precaution from a line-tech perspective. Instead, force a decision from a business perspective.
You have all the variables: current labor, burdened labor, labor saved, time, materials, training, opportunity costs. Somewhere in all this is a creative solution that makes business sense. The danger in finding and building this solution is, of course, potential promotion.
My God
My God, Sammy, you’ve become a *gasp* CONSULTANT!
🙂
My $.02 Weed
A professional opinion.
My wife is a HR guru. She’s been a manager, a director.. she’s got 2 masters degrees in the subject.. so I decided to pose your blog to her.. here is her response..
FROM KELLY: My two cents and one of the sr managers here as well.. Didn’t divulge any names, just asked for his opinion.
Dear Tom (a senior HR manager) – RE: Subject: Just a question.. non work related
This is a question I got from a friend of my husband. The guy works as the Network Admin.. Sounds like his problem below is a technical one but with ethical and customer satisfaction impacts..
From the HR side, I would recommend that he talk to his manager or the manager of the team responsible, and then either escalate it up the chain or take it to HR or the Ethics Officer if one exists..
Was curious what you might recommend as someone on the Engineering side and who has been in management yourself for a while..
PS: If we ever need a Network Admin / Engineer for the SLC office, I know a great guy! 🙂
TOM’S RESPONSE: Kelly,
I would definitely bring this to upper managements attention if for no other reason than to “cover your ass”. If he doesn’t make them aware and a tragic event happens, it will be his butt. My two cents…
Tom