hello and welcome back to the kcc channel i'm rob and i hope you're having a wonderful day today
today we're jumping into some malicious compliance our first story today comes to us
from slice double i shut down whole organization for a week let's jump right in i work in a very
large community center that is non-profit we have tons of stuff like children daycare
open college physiotherapy for seniors and disabled people we got six huge apartment
buildings for senior citizens throughout the city activities for immigrants and unemployed
we got cafeteria and a restaurant and more now i love my work i got promotion after promotion
i started as it tech support person i was the only it guy in the whole organization when i
started we got like maybe 80 persons working there including the teachers in our open
college today we are over 200 strong so anyway it's relaxed and non-toxic work environment
as i got tons of work to do as i am alone with everything that runs with ones and zeroes i have
to plan my work a little different than rest of the bunch so i have 100 flexible working times
meaning i work when i see fit i am on salary they pay me once a month and not hourly the executive
director approves this as i can maintain the whole organization's it infrastructure without any
downtime i come and go as i see best for me doing my job this worked fine for about 12 years or so
everyone was happy and i was respected because not only i got the job done but my job did not cause
any downtime on it at all only down time was an hour or less if someone's workstation broke
down etc i always had spares ready to go i also was 24 7 on call and went to the office in the
middle of my vacations if needed and i was able to go i worked on weekends and sometimes nights
on work weeks just to get things done so there is no downtime at office hours that time in my career
we had a pretty massive amount of servers eight server machines just for microsoft stuff four
linux servers and a couple bsds for open college i had a maintenance routine divided to small
maintenance that i did after office hours and large maintenance that i did after office hours
and continued through the night and the huge ones that needed me to live at the office over
the weekend and as there was no such thing as overtime we had an agreement that whenever i had
to work more than 8 hours i would get paid leave instantly on the next day so if i came into work
at 8 on the monday stayed until everyone left and then started the smaller maintenance that would
usually take like 2-3 hours max i would then come in 2-3 hours later to work the next day and if it
took long enough i could take the whole next day off i always informed the whole organization that
maintenance was due and i would deal with it and take x amount of leave the next day
no problems with anyone business as usual until we hire a new project manager middle aged lady that
has the most piercing blue eyes that drill into our souls and suck all the joy and will to live
out of you and she was a corporate manager it was her first time working in non-profit organization
so she was super shocked how relaxed our office was there was complaints about everything that
i don't want to list here because only one is relevant working times i did not get how she was
able to boss around our freaking director when she was only a project manager i mean wtf i was
at that time already a systems administrator but anyway soon came the time for large maintenance
some updates for accounting software and some smaller things to open college end i put a notice
to our organization's email list like always and state that large updates are going in starting
this evening and ending before tomorrow morning and that i would not be in the office the next day
email me or call if any problems i never gave any time estimates because there was
always a chance that they won't hold if something goes wrong with updates of other stuff
it's my butt who has to fix it anyway and then it's god knows how many hours it takes
so evening comes everybody goes home and i wait till the last one logs out from their workstation
and go to work routine stuff some updates weird database conversion that has to be done every time
our accounting or wages software gets an update it takes time but only like six hours or so as it's
only the accounting database i finished my stuff and head home next morning i wake up around seven
make some coffee and head to my gaming computer and think ah all day nothing but eve online
at around maybe nine something my work phone rings i answer and it is the project manager i'll just
call her pms from now on project manager yells to me on the phone something like this don't remember
the actual words where the hell are you at home it's my day off oh well we have a situation here
i need you here now okay i'll be there in 15 minutes i still lived pretty close to my work
on my way i thought did i f up something last night can't be i tested everything and it would
have been accounting calling me or secretary if it was about updates at open college end well
whatever i'll see then i rush to the office and go straight to project manager's office
hey what's up my printer is out of toner get me a new one out of toner is this the situation there's
toners on a shelf at storage at first floor all desktop printers are the same and use the
same toner so why did you not get it yourself all this was explained to you a week ago i am
not going to change any toners boy do your job ok whatever and head to storage to get a new toner we
have a policy that all employees deal with their own desktop printers like add papers to them and
change the toner because it is as easy as putting your effing shoes on and it takes these trivial
tasks away from me who is already overworked and underemployed i got back and changed the toner
then i head back home she actually stopped her whining for a while and i thought all was good but
after a couple more maintenance days and nights she called an administrative meeting so there were
me our new wages clerk who also was the hr manager director office manager and project manager
project manager starts the meeting again something like this as i don't remember the actual words
i wanted to talk about work times and how opie has been slacking and taking leave on his own accord i
thought that in this community we all shared the same rules do we not sorry but as the same rules
do apply to all work times don't we do different kinds of work here so the same exact work times
just won't work you have been at home when people here have had problems with their computers
yes and they call me if there's a problem and 99.9 percent of the time we get it sorted out
by phone but your home is not your workplace your offices yes but as i have to work late
and even nights sometimes here i take the paid leave asap like we have agreed here well all
work should be done at normal office hours why do you even have to work at nights or weekends
because no one here wants any down time on their work just to clarify there were at this point
maybe 120 people strong at least 80 of those who used workstations or laptops for their work
even the darn fitness instructors everything was at this point digital and ran ones and zeros
physicists meet their client they do their stuff and then physicist does the mandatory
report on the computer they make all the plans for clients on computer kitty daycare uses computers
daily to be in contact with parents etc everything is ran by computers now nonsense
you can do your job at office hours like the rest of us i look at director as i know hr and office
manager don't give a flip about this and for some reason director says to me yeah program manager
and i have been talking about this issue for a few times now with the whole staff and from now on our
old agreement is no longer valid you have to do all your work at office hours many people don't
like that you can take paid leave are you sure like a hundred and ten percent sure about this
all my work server and network maintenance too at office hours can we make a new written agreement
on this like we did on my open hours yes come by an evening before we close the office for today
i'll have the agreement ready by then okie dokie and leave to continue whatever i was
doing before this crap is about to hit the fan meeting as you can guess what is about to happen
i mean there was zero toxicity at our work everyone was happy and then
one corporate goblin just has to come and create this tension oh well they are about to learn their
lesson i go to see director later that evening and we signed the agreement about my new work times
i check the agreement and tell director that he forgot something there is no mention about the
time frame i need to inform the whole staff when maintenance is about to happen only that i have
to do all my work at office hours from 8 15 to 3 30 also as i'm on salary overtime is not allowed
unless we have an agreement on it and whoopsie old agreement that stated my overtime hours
would be paid leave hour by hour new agreement had nothing about overtime so absolutely no overtime
hours period but i did not mention this to him he just shrugs his shoulders and says
just send them email in the morning if you are about to do it that day alrighty then will do i'll
just start to my waiting game i love my work and all the people here but i'm about to make myself
the most hated man here at least for a while couple of weeks go by i do few small maintenance
jobs here and there and downtime is only from one hour to two and i usually do it at lunch time
so everyone gets as little downtime as possible because i am waiting for the huge one and patience
is rewarded in a few months accounting and wages are getting huge updates i mean this is the stuff
that usually means i stay the whole weekend at the office sleeping on the floor with a sleeping
bag for those couple of hours i can i still think that i should just go and tell the director that
we're about to hit the big one nope i'm not i also saved some smaller updates just for this occasion
i have never felt so evil in my life so the day comes and i go to the office at 8 15 sharp
and send the message to the whole organization good morning it's this day and today is again
maintenance day prepare for some down time this maintenance concerns whole organization as i have
to update all the servers and some routers too there is also a huge update on financial software
and it is critical and has to be done i will start operations at 11 as usual thank you for your
understanding sincerely op remember that i never have told anyone estimates how long maintenance
will take i do my other stuff and then ding ding it's 11. time to start phase one first i kick
every employee out from the network easy i got a script for that phase 2 then i hit os updates on
every server and go get some coffee now everyone got kicked out from network so they can't access
anything on the network file server is offline print server offline database servers offline
they can't even use the photocopier because you have to log into active directory to use it
with an rdif card they still have access to their desktop and they can use the desktop applications
but as company policy all data is stored to file servers as no one is allowed to save any files on
their laptops and workstations also they can't use the internet at all because every server is now
downloading updates from the internet and i made sure every linux and unix box downloads everything
possible my phone starts to ring this is it services how can i help screaming yeah it's a
big maintenance today i did send an email this morning about it no i don't know how long it's
gonna take all day at least maybe we'll see click on the other end twelve people are starting to
return from lunch whole network is still down and stays down one pm-ish i start to get phone calls
about how long it's gonna take some people come to my office when they can't reach me by phone i just
tell them that estimated time is unknown on these big updates should not take more than a day or two
day or two this is what stirred the whole place it was like a beehive all of a sudden people came to
me screaming and yelling why you do this to us why cancel the updates now i need to work stop
i just shrug my shoulders sorry can't do anything about it it's impossible to cancel or stop once it
is put into motion just hang on even director came to see me and was first angry and then a little
confused i told him that this is what maintenance is it is what it is and nothing will change it at
least not this instance everyone just has to suck it up and wait till it's done i'm just doing my
job here so i just read some it magazines and had too much coffee for the rest of the day as i was
waiting for the servers to update then 3 30 came and i went home some people were still sitting at
their offices waiting and looked at me with the most questionable faces asking where i'm going
home see you tomorrow next day i go check the servers in the morning almost done all of them
unix and linux are peachy i still have to reboot all the window servers i do that i could just
boot them all at once but i feel more evil by the minute and i just boot them one at a time waiting
for server to fully boot me log in and check that the updates are okay before moving to the next one
and of course after every server i pull my own laptop and make a maintenance report in detail no
one reads these reports but office managers demand them anyway they go straight to archive and into
recycle bin a year later after i have done with servers the clock is around almost 2 o'clock and i
haven't had my lunch yet so i go and have a lunch i come back at 3 10 and start to plan the next day
i need to install updates for financial applications and i want to do a checklist that all
goes smoothly did not complete my listing plan so it's 3 30 again and i'm going home did i mention
that it's now thursday i started my maintenance at tuesday oopsie i finished my checklist and plan
for financial software updates early i start dropping updates one by one before lunchtime
i could drop them all at once but i just want to go by the book and follow my checklist it's
by the way recommended by the software supplier that updates are installed one by one i'll go
smooth and i put the databases to do their weird conversion as i am not total man part i drop rest
of the smaller updates on the other server side programs while i wait for the database thingy to
complete well as usual it takes forever so i head back home when the clock hits 3 30.
friday i have been the only person in our 120 person company working since 11 last tuesday
everyone is so pissed they have to come to office and do nothing some are doing cleaning operations
to their desk some are tidying paper archives etc most are just sipping coffee and reading magazines
internet has been fine since wednesday but i don't think anyone has noticed laugh out loud i feel
sorry for physicists who have to use pen and paper to all clients and then later sort everything on
their computers restaurant and cafeteria are fine as i did not mess with cashier systems at all
friday morning and i get all okay from database conversion okay let's see hmm okay i think i can
now begin starting the services on servers one by one of course i take my sweet time using every
break i am entitled to and have a full length lunch break finally three o'clock sharp i send an
email to the whole organization that maintenance is now done and you can now re-login to get access
to the network thank you for your patience next estimated huge maintenance is in about three or
four months director office manager accountant and wages clerk had been at home most of the week
i think i saw them at wednesday morning but not after that project manager was pissed at wednesday
too but left me alone as i explained that if i have to go to some meetings with every branch
about this downtime issue downtime would only get longer as i would not be actively working on it
next week we had a new administration meeting and my old open work time agreement with overtime
leave was active again i got it written no one ever complained about my paid overtime free time
ever again and i was not concerned about getting fired as in my country firing employees is hard
it is super hard to get rid of someone and as i had a written agreement about work times and
my work contract clearly stated what i do at my work there was no way they could have any case of
sacking my tomorrowly evil butt but in the end all was good couple of weeks and everyone is happy to
work again with no downtime at all new people come in new people don't know how things run new people
put new rules into place new people get screwed old people laugh say i told you so and new people
change things back to how they were hopefully i do feel like opie might have missed an opportunity
here though because there could have been a contract negotiation at this point well i really
enjoy my weekends off now so what are you willing to offer me to go back to the other schedule
because it just doesn't appeal to me anymore you had a chance to rake them over the coals there and
i really hope you did but it doesn't sound like it from the text at around maybe nine something
my work phone rings i answer and it is the project manager i'll just call her pms from now on
oh that's great check out op linked in the description down below i thank you
for watching have yourself a wonderful day and we'll see you again tomorrow