Should my Assistant Director be deciplined for these actions?

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: jtvang125
Obviously I have no say in this but just wondering what you guys think.

He came in alittle over a year ago as our assistant director of IT and lead programmer. Within this time he has managed to hose his computer 4 times. The first 2 times he was installing some database extensions, so he says and corrupted the registry. The last 2 times he got infected with spyware and viruses and during all 4 incidents we had to reimage his machine.

I don't believe he was deciplined nor spoken to about these incidents by our current IT director. He's just way too lenient. I think if it was our previous director, he would be facing possible termination after the second or third incident.

Why would you think he should be disciplined for that? Hell, you can't even spell discipline. :laugh:

Seems like pretty minor stuff to me assuming he completes his projects on time and his boss doesn't see an issue with it.

 

[QurazyQuisp]

About 1.5 years ago when I was a helpdesk monkey this wouldn't have even phased me, although we did have a sweet imaging system up. Altiris + Active Directory + Virtual Drives FTW (as far as windows computing goes). We didn't even have to leave our helpdesk to image any computer in the building. It took about an hour from crapped windows to fully up and running with all the persons old apps installed. (Our desktop apps varied ALOT from computer to computer, this was at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory... Chemists, Physicists, Mechanical Engineers, Programmers, all kinds of different things going on all the time)

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Originally posted by: rdubbz420
he's a programmer, not a helpdesk monkey. shame on whoever gave him local admin rights.

Programmers need admin rights for lots of things, sad but true

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Originally posted by: ViviTheMage
deal with it? Sounds like its mainly work apps that is buggin his machine out, besides the spyware stuff, obviously. imaging takes no time at all too, unless you suck at it.

Its not the time part thats the main issue, its the fact that he shouldnt be doing the things hes doing with a work pc

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: QurazyQuisp
About 1.5 years ago when I was a helpdesk monkey this wouldn't have even phased me, although we did have a sweet imaging system up. Altiris + Active Directory + Virtual Drives FTW (as far as windows computing goes). We didn't even have to leave our helpdesk to image any computer in the building. It took about an hour from crapped windows to fully up and running with all the persons old apps installed. (Our desktop apps varied ALOT from computer to computer, this was at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory... Chemists, Physicists, Mechanical Engineers, Programmers, all kinds of different things going on all the time)

Interesting...

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: buck

Originally posted by: rdubbz420
he's a programmer, not a helpdesk monkey. shame on whoever gave him local admin rights.

Take away local admin rights, problem solved. Maybe when he has to go to you 100 times to have you make changes he will learn to not be a dipshit.

Programmers without local admin rights? Holy crap, remind me never to work with the two of you. It doesn't need to be the regular, daily login account but I'm sorry, someone whose job it is to write software cannot be without the ability to do whatever (s)he needs with his/her machine.

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: kamper

Originally posted by: buck

Originally posted by: rdubbz420
he's a programmer, not a helpdesk monkey. shame on whoever gave him local admin rights.

Take away local admin rights, problem solved. Maybe when he has to go to you 100 times to have you make changes he will learn to not be a dipshit.

Programmers without local admin rights? Holy crap, remind me never to work with the two of you. It doesn't need to be the regular, daily login account but I'm sorry, someone whose job it is to write software cannot be without the ability to do whatever (s)he needs with his/her machine.

QFT

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: kamper

Originally posted by: buck

Originally posted by: rdubbz420
he's a programmer, not a helpdesk monkey. shame on whoever gave him local admin rights.

Take away local admin rights, problem solved. Maybe when he has to go to you 100 times to have you make changes he will learn to not be a dipshit.

Programmers without local admin rights? Holy crap, remind me never to work with the two of you. It doesn't need to be the regular, daily login account but I'm sorry, someone whose job it is to write software cannot be without the ability to do whatever (s)he needs with his/her machine.

What exactly does a programmer need to do to his/her machine that requires admin privileges?

 

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: jtvang125
Obviously I have no say in this but just wondering what you guys think.

He came in alittle over a year ago as our assistant director of IT and lead programmer. Within this time he has managed to hose his computer 4 times. The first 2 times he was installing some database extensions, so he says and corrupted the registry. The last 2 times he got infected with spyware and viruses and during all 4 incidents we had to reimage his machine.

I don't believe he was deciplined nor spoken to about these incidents by our current IT director. He's just way too lenient. I think if it was our previous director, he would be facing possible termination after the second or third incident.

geez man.. restrict his user acct

duh

 

[RKS]

they should demote him to "Assistant to the Director of IT"

 

[Mxylplyx]

Originally posted by: SpunkyJones
I don't see the problem, he's an idiot with PC's, whats the big deal. He's a programmer after all.

I'm sure the low paid helpdesk monkey's develop a bit of an ego when dealing with general computer noobs all day. With that said, at my company at least, they should and do check that ego at the door when the software engineers need them. Helpdesk is the bottom rung of IT, and they should know that.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Lock his computer down so he can't install programs or change system files without clearing it first. Make him a limited user.

 

[Sphexi]

At my new job they ordered new PCs for myself and another new co-worker, one of the IT people (who's not really in IT, just kind of helps out) and the IT guy decided they wanted them, spent 8 hours swapping harddrives back and forth and creating a huge mess, and then gave their old computers (P3-450mhz) to us to use. Turns out they weren't told to do this, and the computers were ordered specifically for us as we use some programs that need a little more power, they don't.

Rather than have them waste even more time switching things back though, I think they'll end up ordering two more anyways, and just retired the older ones. Honestly though I would've chewed the guy out for just up and wasting time like that, especially when he's actually one of the support people and needs to be helping out with calls and customer requests, not giving himself a better rig.

 

[BW86]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire

Originally posted by: BW86

Originally posted by: txrandom
Sounds like he has been looking at too much "free" porn at work.

i look at free porn all the time and have no spyware problems....:lips:

He isn't talking about some telescope that you've got set up at your back window.

....

 

[Stuxnet]

I'm a software architect, and it shocks me how little the average developer knows about PCs. One guy I worked with about 7 years ago would just delete folders under Program Files when he wanted to uninstall software. Don't like McAfee anymore? Just delete the McAfee folder!

Another guy tried swapping memory... with the PC on. Nice little arc there.

I just get an amazing number of dumb little questions. What's worse, is that they have just as much difficult with the software THEY write! "Hey jbourne77, my program does blahbiddyblah." WTF do you want me to do about it?

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: her209

Originally posted by: kamper

Originally posted by: buck

Originally posted by: rdubbz420
he's a programmer, not a helpdesk monkey. shame on whoever gave him local admin rights.

Take away local admin rights, problem solved. Maybe when he has to go to you 100 times to have you make changes he will learn to not be a dipshit.

Programmers without local admin rights? Holy crap, remind me never to work with the two of you. It doesn't need to be the regular, daily login account but I'm sorry, someone whose job it is to write software cannot be without the ability to do whatever (s)he needs with his/her machine.

What exactly does a programmer need to do to his/her machine that requires admin privileges?

Install software for one. Change various settings. Run and manage stuff like vmware. A real example: I once inherited a machine on which the previous owner had left several gigabytes of files that I didn't need which were wasting space. Without a local admin account, I couldn't delete them. Do you as an IT guy want to be bothered every time I have something stupid and small that needs to be done? Another example from my current job (at which I'm not even developing): the security obsessive admins at my company have decided that a couple of test machines that I use are not allowed on the regular network because they're dangerous (they're not actually). Instead, they're on a completely separate network with no routes to anything. In order to use them, I have to take my regular laptop off the corporate network and attach it to the test network. I could not do this without root on my laptop.

I'm sorry, it is the job of developers and other technical people to build computer systems and that cannot be done without the ability to control them in an efficient manner. It is the job of admins to maintain systems that aid developers in doing their job. Once you start hindering that, you are working expressly in the opposite direction. I'm not denying that some developers are stupid and irresponsible or that everyone should have a field day doing whatever they want but a blanket policy of hindering people who are supposed to know what they are doing is very counter productive.

It's not like you're going to prevent all malware that way anyway. Developers will have admin rights on their virtual machines and when you stop them from doing 'bad' things on their real machines, they'll just do them on the vms where the admin probably can't even effectively enforce a policy on patching, firewalling and other security mitigation techniques.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: lokiju
What exactly did he do that was bad?

WTF too, I am confused. Sounds like he needed proggies to program.

Reimaging a machine is a 10min process, less if you have them ready to go.

Sounds like a toner monkey is rattling his cage.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: jbourne77
I'm a software architect, and it shocks me how little the average developer knows about PCs. One guy I worked with about 7 years ago would just delete folders under Program Files when he wanted to uninstall software. Don't like McAfee anymore? Just delete the McAfee folder!

Another guy tried swapping memory... with the PC on. Nice little arc there.

I just get an amazing number of dumb little questions. What's worse, is that they have just as much difficult with the software THEY write! "Hey jbourne77, my program does blahbiddyblah." WTF do you want me to do about it?

:laugh:MAO!!!

I sat and watched a friend of mine deal with one of our developers one evening, she was taking a laptop home to login and work from home on and she kept asking him, so I just plug this into the wall and then plug this into my router and it will work? He was getting so frustrated with her. After she left I asked him how someone in her position could possibly know so little about computers.

 

[sutahz]

Maybe he's testing his staff, see how has the balls to call him out on being an idiot.
Maybe he's testing to see if anyone can actually fix the problems, or if they just decide to reimage his machine.
Maybe he's clueless.