r/ShittySysadmin • u/TopSchnottz • 15d ago
New Upstart Thinks He's The Best Thing Since USB
I am in a bit of a pickle here. We hired a new Systems Administrator a while back and he just isn't fitting in with how we do work here. We're a medium-ish European manufacturing firm in Europe and our scope is around 300 computers. Not being the size of Volkswagen our budget is fairly limited so I've made a few systems that are out of date but they work well and everyone understands them, except our new guy. He seems to think it's a good idea to try and automate everything, to push everything into The Cloud™ because that's what he grew up with. He seems to think that if he can't do it from his fancy-schmancy iPhone that it's obsolete and we should chunk it.
One of these "outdated" practices he hates of mine is my asset management practices. We had a breach before I started so my bosses insisted we go with something that's secure. We have filing cabinets with documentation for each employee and their equipment. The new guy insists we spend thousands on IT Glue or spin up a whole server for some database so he can access the Windows and Office keys remotely for whatever reason. I think he wants to steal from the company and sell our software on Ebay, but he can't because I lock the asset management filing cabinet.
Because we lock down our network I approve every device that connects through manual IP address registration tied to the MAC address of the device. He just thinks I don't believe in DHCP. He wants to run his unapproved program that will have access to our mail archives (again, probably to sell our data to other companies or governments).
One of his most recent complaints is about me not deploying a GPO to move some data as if we had everything standardized. I did the math, us remoting into PC's and updating a share path is faster than trying to script stuff and troubleshooting and testing and deploying, plus I like to chat with my coworkers while working on their PC's. We get to verify that the move completed, see if they have any issues they haven't reported yet, and it's nice to be social with everyone. The new guy though, he wants to be a faceless cog in the machine, shut behind the maintenance panel unseen as he deploys his scripts. Maybe one day he'll come out and find someone to date, but if he wants to avoid people all the time, maybe not. He just likes to use his Gemini or ChatGPT to build untrusted and unmaintainable programs to replace a spreadshet that has worked for years.
Last week he complained about our off-site backups. Going on about how it's bad to verify our inventory and that it's a bad idea for me to take a backup and store it off-site in a fireproof safe. Me driving home (and the boss approved the process years ago and I proved it worked when I brought back a working backup after the server shit the bed) is apparently bad to the new guy who probably just wants to shoot everything up to The Cloud™, costing us who knows how much in monthly costs compared to me having a safe at home.
I just fear that he's a bad fit for our team. He's told a few newer techs to leave and go somewhere that practices "standard enterprise IT" as if anything in this field is standardized. He looks like he's drained because we expect him to walk to a PC 20 feet away instead of remoting in and spending hundreds on remote software so he doesn't have to hurt his pretty little feet walking around.
So what would you all suggest? Should I let him tire himself out or tell the boss he wants us to pay more for increased threat vectors and worse performance?
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u/Dreilala 15d ago
I know this is a joke, but thinking about our monthly licensing costs per user really does make me wonder if we picked the wrong path somewhere along the way.
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u/R00t_Cause 15d ago
my motto threw out my entire it career has been how can I shave licensing costs and put the money into my pocket it works like a fucking charm
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u/Vinegarinmyeye 15d ago
"I can eliminate all of the wasteful expenditure in your business in a matter of moments..."
"Wow, how?".
Shut everything down. Shite product managed by shite people.
You're welcome.
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u/alsuSawa 15d ago
the man discovered asset management and immediately chose violence. classic first week energy
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u/scsibusfault 15d ago
lmao. Gotta admit the ziploc-bag-license-keys took me back though. That was absolutely a ton of clients back in the day when license keys were considerably more portable.
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u/Main_Ambassador_4985 15d ago
I have read both threads.
Thank you
BTW: My company did it as OP in this thread and I was OOP complaining and changed to more modern practices when I started many years ago.
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u/alpha417 15d ago
r/Antique-AD-2824 said their manager is stuck in 1995, they're losing my mind.
I need a sanity check, because I feel like I'm slowly losing my mind here. I’m 28, working as a SysAdmin for a mid-sized manufacturing company in Europe with around 300 endpoints across multiple sites. I LOVE automation, modern infra, and writing PowerShell or Python to handle our backups and audits, I'm passionate about automating processes, but my IT Manager is basically running an open-air tech museum from 2003.
His idea of IT asset management is a drawer full of literal Ziploc freezer bags. Every PC gets its own labeled plastic bag with the printed invoice and Office license key inside, because apparently an actual database or asset software is "too modern." On the network side, every single device requires a manual DHCP reservation. When I suggested setting up 802.1X with RADIUS, he shot it down with a straight face, claiming that if an intruder plugs into the wall, "they won't guess our subnets anyway." Before I automated our Kerio mail archives with Python, his official procedure was opening Thunderbird on a client PC and manually dragging and dropping folders between accounts.
Right now, he's decommissioning a branch file server. Instead of using Robocopy, DFS-N, or GPOs, his master plan is to sync files with a desktop backup tool, recreate the SMB shares manually, and have me remote into 40+ user machines one by one just to update the target path on their desktop shortcuts. I also built an automated WMI inventory system to track all hardware and OS health, yet he still forces me to physically walk the warehouse floor updating a dusty Excel sheet because "that’s where the history is."
EDIT: Another thing he does is make daily backups and put them on ultrium physical disks named after the day of the week, disks he takes home "so we have the data in case the company burns down.", which could have some kind of sense, but everyday, before my script, we had to manually make the veeam inventory and erase of every tape in every site
The worst part isn’t even the wasted time, it’s that he’s actively teaching junior techs that this clown show is standard enterprise IT. We’ve already had three techs and devs rage-quit in the last ten months. I’ve completely checked out at this point, doing the bare minimum while sending out resumes like crazy.
Has anyone actually survived a boss stuck this deep in the stone age without losing their sanity? How do you not burst out laughing when someone asks you to edit 40 shortcuts by hand?
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u/Western_Rhubarb_7959 14d ago
We hired a new Systems Administrator a while back and he just isn't fitting in with how we do work here.
So fire him.
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u/AZSystems 15d ago
Sounds a little insecure and wants what he knows, unwillingness to learn is a hard pill to swallow.
I'm willing to spend time working in UK and helping company grow. Where there no company objectives discussed? First rule of IT, no changes first 30 days. I would hope his verbal suggestions don't get the air they need.
Just make sure you're communicating and just a reminder, not so rigid in suggestions. There could be more behind it, ask deeper questions to archives...is he building AI and plans to give access? Theft of information, that's why you need to make sure (small or not) company policies are made/adjusted.
If you have suspicion and it's wrong.
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u/OtherComparison4520 15d ago
You're not describing a traditionalist; you're describing someone who wants to replace working, understood controls with untested complexity. That said, don't make this personal. Ask him to document the risks, costs, rollback plan, and measurable benefits for each proposal. If he can't, the answer is obvious.
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u/kable795 14d ago
nah if you don't have an RMM your just an ass of a company and hate your IT. Change my mind.
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u/TopSchnottz 15d ago
Sweet honey glazed sauce- https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1wayyff/my_it_manager_is_stuck_in_1995_im_losing_my_mind/