Meta Problems

Let me start this off by saying that I do like my job. I get to work with Linux servers, and continually exceed customer expectations. It's wonderful. But working for large companies does bother me. It has taken me years, but I think I'm figuring out why. I think it has to do with meta problems. The most recent example of this revolves around an issue where I need to deploy some VMs from OVA templates. No problem, there's a process for this.

1. OVAs go through a team for screening so that we have some idea of what software is included with the OVA, and that there aren't any glaring security holes, or if there are, what needs to be done to address them.

2. Once the OVAs have been blessed, the project manager gives the OVA to the system builders for deployment.

3. System builders deploy the OVAs.

No problem. Except that there's no standardized way to get the OVA from 1 to 2 to 3. We as the system builders do not have a place where project managers can drop off blessed OVA files. We can't get them from the team that screens them. And we're not allowed to download them from the vendor, because we might get a slightly different version than the one that was blessed.

When I asked my manager about this, he knew a guy who had space on the network that we could use. We just need to add me and the project manager to that storage space, and of course every new project manager that comes along needs to be added as we discover them.

We're technical people solving a technical problem. But this kind of thing happens between typical end users in smaller companies all the time. The official term is Shadow IT.

In our case, I tried to talk to my manager, and the person who magically had storage space on the network, directly. I asked about getting dedicated storage space for the build team, because while this solution works, it seems like a weak link in the chain. The response?

"Ha! Yeah, it's pretty flimsy. But this is what we've got."

I work for a company. But at this point, I can't help feeling that I get work done in spite of the company. It's like they want me to work, but they don't really want me to work. We're tackling the same problems over and over again on a daily basis.

The meta problem of not having dedicated storage space makes the process of deploying OVAs more difficult. Each member of the build team needs to:

1. Discover that there's a hole in the OVA deployment process.

2. Ask our manager about the lack of storage space.

3. Our manager will introduce us to "a guy he knows," who has space on the network.

4. The build team member interrupts the guy so that he can add the build team member and the project manager to the network share.

5. The build team member can then inform the project manager of the network location where the OVA can be uploaded to.

6. The build team member can then download then OVA and begin the build process.

This becomes more streamlined the next time the build team member needs space, as long as the build team member is working with a project manager who has already been granted access to that storage space. If the project manager hasn't been granted access, go back to the list above, start at step 4, and proceed.

If I go through something like this once, no problem. I deal with it, and move forward. But when I'm done with the crisis at hand, bet the farm that I'm going to circle back to this and urge people to find a more reasonable solution. When I do that, and the response is, "Eh, this is how we work," that's when I start getting upset.