Confessions of an IT Manager

306 Pages·2009·5.91 MB·English

by  Phil Factor

Best of Simple Talk
Confessions of an
IT Manager
Phil Factor
Second Edition
ISBN: 978-1-906434-18-2
Confessions of an IT
Manager
2nd Edition

by Phil Factor

First published 2006 by Simple-Talk Publishing
Cambridge, UK
ii

Copyright Phil Factor 2009

ISBN 978-1-906434-19-9
The right of Phil Factor to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written consent of the publisher. Any
person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal
prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This book should not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, sold, hired out, or otherwise
circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is
published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the
subsequent publisher.

Editor Tony Davis
iii
Contents
Contents..........................................................................................3
Introduction.....................................................................................7
Foreword.........................................................................................9
The DBA's Demise - a recitation..................................................10
Section I: On Learning to Love your Manager.............................12
Training Your IT Manager.................................................................13
The Septic Tank.................................................................................19
The Yancey Men................................................................................23
Bunnikins!.........................................................................................29
Betting on Promotion........................................................................35
How to Prevent Initiatives.................................................................39
Irregular verbs for IT managers.........................................................45
Phrases with which to discourage ideas............................................47
Initiating a project with a Strategy one-pager...................................51
Looking Busy....................................................................................55
Doing things - The Manual...............................................................59
The Incident of 'The Two Johns' – an IT Manager confesses............61
Section II: The Strange Business of Software..............................64
Going It Alone...................................................................................65
The Walrus and the Manager.............................................................69
Click-A-Crematorium.......................................................................75
A Chilling Prophecy..........................................................................79
Talking Technical..............................................................................81
The Diary of a Microsoft Marketing Man.........................................85
Microsoft Boy announces his School Homework.............................87
The March of Technology.................................................................91
iv
Clinging to the Flotsam. A Survivor's Tale........................................97
Section III: Software Projects: the Good, the Bad and the
Pitiful............................................................................................100
Secrets of successful IT projects......................................................101
Confessions of an IT Strategist........................................................109
The Technically Minded Subclass and the Fog of
Misperception..................................................................................113
The Data Dialog...............................................................................117
The Joy of NAD...............................................................................121
Smoke and Mirrors..........................................................................127
The Acronym Playpen.....................................................................131
The Writing on the Wall...................................................................135
The Ghost in the Machine................................................................139
The Sticking Page-Down-Key Incident...........................................145
The Escape from Developer Hell.....................................................149
The Time Bomb...............................................................................153
On the Trail with the Cowboy Coders.............................................159
When the Fever is Over, and one's Work is done............................163
Section IV: Hiring, Firing and other acts of Villainy...................174
Bogus resumes and unblushing lies: navigating the database
hiring waters....................................................................................175
IT Agencies and the Devil...............................................................181
The Stepford Geeks.........................................................................187
The Terror of Technical Tests..........................................................191
The Interview with the Psychometric Test.......................................193
Brown Shoes Don't Make It.............................................................195
Technical Interviews and Tests Have Got to Stop!..........................199
Two stops short of Dagenham.........................................................203
The March of Time..........................................................................207
Fired With Enthusiasm....................................................................209
The Whipping Boy...........................................................................213
Hens that Crow................................................................................219
v
The New Man..................................................................................223
Section V: What If …?................................................................228
Had IT been responsible for the Creation........................................229
Had offshoring been responsible for Hamlet...................................233
Had Tennyson been a Technical Author..........................................239
Had God been a Technical Author...................................................241
Had the Sistine Chapel been Created by Committee.......................243
Captain Codd and the Simple Proposition......................................249
Section VI: Hiccoughs in the Working Day................................254
I could do it in my Sleep.................................................................255
The Pub Lunch and Programming...................................................259
At half-past three, it's time for tea...................................................261
Cha: Tea-drinking for IT Developers..............................................265
Survival Tips for PowerPoint Boredom..........................................269
The Joy of IT Meetings...................................................................275
Why do we call them 'Bugs'?..........................................................279
The Ballad of the Tuple Relation....................................................281
Common Law, and the Need for Restraint......................................283
Phil Factor on the Law....................................................................287
Santa's SLA.....................................................................................291
Tomorrow will be our Dancing Day................................................295
The Data Center that Exploded: A Halloween Tale.........................301

Introduction
During my career as an IT professional, strange things have always seemed
to happen to me. The true incidents I describe in the chapters that lie ahead are
those that are intended to illustrate a point about working in IT.
There are many such incidents that I cannot talk about because, in doing so,
I would reveal my true identity. Many cannot be used because they are
unrelated to the themes of this set of articles, which are about the IT workplace,
and the predicament of those who work in the business. Some stories have to
remain untold as they are so outrageous that nobody would believe them. A few
would be unsuitable for a public airing on grounds of decency.
Even as a student, I was dogged by bizarre events. I once called in, out of
curiosity, to a fashionable restaurant and nightclub in Central London that was
decked out in a 'Satanist' theme, all black walls and plastic skulls. My wife and
I sat down to a tasty and rather expensive meal amongst the rather dodgy
tasteless decorations.
After a while, a large chandelier fell on my head.
I mistakenly decided that I was the target of a joke or a television prank, so I
pretended that nothing had happened and carried on eating. Blood trickled
down from a cut on my forehead, but I munched on my meal with true British
Backbone. Nervous waiters suddenly were fluttering around apologising and
mopping up. Thinking the joke had gone on rather a long time, I ignored them.
After a while peace was restored. It suddenly seemed too quiet. I looked up
to spot other diners backing out through the restaurant door, eyeing us
nervously. From behind the bar, I could just see the top of the head of a barman
as he stared like a frightened rabbit at me from behind a row of bottles. The
kitchen door was slightly ajar, and two pale faces were dimly visible from
behind.
Oh dear, I thought, they think I'm the Antichrist.
I stood up. The kitchen door slammed, and I then caught site of my bloodied
face in the mirror behind the bar. Hmm. I could understand why they'd thought
that.
Nobody charged us for the meal, then or on any of the subsequent occasions
that we visited. There is joy to be had in a case of mistaken identity.

Foreword
Whilst steering the Simple-Talk.com website, I was on the look out for an
experienced IT professional who could add tone and dignity to the site by
making weighty pronouncements about industry trends, and provide thoughtful
comments on events of interest to those working with SQL and .NET.
Instead I found Phil Factor.
While his articles deviated alarmingly from the brief, shot through as they
were with a wild seam of anarchic humour, it was really no surprise to me that
they went down well with our readers. In all of his work the humour is a sugar
coating for a pill of sage advice, wrought from years of rough-and-tumble in
the IT industry.
It is an honour and a pleasure to present to you his Full Confessions of an IT
Manager – a selection of some of his finest writings for the Simple-Talk site
from 2006 to 2009.
If you like what you read here, please do visit the website
(http://www.simple-talk.com) where, alongside the pepper-in-the-mill that is
Phil, you'll find all manner of technical tutorials, opinion, workbenches, and
scripts for SQL Server, .NET and Exchange people.
Of course, the book is best enjoyed whilst relaxing over a pint or two of real
ale. Enjoy!
Tony Davis
Editor, Red-Gate Software Cambridge
Cambridge 2009