The BOFH is not a manual

I used to be a professional hurdle. No, I haven’t missed off an “r” from that, I used to work in an IT department. I even ran one for a while. And, looking back, we were hurdles. It pains me to say that, but we were. We were in control, we dictated, we needed our whims to be pampered to. In short, we needed to be got round. We chuckled as we read the exploits of the Bastard Operator From Hell, and “user” was very definitely a four-letter word.

It was only when I moved out of IT, and into “the business” (first as a Service Desk manager, then as a fledgling Consultant — elsewhere, I might add), that I properly understood that IT systems and their managing processes are meant to support and unburden, not coral and constrain. They are meant to set you free, not be something you must overcome simply in order to “get things done”. It wasn’t until I started to engage with clients as a fully paid-up IT Consultant that I realised we’d been doing it wrong. Really wrong.

I recall a meeting a colleague and I once had with a panel of our users at which we were, rather confusingly, berated for our lack of support and approachability. What a bunch of whiners, we thought, as we wandered back to our bat-cave, what do they know about anything? Actually, they were clinical researchers, so they knew plenty, as it happens — the needle on the Phd counter was firmly buried at the end where the big numbers live — but that made no dent in our arrogance. We nurtured these systems, we were responsible for them. We couldn’t let anything happen to them. You know, stuff like useful and appropriate access. Yes, I’m sorry to say, I was that guy.

Jump forward into a new century, and for the most part IT is part of the journey — included, and very much a part of a shaping ethos. But still I’ve borne witness to far too many instances of what ought to be the old ways over the intervening years. This time from the other side. A year or two ago, I was waiting on a reply from another client’s IT department. Through an intermediary, of course, because they wouldn’t talk to me directly as I wasn’t a recognised employee and didn’t exist on their system — and therefore couldn’t log a ticket — to grant me elevated access to the system that I’d been identified at board-level as “owning” (for a review of their pre-production system ahead of an upgrade & enhancement project). Contrary to what you might think, I don’t actually like being paid to twiddle my thumbs. I could just as easily do that from the comfort of my own sofa, but to do it on site whilst the client pays is a waste of everyone’s time and money. I could have banged directly on the IT Dept door, but direct confrontation — especially with the disciples of the BOFH — does more harm than good. They’re quite often battle re-enactors, or aficionados of Dungeons & Dragons, and who wants to risk the damage that slamming down the portcullis — either real or imagined — might cause?

I’ve even had a client who, to get round the constrictive practices of his own IT department, sourced a cloud offering on which to host a test-bed for a new system. The necessary unfettered access to allow for the basic sandpit routines of backups/restores/re-runs and code tests just simply wasn’t forthcoming internally, so part of the project spend had to go that way.

IT services are a valuable resource for helping people with the daily grind, to facilitate a smoother run of the business and hiccup-free collaboration, ultimately contributing to a competitive edge in sometimes over-populated markets. And for 90% of them, this is true. But every now and then, instead of embarking on what should be a smooth ride, I’m occasionally stymied by a lack of access, and left hoping that it’s just a temporary inability to proceed. A hurdle, if you will. Oh touché, fate. Touché.