cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/23098977

Got a new job in November. It’s not in IT, not even adjacent. I’m not a coder, so i guess this post is IT humor rather than programing humor. Anyhow, I’ve been using Linux for over a decade, hacking countless devices, selfhosting, helping others etc. I proudly consider myself half a nerd. A passionate hobbyist.

My employer is modern enough to have the whole admin run online: there’s a clock punching app and one for customer communication, and lastly a website for employees to look at their scheduled shifts, hours worked & salary paid.

My boss (who isn’t my employer) miscommunicated with me from day zero. I got nothing from her. Whenever I asked about some technical info she either told me to call tech support or - as if begrudgingly - gave me a link or a passcode without explaining how to use it - or simply didn’t reply at all.
To make matters worse, she clearly misremembered a few things, forgot about documents I already sent her, and mispelled my last name, but always blamed me.

Everything I got working was with the help of my coworkers, who aren’t exactly tech savvy.

But I could not log into the employee website no matter how I tried (so many times) and so I couldn’t see my upcoming shifts. One Monday I came late because of that. Of course this was perceived to be my fault. Unreliable. Too dumb to use the site. One Sunday I had to beg my coworkers to send me a screenshot of my shifts.

I now believe that my boss is actually the one who is clueless about these things. But because everybody uses Windows & Google, and all login and registering procedures are built along this path of least resistance, the whole thing kinda just works, even though nobody can trace the steps taken to get there.

It took a full month of me calling up the totem pole to figure out that all accounts require 2FA which nobody had told me - not even the web UI itself. To make that work, I had to log into a work laptop with my work account (and it worked immediately).

Afterwards we could not switch to the department account anymore because nobody remembered the login name - only the password which was taped to the laptop.

I had now “broken the computer”. 2 coworkers nearly had an aneurism because of that. The fact that I had “fixed” it again after 15 minutes did not count.

In this workplace of tech-illiterate people, I am now known as the one guy who is utterly clueless about computers and must be kept away from them at all cost. Apart from feeling mistreated & misjudged, this hurts my ego more than I would have thought. But it’s also kinda funny.

PS: There are more things fucked up here. Two more days and I’m out, and not looking back.

  • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
    11·
    2 days ago

    Two more days and I’m out, and not looking back.

    Honestly, that sounds like it’s for the best. Regardless of how you came off, or the obvious IT security shitshow this is, your co-workers don’t exactly have your back. And it kind of looks like your manager is burned out and/or apathetic to how bad onboarding is. So, you basically have no reliable support which is crucial for newbies. That’s not a high bar for excellence, it’s a recipe for a “cover your tracks and hide your mistakes” culture. I guarantee there are skeletons hidden everywhere.

    That may all be circumstantial, but consider the next time something breaks or there’s an emergency. How will this team behave? Will there be a post-mortem analysis? If there is, would it be blameless? Is there enough power/responsibility on that team to tank the company if something goes wrong? Is your boss in hot water and the team at risk? Is the team thought of well by the rest of the company or are they viewed as incompetent? The behaviors you describe suggest a longer story of bad moves and you might be fleeing a house on fire without knowing it.

    Oh, and the most essential question of all to ask: why was this position open in the first place?

    • A_norny_mousse@feddit.orgOPEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      I think my coworkers follow the bosses example here.

      Yes, there is no support. No way of reflecting on how the work went or how to improve things. Everything is picked up while running. My coworkers seem to think that’s normal. That the challenge of the job is to literally survive it, day to day (we’re constantly short on personnel).

      you might be fleeing a house on fire without knowing it.

      I do know it.

      Oh, and the most essential question of all to ask: why was this position open in the first place?

      Parental leave.

      But there’s another coworker who just got hired. They experienced the same lack of onboarding and managements unwillingness to commit. They are also leaving now. Her predecessor most certainly left because of what a shitshow that place is.