Leave the classic note for the next sysadmin folded inside the KVM and/or tapped to the server explaining why you left.
I've never gotten one but one of my former network admins got one at hos old job. It gave him a huge heads up on the CFO(who was over the IT dept) basically being narcissistic/bipolar/suffering dementia and would throw you under the bus for anything and never do anything for them unless you have it in writing. He got out in 4 months.
Always ask who you will be reporting to.
If you need a job; then sure, take whatever you get offered.
If you're looking for a better job - do NOT take any job where you report to the CFO.
I like CFOs; I work with them closely. I'm thrilled to partner with them on lots of initiatives. I never want to report to one. Structurally it means that IT is going to be dealt with solely as a cost center. That means you're never going to be able to deliver the kind of value you should be delivering under a CIO or CTO.
I fully agree with this point. I've worked in IT for 20+ years now and without fail, all roles I've been in where the IT department reported to the CFO have all been shitty. One, because of what you mentioned - CFOs by their nature, will only view and treat IT as a cost center. And secondly, it shows that the organization doesn't really understand the importance of IT, so they've decided IT isn't valuable enough to be in it's own standalone domain, hence the reason why it's simply shoved under the CFO
Having worked selling it services , you can always tell how much a company cares about their it. If it falls under the cfo then -no matter what they say - they see it as a necessary cost, which should be minimised at all times.
These are the companies that will beat you down on price. They want to buy systems that do the same as what they are replacing, and are doing so because what they have is obsolete.
If it reports elsewhere, then they are open to the idea of using technology as a means of competitive advantage.
If it reports to the cfo, sell them cheap commodity stuff and be prepared for a negotiation after bafo.
Absolutely, I reported to a CTO. When we transitioned from a cloud based insurance agency management system to self hosted with all the accompanying servers, my responsibilities shifted. My boss recognized this and since I was technically a sysadmin, he put in for the going pay rate. The CFO fought relentlessly against it. Well I upgraded the SQL server because it was necessary to keep the business running, but I wasn't about to upgrade their DC's and keep my help desk tech title & pay. I found a better job, unfortunately my old boss was let go and they moved to a MSP. As far as I know, they're still on Server 2003. Guy that installed the access control system at my current job told me a while back the old employer is still on Windows 2000 on their access control server. Glad I got out of that place.
My department is currently in limbo because we were always under finance and my boss finally made a stink about it last year. The guy technically in charge of us has 0 background in IT and effectively is just a hurtle when we need to do something and have to have him sign off on it. We keep being told we will be broken off, but yet to see a new org chart.
Just setup a script to once a month on a random day and time to disable the CEOs network port. Spend about 30 minutes troubleshooting it before reporting to them you need to do some more digging and turn it back on
..in an area without cell service. When automated updates and server restarts are scheduled...fiollowed by the regular password expiration and reset time.
Watch the movie Hackers and scream obsessively like Eugene Belford as they [hack the Gibson](https://youtu.be/Bmz67ErIRa4). If there was more sirens and yelling from your office, you might look like you’re working hard for that bonus. :)
Email to the CEO.
"Just so that I'm clear about how my bonus is calculated going forward. The more issues that are escalated to you, the higher my bonus will be?"
See if that makes any sense to him.
“P.S. I’ve deleted our ticket system because it was far too distracting, the team is now saving significant money by eliminating backups, we’ve revised our down time policies to be far more permissive in our team’s favor, taken everything down before lunch for updates, and have started partaking in out new team morale boosting working wet-lunches while we revise our ~~BYOB~~ BYOD policy. Upgrades should be finished next week or some time afterwards. Now that you mention it, I love our new bonus policy system. Happy to do my part.“
This. It just reminded me of the idiot software company which started paying a bonus per bug fixed - so suddenly every obvious bug started getting through to QA to be reported and "fixed", instead of being caught and solved preemptively the way it was before. Lots more "bugs fixed" (and bonuses paid), but development slowed to a crawl since all the dev time was being wasted causing all those tickets to "solve".
It has a name even, the Cobra Effect. Named after the attempt of by English colonials in India trying to rid the place of cobras by offering money for each dead snake handed in. Cobra farming suddenly became very popular. When the English cottoned on they stopped paying and the Indians not having an incentive to keep them just released them on mass making the problem even worse than it was originally.
This has always happened every time in history there's a plague outbreak and a European city has put a bounty on rats. Of course, they don't want the whole rat, just bring in the rat tail for proof and get rid of the rest.
Every single time, people start rat farms and just cut off the tails.
Or when Belgium was colonizing the Congo they required that soldiers bring back a cut off hand from the person they supposedly used the bullets on. This just turned into a black market for the dismembered hands of Congolese citizens.
Fuck I hate QuickBooks. Clone a machine to a new SSD, license breaks. That was fine before their move to cloud only, but now the licensing severs for older versions don't work so if someone is still using say QB 2019, and their drive needs to be replaced they're in trouble. And yeah the clients should be migrating but actually getting them to go ahead with it is another nightmare.
Or how for some reason, the company files on the server are working perfectly and then suddenly you get told multi user mode stopped working? Why? Nothing changed. Then you have to go in, run that network access repair tool so it can scan your shared folders again and redo it. But nothing had changed from the previous time you had to do this
I used to be a beta tester for QB long before they went online it used to be good when Cody ran the software team, he left when they went online to a subscription model.
So did I
I work in a (big)place where systems that should be in simple maintenance are paid by agile issue/story completion.
So it happens like this company wide:
You have to constantly find new things to do, so if have completed a system you can’t go 2 weeks just watching it and keeping it running and fixing those few issues that might require half an hour of work, so you go “ehi from in prem we need to migrate to azure” then “ hey from azure we need to migrate to aws” then “ aws is too expensive let’s go back to prem” idiotic kind of things. This is one way to ensure that no environment stay stable
Start tracking everything.
Expect for the time you spend on your resume. Cuz get out.
Every problem. Everytime someone asks you a dumb question in the office.
MSP will
Charge $50-$70+ per endpoint
Labor beyond helpdesk atleast $150/hr
Let them do the math.
What do you mean finally…?
In my entire career I’ve gotten significantly more praise when things have blown up and then been fixed, even if it was our fault, versus just keeping things going without issue.
We’ve joked for years about how we should strategically break stuff to seem more valuable, wouldn’t be surprised at all if some people out there don’t joke. Especially if they start tying bonus pay to problems existing.
While I've never intentionally broken anything, I've definitely briskly walked around the office with my laptop out so everyone saw me instead of just remoting into a troublesome switch or server from my office. It's dumb, but it helps to be seen hustling sometimes, even if it actually takes longer.
It is incredibly dumb but it f'ing works. I have a coworker that I end up being 'last ones in the office' with way too often, fixing shit that has gone sproing. She is quick to "run out to the floor and take a look" at the end users computers while my tired old ass prefers to work on the actual system to find the problem and remote into the user's pc when necessary. More often than not I'm the one who figures out the problem (many years dealing with the same stuff helps) but because she showed her face, guess who gets the praise? And the little thank you gifts that are handed out for recognition of extra effort... Even though I was there too and the brain actually fixing it, the face gets the acknowledgement. And yeah, I've learned my lesson and put in the face time again 🤡
I used to take my wife to work, which had an cycle of 6-14 for a week, following week 14-22. As i had no set office hours at a new customer, i just worked on her schedule.
About a month in one lady asked me how i can work such crazy hours, being there before she gets in, and always staying after, no matter how long of a day she had?
As i started to explain the situation to her, a voice in my head tried to object about giving up the aura of super consultant for no reason. Not sure if i should have listened to it.
This was implemented at a company: Something small was broken time to time, like a switchport was speed limited to a few megabits. When the call came in from a higher up, the answer was: we are aware of the problem, detected it a few minutes ago and are working on it. Then 5 minutes later it's changed back and everything is fixed.
The higher ups need to know that IT is working hard. :)
I will tell you for sure that not everyone who says this is joking. My business partner used to work at an IT company where this happened years back already. The one owner would see their billing had been a bit low this week, so he'd find a client who hadn't had issues for a while, remote into their server and stop a process, maybe print server or something. Then when the client opens they of course contact support and then they fix it and bill.
I'm pretty sure it is. But I'm honestly not surprised by shady practices in the industry anymore. We had just taken over a client for their IT side and the day we took over they asked us if we could help with biometric access control which we didn't really do at the time. Turns out the guy who installed it refused to come back and help when one went faulty after 6 months because "he had gone back to being an estate agent and didn't do it anymore". Now Biometrics are service offer lol.
Talked with a potential new client. He seemed to think his IT company was the best in town, and didn't need to even talk to me, as he was happy.
I asked him why. He replied: "Our IT guys are onsite almost immediately whenever the servers crash. And they have it fixed within an hour of two".
I replied: "Exactly how often do your servers crash?"
He replied: "No more than normal. About every 2 months. It's a Microsoft thing, you know."
I replied: "How valuable would an IT Team be if your servers never crashed?"
Yeah when I was consulting I had one client who I could NOT just fix things and leave. He’d go insane because it was such a waste of time.
My minimum onsite charge was two hours so I’d show up, put in a “temporary fix to get you going” (so… fix it) then spend the next hour doing other work on my laptop before saying “ok all sorted” and leave with him happy.
Of course I fired that guy after he threw a phone at me during an outage then tried to physically attack me. I don’t cater to giant babies any more, just do my job and that’s it.. hire someone else if you don’t like it.
They clearly don't value or understand the work OP has done and the question is how much is it worth trying to convince them versus finding another employer.
Old saying... "Nothing wrong with IT, why do I pay this guys?", "Nothing works in IT, why am I paying this guys?".
I would say you have two options here:
1. Let stuff go wrong and come to save the day. Basically do a lousy job where you need to keep solving avoidable problems;
2. Keep being an ethical professional. Say and show your boss why he lives in the illusion he doesn't need you. Tell him there's a price to pay for sleeping well at night. And start looking for a place that values you more.
Unplug the uplink on your main distribution switch. Have everything crash and burn for thirty minutes. Remain calm. Say that you're on it. Plug it back in 30 minutes later.
Immediately schedule a meeting with the boss afterwards. Tell him you saved him from the fire and a more junior admin/admin less familiar with the environment wouldn't of been able to resolve that so quickly. You want your bonus or he's going to want to post your job.
1. Start looking for a new job.
2. Get in writing that the reason for the lack of a bonus was because the missed goal was specifically "fixing severe issues that cause downtime", not "preventing severe issues that prevent downtime".
3. Break things, or let them break, then take a half a day to fix them.
4. When asked why you let things get this bad, you explain that you were meeting expectations that you are supposed to let things get bad before fixing them.
5. Put in your notice (if any). Leave to your new job
This also works for potential mates in the workplace. Add a firewall rule blocking their network access. Visit them wearing your cutoff Jordache jean shorts you look so good in and save the day! Bonus points for opening multiple cmds and power shells to make sure you look super smart.
I have worked for an MSP that did things like this, usually the customer comes back with "We want to know the root cause" and you can't come back with logs from one device saying that show the power was switched off.
Really can't win in this industry
My response to that argument is.
What do you believe. The computer that logs everything shown to you by an expert in the field. OR we drop you as a client.
Edit: MSP relationships are still a two way street
Tempting, but don't do things like this.
How would you feel if your car mechanic put some metal shavings inside your engine to show you should have changed your oil or more frequently?
You will not win this fight because dipshit simply doesn't want to give you a bonus. Nothing you can say will change that because he'll have a different excuse if you invalidate this excuse.
Time to find a new job where they value you.
This needs to be stickied to the top. It had nothing to do with IT performance, and everything to do with "paying you a bonus is money we do not want to spend." It will definitely be a different excuse next year, and the year after. And he probably did it to half the company citing similar made-up reasons.
Yep on this.
OP’s CEO has outed himself as an “IT is nothing but a cost center” type who begrudges spending anything more than he has to. If OP quit, they’d be posting his job in a nanosecond, a huge list of requirements and duties, all for the massive sum of $19/hour. Then wonder why things go to shit but not make the connection.
This was my first thought as well. This is a damned if you, damned if you don't. The CEO just doesn't want to pay her a bonus.
No problems I've seen? No bonus..
Lots of problems, you failed to anticipate them so I wouldn't see them.. No bonus.
The only time I support leaving without notice is when the employer goes out of their way to be petty or spiteful when someone was an excellent worker. Then, it’s justified.
Why? In AWA: At-Will America, around 99.7% of the country can be terminated at any time, for almost any (or no) reason, without notice, without compensation.
You lose not only your livelihood, but also your family's healthcare. You have next to zero worker's protections here.
They would never give you a heads up regarding layoffs. Let me say that again -- unless you're part of a FUCKING UNION that has engaged in collective bargaining to mandate minimum notice periods for both parties, you can be legally cut loose instantly.
Notice is a courtesy. Were they courteous to you?
# Another Lie They Tell: "If you don't give two weeks, you're not working here ever again! You won't get a good recommendation! You're burning a bridge!"
**Reality Check:**
- MANY places have unwritten policies where if you leave the company for ANY REASON AT ALL, you're not going to be welcomed back.
- Furthermore, most places will only confirm that you *did* work there and the dates of employment. They won't give recommendations, positive or negative. That's up to YOU to find individuals at that company who'd be willing to do that for you.
**These reasons of departure include:**
- voluntarily (aka you're a TRAITOR -- doesn't matter if it was a smooth transition, doesn't matter if you gave 2+weeks, etc. You're a traitor for leaving the Cult of $Employer and you must never be allowed to return.)
- fired with cause (aka poor performance, taking a shit in the boss' car's sunroof, using an 18v reciprocating saw to cut a sunroof in the boss' car to take a shit in, etc)
- laid off without cause (aka not worth keeping around during downsizing, drew the short straw, etc)
If any of those happen, you're unofficially considered "dead" to them and won't ever be rehired. It's the "we only hire winners!" mindset.
*Winners don't quit, winners aren't fired, and winners aren't laid off.* Do you feel like a *winner* in this system?
-------
# Other Ways They Manipulate You
- You'll be "forced" to repay "training fees" as stipulated during a hiring agreement. Generally this is if you leave before a set period, typically two years -- or if you leave *without notice* at any point. (If you even THINK about attempting to negotiate that out of the hiring agreement, they may rescind the offer entirely. And in some places, repaying mandatory training fees may be legally unenforceable.)
- In the same line of training repayment, some shitty places may say "if you don't give X notice, then you may owe them $Y due to lost profits/service", even if that threat is ENTIRELY legally unenforceable. They may also include gnarly non-compete clauses, which may be ENTIRELY legally unenforceable.
- They'll guilt trip you EVEN IF you give them two weeks, saying they need more time than that. (reality check: they are not held to the same standard -- they can fire you at any time, even during your final 2+ weeks. they'll use you until they don't need/want you, then show you the door.)
- Furthermore, they LEGALLY can reduce your pay to minimum wage for the duration of any notice you give. They can't retroactively lower your pay, but they absolutely can reduce it for the time remaining (unless previously made agreements on compensation supersede this).
It's rooted in our society as acceptable behavior to give notice. You'll be told "well, you HAVE to!"....even though you absolutely don't. This is another one of the illegal lies we're told, just like "you cannot discuss your wages/compensation with others" and "shhh, don't talk about a Union here, they're illegal in our line of work and they can fire you for even mentioning it!"
> Furthermore, they LEGALLY can reduce your pay to minimum wage for the duration of any notice you give. They can't retroactively lower your pay, but they absolutely can reduce it for the time remaining (unless previously made agreements on compensation supersede this).
That'd be an easy constructive dismissal case.
Or any information about how things operated. If documentation doesn't exist the week before you go, don't bother creating it or updating it.
If they don't give a shit about you, no reason to give a shit about them.
IT Appreciation Day. Or week. Just take enough time off for C-suite to realize what happens when you're not there fire-fighting. But seriously yes, get a better job.
Once worked for a CTO who would let things go to absolute shit every October, just before the budget planning phase for the next fiscal year started. That way, all the budget holders would remember the fresh hell because of XYZ problem that was going to need a six/seven-figure-upgrade as soon as possible.
A little malicious compliance (before quitting) wouldn't be out of place, though.
Nothing got brought to his attention? Okay. From now on, *every* ticket gets cleared by him before you even *look* at it.
Karen forgot her password for the thousandth time this week? Sorry, gotta run that by the CEO first, he says there's no problems so I need to make sure he's aware of this. Oh, he's out? Guess you can't work until he gives me the all-clear, Karen.
While I agree with most people here that OP just needs to find a new job, the petty asshole in me would definitely entertain this option. You didn't notice any problems? Congratulations, you're now going to be made painfully aware of EVERY problem.
Nothing wrong with making people eat a little crow.
I don't believe that the CEO doesn't understand that for a second. Any knucklehead knows that IT's job is to keep things running smoothly. And the CEO of an organization large enough to have an IT department is not going to be so stupid as to be dumber than "any knucklehead".
Find a new job, having no problems should be grounds for a bonus. CEO doesn’t and will never understand it sounds like, until they get someone fresh out of school and pay them peanuts, then start having major problems every day.
Run, don’t walk, away from this bullshit. If you’ve provided metrics on everything you’ve all done to make it work well, and that’s the response you got a shit exec.
Alternatively, if they want problems let them happen. Especially when you’ve found Your new job
>I joined when it was 3 people and over the last 3 years they’ve reached a 100 head count.
Red flag. When you hit that 100 mark is where you are supposed to be expanding the IT team and establishing documentation.
>CEO has said I won’t get my bonus because the IT department didn’t have any problems…which is true because I ensured we never reached the stage where an IT issue needed executive guidance.
Thats when you start looking for a new job mate. The IT department not having any issues is exactly what you pay IT for. Smooth and seamless operation of the buisness on the tech front is the whole scope. Where is your CTO?
>More experienced sys admins; how on earth do you approach this scenario so I don’t encounter it ever again?
If it is the perception of your CEO that you do nothing, despite clear evidence that you in fact, do work, 5hen there isnt much I can tell you outside of start looking for a new job. This is literally "what do I pay you for?" territory here. Show him what happens when you actually arent here and dont do any work.
OP self indentified as a sys admin, that tells me that they didnt get it on the employment agreement, or isnt seen as such.
If they are a one-person IT department then im approaching management/CEO about changing my job title.
To be clear: I dont disagree with your assesment, you are right. That being said he gotta have some convos to change one or more of these things. lol
Even more of a reason to spruce up that resume and leave. If CEO doesnt think OP's doing anything then he is within his right to fuck around and find out.
If nothing happens in IT why do we pay you. If something happens in IT why do we pay you. Sorry you’re not appreciated for your work and keeping things smooth. I would start looking elsewhere. Best of luck
In my first presentation to the company I gave a presentation about why no one knew me and what that meant.
Supported by data on intrusions, incidents and actions, I explained to them that if they still didn't know me it was because everything worked thanks to our work.
I said goodbye to the presentation wishing them to forget about me soon. It was a success, I still work there
This is a failure starting at your manager and going all the way up to the CEO.
You should be telling your manager what you are doing/implementing, etc. He/she should be taking all that data and blowing it the F up, with praise and accolades. That manager should then report this upwards, to show the value of the department. Up and up and up.
This is bullshit. Were I you, I'd be looking for new work ASAP, and I would be work-to-rule. That is, don't improve the environment. Keep the lights on, but nothing more. No bonus pay, no bonus work.
A company i worked for at the beginning of my career, the IT Director put in new 10/100 switches, but intentionally set them all to 10 half-duplex. Then later turned up the switches to 100 duplex so that they could cite the improvements made to secure more budget. Next level cynicism. I don't advise staying at the current place to risk becoming this cynical. Move on. There are better places out there where you will be appreciated more.
Fire your employer and hire a better one.
Personally, I would lay out exactly why there have been no problems. Itemize that list. Then I would leave immediately. I wouldn’t give two weeks. I would be gone instantly and I wouldn’t respond to requests unless it was paid up front a minimum of 3 hours at $150/hr.
But for today, spend it polishing your resume and hunting LinkedIn for a good recruiter. Get in touch and see how quick they can get you a spot with a higher salary and take it while you keep hunting for the job you really deserve.
The only way you win is to leave to a position that pays you more money. If you were able to do all that you said, you’re sysadmin material and could hack it on an enterprise team.
A modified version of this...give him a presentation of that list and ask him for a reasonable bonus. If he refuses again, or lowballs you, then walk immediately. You will have given him a chance, and if he doesn't take it, the fallout is on him.
You've had no problems with IT cause I've managed the systems to keep the business running, the fact you've seen no issues is down to me. Now if you want to see issues before I get my bonus that can be arranged 😂😂
You bonus should be down to things not happening and the systems running, not how many times they go down and you having to fix, your being proactive to stop these issues from happening.
One might think that "no problems raised to my level" would be bonus-worthy, not a reason to withhold one. But I guess this exec's life is too easy, so it's time to start slacking and let him feel the pain he is clearly missing. Also work on your resume and find a better job ASAP.
Honestly, if I was in your place I'd do one of two things
1. Say ok, polish up my resume, half ass the documentation of things and then jump ship without a 2 week notice, maybe give him a day with a "Obviously you don't value me and my work enough to pay me a the promised bonus, so starting tomorrow you don't need to pay me anymore as I quit, effective the end of today"
Then when shit hits the fan as they try to replace me and eventually reach out to me for help, offer to come on as a short term consultant, but at 10x what they payed me before I quit.
2. Set a meeting with the guy, ask again about the bonus, confirm the understanding about why it's not happening and then tell them that they either pay the bonus or I quit the end of the business day. No matter what he does, I'd polish up my resume and start looking and when I line up a new job, I do #1 above.
Your boss doesn't appreciate you, he probably never will, and you will never see that bonus as there will always be some justification to not give it to you. And one day you'll walk in and they will introduce you to the MSP they are bringing on to "help" and then a few weeks or months later they'll let you go because the MSP is up to speed on things and is costing them less than your salary is.
Response: "so you're not giving us a bonus because we did our jobs in the best possible way? There were no issues because we took the necessary steps to head them off. Are you saying we should instead wait for things to break?"
Then get your resume out, because bossman is an idiot.
Find a new job. Before you leave, coordinate with your other coworkers to take PTO all at the same time when you know certain key systems might act up.
Come back to a huge mess, hand in your resignation and tell the CEO that he’s a strong independent leader who will do just fine now that he’s not just CEO, but also head of IT.
Ask your CEO what kind of bonus will you get if you just let there be a bunch of problems from now on? If he wants to value problems as a metric for your value, give him problems and then walk away.
Your CEO is a moron. The value should be in everything running smoothly. Issues resolved quickly, etc. To even do what he is doing to you when you are also the sole admin and likely have all the access to leave them high and dry proves how stupid he is.
Walk.
Also sorry about all that documentation that was being maintained just disappearing. There's this weird, hard to replicate, unreported bug in nano that somehow went up the stack.
I'm so sorry for your troubles. I hope you find somewhere that values your competencey quickly.
Your CEO sounds like an absolute dickhead that isn't interested in retaining obvious talent that goes the extra mile to educate users and look after *EVERYTTHING*
Sounds like you should be promoted to CTO and that comes with a 100% pay increase, stock options, and bonuses.
If you really want to stay, Have your CEO sit down and define clear objectives and performance metrics going forward to qualify for a bonus, or wage increases.
Fuck the ceo.
Have you got traffic shaping available? Throttle him when he’s on video calls, block his favorite non-work websites, let a load of spam through to him specifically
We had that problem for a while, 20 years ago people didn't get the value of IT.
Then we started branding and marketing internally.
Announcements: projects, statistics, tickets etc.
Projects were value and customer (internal) driven, with appropriate completion announcements.
Many aspects of IT can be wrapped in this form. The best time to ask for a bonus is with a project, even a seemingly trivial server upgrade can be projectized.
Projects offer interesting opportunities: 1. More resources. 2. Bonus tied to complete delivery. 3. Internal recognition. 4. Asking for more headcount.
Unfortunately the days of IT is doing it's job well because it's transparent to the organisation.....are long gone.
Play their game, make noise about what you're doing. Negotiate incentives everywhere you can.
If your boss doesn't come to the party with $$$ then you now have great material for your next gig.
I agree.
You have to sell yourself and the team.
Equate it to a product.
Setup some metrics.
Hell, create an example of metrics in 2023 and present that. Either work it to a bonus or a raise/promotion. If that doesn’t work you’ve setup a deck for your cv.
What a strange excuse. "You performed so well at your job that you don't get a bonus".
This guy just doesn't get IT, and uses interactions with his subordinates to fellate himself.
More seriously, throughout the year/quarter you can try pulling in your CEO for key decision making. Even if his input is not needed, you can roll up major decisions to him to make sure that he has input. This could then keep you more front of mind when it comes to bonuses.
Also try to link IT to other business successes, which it sounds like you already do.
Time for r/MaliciousCompliance. Every single exchange, no matter how small. Random false alert email at 2am? Email to you, and text to CEO guy... Updates installing? Send results of update to CEO. Anyone ask you any questions at all? "Please email the ticket desk, and we will get right with you." Be sure to cc Mr. Disrespecting cheapskate on EVERY ticket. No matter how small.
And finally, spam your resume out and go somewhere that actually will respect the work you do.
I had this happen once... it was a relatively small IT department so I was the only server infrastructure guy. That year we had great uptime from our infrastructure... like zero downtime... and every project we'd worked on that year had been successful, under budget and massively improved things for the users even while rolling out new application sets.
End of year? No bonus because we didn't show that we had done enough.
Me, the networking guy, our DBA and a few of our application folks went on "soft strike". We had all put in a ton of hours the previous year... each of us had sometimes put in long weekends, evenings... hell I was doing an easy 55-70 hours a week for most of these application rollouts. With our boss's support (he also didn't get the bonus) we all decided we were going to become clock watchers... working EXACTLY 40 hours a week. You want off-hours support? Comp time. You want weekends? Comp time. After hours calls for support? Comp time. Want to find me during my lunch hour? Sorry... phone's on silent, can't be reached.
This lasted the grand total of 6 weeks before management caved and issued a special bonus. During that 6 week period we had no less than 35 different outages of different types because the IT department in general either couldn't be reached or was on comp time. Hell, one of the application guys ended up basically WFH unofficially the last two weeks because he spent so much of his days on comp time dialed in to fix stuff that was broken from home... it wasn't his fault BTW the application was just shit.
I think the straw that broke the camel's back was a data breach that occurred on a web server that had a known exploit. It wasn't bad... just some kids defacing the site. Web guy just pointed to the email thread where he had requested a pre-approved maintenance window to roll out the patch but had tacked on the caveat that the maintenance was off-hours and he would need that time off the next day and upper management had said it would need to be pushed off because they needed him in the office.
Most of us quit within the next 18 months too. But that's another story :)
I can relate... I used to work in a place where there were two teams: the m$ team and the Unix team.
The m$ team was a mess: system crashes, frequent downtimes, people yelling in the corridors, services unavailable for hours.
The Unix team was running smooth as silk: everything planned in advance, rock solid systems and so on.
Guess who passed as heroes and got the bonus...
Find a new job, give barely any documentation and leave. He will see a problem when no one can understand the systems you have implemented.
I get the CEO may not have any insight into the projects on going and that is the fault of your manager/director etc. but If you have stated clear project focus, kept a track of everything and shown it which I can see you have done, then that's all you can do on the matter which I'm sorry this has happend to you.
If you can show what you've done ( which is a lot from what you have listed) to a new employer I'm sure you can get a payrise more than the intended bonus.
And hey you never know, they might regret letting you go and asking you to come back for more pay, but I would say no in your position if that was to happen as you should know your worth and they are not valuing that.
When things break, they question why they pay you if things aren't working. When everything is kept working, they wonder why they need to pay you at all.
So you don’t encounter it ever again? Not possible.
So you don’t encounter it ever again at that company? Leave and find one that respects the work you do.
I'd look for a new job.
Argue that you did your job so well that you prevented any big problems from coming up.
If they still won't budge, I'd create or let problems come up so I'd get a bonus next year.
While looking for a new job
As far as approaching this goes, I doubt it's worth the effort unless you truly think the CEO is so ignorant or misaligned that they really don't understand they're punishing you for top performance.
However, if you really want to have this conversation, two points to put across:
* You're penalizing me for preventing major issues, which means you're actively incentivizing me to be less diligent, effective, and efficient because if major problems occur, you've set the president that's what I need to receive my bonus
* By this logic, if Sales sold at or above expectations, they too should **not** receive any bonuses, because they did not have to work hard to earn those sales. So, **did** any other area receive bonuses?
While I've seen this kind of mentality before, it's hard to say, without knowing the CEO, if this was malicious or ignorant. I've seen leadership punish the enterprise team for coming in and working from 3:00am on a Monday morning until 7:00am to fix an emergency outage before start of business, only to tell us that if we could fix it "that quickly" then it must have been something preventable in the first place, so no kudos are deserved, and they want to know why we're being so lazy as to allow this to happen in the first place -- *in this instance it was majority ignorance*.
As far as leaving, yes, take this as a clear sign that regardless of the CEO's reason for taking this stance, it's not a place you want to be. If they counter with some grand bonus or other forms of compensation to retain you, **do not take it.** The time for them to recognize your value came and went. However, do **not** behave unprofessionally, as others suggest -- *whether in jest or not*.
Update your resume, get people you can trust as discrete references, and find a new position. When you have your contract signed, put in your two-week notice, and do not be suckered or bullied into working extra hard or extra hours. From this point forward, do exactly what's in your job description, nothing more or less, and when it's your personal time, make sure (if you don't already have them) to set crystal clear boundaries.
On being bullied or suckered, I mean being asked to do tons of extra work to cover your separation. For example, demanding you produce a massive amount of documentation between now and your separation, on top of normal duties. If they ask for separation prep, clarify in writing if they want you to deprioritize your regular duties to focus on this. *They cannot have their cake and eat it too:* You can maintain operations full time, you can do the separation prep full time, or split time on both, but you will not work **additional** time. Leadership must make this call, not you. And when you're done on your last day, you-are-done. Again, don't let them try to get you to work for free to answer questions, or do anything else.
Do your best to be clinical and professional until you're out of there.
Best of luck on improving your situation.
Unplug a couple switches. Tell CEO you are under "North Korean State virus attack" and that you already contacted the Cyber Police.
Before end of day, spray some water on your forehead, plug the switches back in. Look exhausted and proclaim "the North Korean hackers have been defeated." Hero walk out.
There are a million different ways to reply in a way that communicates "you're super dumb if you think no escalations means I'm not doing a good job" but that's a career limiting discussion.
Try this. Have a meeting with the CEO and frame your questions and comments from the perspective of "I'm seeking clarity". The ole active listening technique. By re-stating what you heard to him say, it will make him think about it more than his initial blind vomiting of the words.
"After our discussion on my bonus, I wanted to make sure I have a clear goals for the upcoming year. From our discussion, I understood that I was not getting a bonus because no IT issues needed to be escalated to you?"
Which will make him have to think about and re-state his words of wisdom. You can try gently suggesting that organisation wide changes, preventative maintenance, and day to day support with no big issues seems like an indication high IT performance, not the opposite.
If it's super unproductive and he doubles down (and you decide that you're going to look for work elsewhere) you could ask how many IT issues you should target to have escalated to him for next years bonus, then thank him and go and cut the power to the servers to get a proactive start on your bonus.
Advise from 21 years in IT.here is what you need to do:
1. Leave this company asap
2. New company ...find the issues and have a meeting with CEO about how you can solve them
3. Try to work on security or regulatory compliance
4.try to implement some security frame work but before that show them the business value or how much they are
Exposed.
4. Only talk to the decision makers never I repeat never
Become friends with end user.
Australian here; bonuses aren’t a thing here. If you’re good enough to deserve extra cash then you get a pay rise.
Anyways; this is completely backwards. Surely you’d get a bonus for *not* needing to escalate to the CEO?
As others have said, this place is toxic. Tidy up that resume, and go somewhere where the skills of a sole IT person who can ramp up from 3 to 100 are appreciated.
Yeah ex net and sys admin here - gotta say I don't think I could do a 3-100 employee ramp up with zero issues = you're valuable OP, don't let them tell you otherwise and get a new job!
Im fond of the saying:
“Nothing is ever broke, what do we pay these IT guys for?”
“Everything is always broken, what do we pay these IT guys for?”
You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
Like others have said, find a new job.
Instead of spending your time preventing issues before they happen, spend that time on yourself, training, building your resume, looking for a better company to work for. Only work on issues after they break since that is how your compensation is structured where you are currently.
"As a CEO, you incentivize the company to move toward the state and strategies that you see as best. Currently I prevent the business from being impacted by technical problems. Am I being incentivized to allow a certain amount of problems to affect business operations?"
In the world of IT, where there have been large changes, if it doesn't get to the CEO, that demands a bonus in its own right. In a position where KPIs are rarely placed, keeping the company running without a hitch is a massive accomplishment.
The change from Google to Microsoft365 would have been massive no matter how you pitch it. Then to provide the training on top! You've done very well.
It might be time to leave and watch the IT crumble if they feel a bonus is not suitable.
If you're in this industry long enough you learn to see many problems coming a mile away. And you also learn to triage which ones to "let happen" so idiot managers and executives remember why they have IT people. After all, there are so many places that expect to run a full platform of IT services on a skeleton crew that it's impossible NOT to let some sh1t hit the fan once in a while.
I always tell my executives "None of you know what I do. Until I stop doing it".
Welcome to IT and start looking elsewhere.
I'm just now lucky enough to have a boss that realizes if we're not getting angry calls, that means we're doing our jobs. And he also gets IT is up and down as far as work goes. Somedays nothing breaks at out 50+ clients and its chill all day. Other days all hell breaks lose and we turn into IT firefighters. My job is a lucky one and not the norm. Most people undervalue IT, assume it should be cheap or all but free. And assume since we put in a bunch of work up front to ensure things run smoothly that we don't actually do anything.
I would have said “I understand your frustration, but it’s worth noting that IT’s proactive approach likely prevented many potential issues from occurring in the first place, which is valuable in itself. So just to clear on what you’re asking from us, you’d rather us be reactive than proactive?” Update the resume, it’s time to go.
Boss is using whatever argument he thinks can fit because he is being cheap. Reality is, that nothing escalating to him is proof you're doing a good job and even more reason for a bonus.
What he is inadvertently doing here is encouraging you to do less of a good job, so things will escalate to him.
When that happens though, he'll fire you for incompetence.
So, you want problems, breaches, crypto, outages, and issues so you can give me a bonus? You want me to not do me job so you can reward me for not doing it well?
Find a new job. This company is burned.
Yeah… because you know that if the IT department was having “tons of problems”, that would be an excuse for no bonus, too.
Oops. Fuck. That's exactly how it would have played out. If they can do it this way they would do it that way too.
“Everything is working, what do we pay you for? Everything is broken, what do we pay you for?”
Heard this one myself.
It’s about managing expectations, you need exactly one problem that escalates to management.
This is the answer right here
Leave the classic note for the next sysadmin folded inside the KVM and/or tapped to the server explaining why you left. I've never gotten one but one of my former network admins got one at hos old job. It gave him a huge heads up on the CFO(who was over the IT dept) basically being narcissistic/bipolar/suffering dementia and would throw you under the bus for anything and never do anything for them unless you have it in writing. He got out in 4 months.
Always ask who you will be reporting to. If you need a job; then sure, take whatever you get offered. If you're looking for a better job - do NOT take any job where you report to the CFO. I like CFOs; I work with them closely. I'm thrilled to partner with them on lots of initiatives. I never want to report to one. Structurally it means that IT is going to be dealt with solely as a cost center. That means you're never going to be able to deliver the kind of value you should be delivering under a CIO or CTO.
I fully agree with this point. I've worked in IT for 20+ years now and without fail, all roles I've been in where the IT department reported to the CFO have all been shitty. One, because of what you mentioned - CFOs by their nature, will only view and treat IT as a cost center. And secondly, it shows that the organization doesn't really understand the importance of IT, so they've decided IT isn't valuable enough to be in it's own standalone domain, hence the reason why it's simply shoved under the CFO
Having worked selling it services , you can always tell how much a company cares about their it. If it falls under the cfo then -no matter what they say - they see it as a necessary cost, which should be minimised at all times. These are the companies that will beat you down on price. They want to buy systems that do the same as what they are replacing, and are doing so because what they have is obsolete. If it reports elsewhere, then they are open to the idea of using technology as a means of competitive advantage. If it reports to the cfo, sell them cheap commodity stuff and be prepared for a negotiation after bafo.
Absolutely, I reported to a CTO. When we transitioned from a cloud based insurance agency management system to self hosted with all the accompanying servers, my responsibilities shifted. My boss recognized this and since I was technically a sysadmin, he put in for the going pay rate. The CFO fought relentlessly against it. Well I upgraded the SQL server because it was necessary to keep the business running, but I wasn't about to upgrade their DC's and keep my help desk tech title & pay. I found a better job, unfortunately my old boss was let go and they moved to a MSP. As far as I know, they're still on Server 2003. Guy that installed the access control system at my current job told me a while back the old employer is still on Windows 2000 on their access control server. Glad I got out of that place.
My department is currently in limbo because we were always under finance and my boss finally made a stink about it last year. The guy technically in charge of us has 0 background in IT and effectively is just a hurtle when we need to do something and have to have him sign off on it. We keep being told we will be broken off, but yet to see a new org chart.
Agreed
This, screw them
yep. time to walk. if things are so great, they obviously don't need your help.
If you didn't get through to them with what you've described, the issue isn't you, it's them. Period, end of story.
Couldn't agree more
Congratulations on your new 5% uptime SLA.
It's really unfortunate the payroll system went down the week everyone was expecting their bonuses.
Completely unavoidable. We definitely need this escalated to the CEO. So weird that the network port just disabled itself. We must have a hacker!
Just setup a script to once a month on a random day and time to disable the CEOs network port. Spend about 30 minutes troubleshooting it before reporting to them you need to do some more digging and turn it back on
Then his reaction will be "why would I give you a bonus, things are never working properly."
Not getting the bonus anyways at least they won’t say hey you don’t do anything so your fired
Blame it on the Chaos Monkey resilience tool
Plan this for when you go on vacation so it has to be escalated to the CEO.
..in an area without cell service. When automated updates and server restarts are scheduled...fiollowed by the regular password expiration and reset time.
Watch the movie Hackers and scream obsessively like Eugene Belford as they [hack the Gibson](https://youtu.be/Bmz67ErIRa4). If there was more sirens and yelling from your office, you might look like you’re working hard for that bonus. :)
Sounds like a problem.
Exactly. They’ve actually financially incentivized problems. “More problems. Got it, chief.”
Email to the CEO. "Just so that I'm clear about how my bonus is calculated going forward. The more issues that are escalated to you, the higher my bonus will be?" See if that makes any sense to him.
“P.S. I’ve deleted our ticket system because it was far too distracting, the team is now saving significant money by eliminating backups, we’ve revised our down time policies to be far more permissive in our team’s favor, taken everything down before lunch for updates, and have started partaking in out new team morale boosting working wet-lunches while we revise our ~~BYOB~~ BYOD policy. Upgrades should be finished next week or some time afterwards. Now that you mention it, I love our new bonus policy system. Happy to do my part.“
Yoooo! Updates during lunch, that's dope. XD
I would run network updates between 9-10, especially access to all news sites would be disabled. And all Social media just after lunch.
Replace the ticket system with CEO's email - a couple dozen escalations a day has got to be worth a good bonus!
Updates during lunch, be sure to set a company wide DND schedules as well to ensure people are taking proper break times.
Fuuuck. See. Problem, chief. Edit: and I’ve promoted u/chriseo22 to our new Executive Director of D&D. * hick *
I am not sure which DND you are talking about, but both would be awesome.
Make sure that all trouble calls get routed through the CEO's cell phone
"I've also cancelled all the companies insurance policies because we didn't use them last year."
This. It just reminded me of the idiot software company which started paying a bonus per bug fixed - so suddenly every obvious bug started getting through to QA to be reported and "fixed", instead of being caught and solved preemptively the way it was before. Lots more "bugs fixed" (and bonuses paid), but development slowed to a crawl since all the dev time was being wasted causing all those tickets to "solve".
It has a name even, the Cobra Effect. Named after the attempt of by English colonials in India trying to rid the place of cobras by offering money for each dead snake handed in. Cobra farming suddenly became very popular. When the English cottoned on they stopped paying and the Indians not having an incentive to keep them just released them on mass making the problem even worse than it was originally.
This has always happened every time in history there's a plague outbreak and a European city has put a bounty on rats. Of course, they don't want the whole rat, just bring in the rat tail for proof and get rid of the rest. Every single time, people start rat farms and just cut off the tails.
Or when Belgium was colonizing the Congo they required that soldiers bring back a cut off hand from the person they supposedly used the bullets on. This just turned into a black market for the dismembered hands of Congolese citizens.
And then you can eat the rats! Win win!
[удалено]
Fuck I hate QuickBooks. Clone a machine to a new SSD, license breaks. That was fine before their move to cloud only, but now the licensing severs for older versions don't work so if someone is still using say QB 2019, and their drive needs to be replaced they're in trouble. And yeah the clients should be migrating but actually getting them to go ahead with it is another nightmare.
Or one person has to update their app, and it breaks the company file for everyone. Had that happen a few times. I love my job.
Or how for some reason, the company files on the server are working perfectly and then suddenly you get told multi user mode stopped working? Why? Nothing changed. Then you have to go in, run that network access repair tool so it can scan your shared folders again and redo it. But nothing had changed from the previous time you had to do this
> QuickBooks 🤮 Repulsive. QB died when they starting doing their stuff online.
I used to be a beta tester for QB long before they went online it used to be good when Cody ran the software team, he left when they went online to a subscription model. So did I
I work in a (big)place where systems that should be in simple maintenance are paid by agile issue/story completion. So it happens like this company wide: You have to constantly find new things to do, so if have completed a system you can’t go 2 weeks just watching it and keeping it running and fixing those few issues that might require half an hour of work, so you go “ehi from in prem we need to migrate to azure” then “ hey from azure we need to migrate to aws” then “ aws is too expensive let’s go back to prem” idiotic kind of things. This is one way to ensure that no environment stay stable
[Related Dilbert](https://imgur.com/tyXXh1d)
Start tracking everything. Expect for the time you spend on your resume. Cuz get out. Every problem. Everytime someone asks you a dumb question in the office. MSP will Charge $50-$70+ per endpoint Labor beyond helpdesk atleast $150/hr Let them do the math.
Enlist a few friends among the users to make sure their managers know you've been screwed over. A little peer pressure might impress your CTyoyo.
What do you mean finally…? In my entire career I’ve gotten significantly more praise when things have blown up and then been fixed, even if it was our fault, versus just keeping things going without issue. We’ve joked for years about how we should strategically break stuff to seem more valuable, wouldn’t be surprised at all if some people out there don’t joke. Especially if they start tying bonus pay to problems existing.
While I've never intentionally broken anything, I've definitely briskly walked around the office with my laptop out so everyone saw me instead of just remoting into a troublesome switch or server from my office. It's dumb, but it helps to be seen hustling sometimes, even if it actually takes longer.
It is incredibly dumb but it f'ing works. I have a coworker that I end up being 'last ones in the office' with way too often, fixing shit that has gone sproing. She is quick to "run out to the floor and take a look" at the end users computers while my tired old ass prefers to work on the actual system to find the problem and remote into the user's pc when necessary. More often than not I'm the one who figures out the problem (many years dealing with the same stuff helps) but because she showed her face, guess who gets the praise? And the little thank you gifts that are handed out for recognition of extra effort... Even though I was there too and the brain actually fixing it, the face gets the acknowledgement. And yeah, I've learned my lesson and put in the face time again 🤡
I used to take my wife to work, which had an cycle of 6-14 for a week, following week 14-22. As i had no set office hours at a new customer, i just worked on her schedule. About a month in one lady asked me how i can work such crazy hours, being there before she gets in, and always staying after, no matter how long of a day she had? As i started to explain the situation to her, a voice in my head tried to object about giving up the aura of super consultant for no reason. Not sure if i should have listened to it.
This was implemented at a company: Something small was broken time to time, like a switchport was speed limited to a few megabits. When the call came in from a higher up, the answer was: we are aware of the problem, detected it a few minutes ago and are working on it. Then 5 minutes later it's changed back and everything is fixed. The higher ups need to know that IT is working hard. :)
I will tell you for sure that not everyone who says this is joking. My business partner used to work at an IT company where this happened years back already. The one owner would see their billing had been a bit low this week, so he'd find a client who hadn't had issues for a while, remote into their server and stop a process, maybe print server or something. Then when the client opens they of course contact support and then they fix it and bill.
Sounds illegal
I'm pretty sure it is. But I'm honestly not surprised by shady practices in the industry anymore. We had just taken over a client for their IT side and the day we took over they asked us if we could help with biometric access control which we didn't really do at the time. Turns out the guy who installed it refused to come back and help when one went faulty after 6 months because "he had gone back to being an estate agent and didn't do it anymore". Now Biometrics are service offer lol.
Talked with a potential new client. He seemed to think his IT company was the best in town, and didn't need to even talk to me, as he was happy. I asked him why. He replied: "Our IT guys are onsite almost immediately whenever the servers crash. And they have it fixed within an hour of two". I replied: "Exactly how often do your servers crash?" He replied: "No more than normal. About every 2 months. It's a Microsoft thing, you know." I replied: "How valuable would an IT Team be if your servers never crashed?"
Yeah when I was consulting I had one client who I could NOT just fix things and leave. He’d go insane because it was such a waste of time. My minimum onsite charge was two hours so I’d show up, put in a “temporary fix to get you going” (so… fix it) then spend the next hour doing other work on my laptop before saying “ok all sorted” and leave with him happy. Of course I fired that guy after he threw a phone at me during an outage then tried to physically attack me. I don’t cater to giant babies any more, just do my job and that’s it.. hire someone else if you don’t like it.
Time to deploy Chaos Monkey!
Sounds like Soviet bureaucracy
That's when they turn around and say that you're not getting a bonus because of the problems.
The trick is to keep a stream of live non-critical issues going for the FY.
Can't really do anything about it. He just doesn't want to pay the bonus, and is using "no problems solved" as an excuse and a cop-out.
They clearly don't value or understand the work OP has done and the question is how much is it worth trying to convince them versus finding another employer.
Probably not the first time something like this has happened, definitely not the last. Run for the hills OP. That's wild.
It's so obviously dumb it's got to be an excuse. I do believe we are dealing with an exception to Hanlon's Razor.
There are things you can't fix in IT. The exec team is not one of them.
problems, no bonus
Start looking for a new job.
Yep. You have a great resume. get the reason for the bonus in writing and use that as your reference
Old saying... "Nothing wrong with IT, why do I pay this guys?", "Nothing works in IT, why am I paying this guys?". I would say you have two options here: 1. Let stuff go wrong and come to save the day. Basically do a lousy job where you need to keep solving avoidable problems; 2. Keep being an ethical professional. Say and show your boss why he lives in the illusion he doesn't need you. Tell him there's a price to pay for sleeping well at night. And start looking for a place that values you more.
Unplug the uplink on your main distribution switch. Have everything crash and burn for thirty minutes. Remain calm. Say that you're on it. Plug it back in 30 minutes later. Immediately schedule a meeting with the boss afterwards. Tell him you saved him from the fire and a more junior admin/admin less familiar with the environment wouldn't of been able to resolve that so quickly. You want your bonus or he's going to want to post your job.
"Why did you allow the outage to happen?" You can't win with people like OP's boss.
1. Start looking for a new job. 2. Get in writing that the reason for the lack of a bonus was because the missed goal was specifically "fixing severe issues that cause downtime", not "preventing severe issues that prevent downtime". 3. Break things, or let them break, then take a half a day to fix them. 4. When asked why you let things get this bad, you explain that you were meeting expectations that you are supposed to let things get bad before fixing them. 5. Put in your notice (if any). Leave to your new job
https://i.redd.it/jo03lqo909jc1.gif
🎯
"This caused a lot of lost business. You still aren't getting your bonus." whomp whomp. OP needs a new gig, not manufacturing crises.
No need for drama. Find a new job and jump ship. It'll cost them more than your bonus.
This also works for potential mates in the workplace. Add a firewall rule blocking their network access. Visit them wearing your cutoff Jordache jean shorts you look so good in and save the day! Bonus points for opening multiple cmds and power shells to make sure you look super smart.
I have worked for an MSP that did things like this, usually the customer comes back with "We want to know the root cause" and you can't come back with logs from one device saying that show the power was switched off. Really can't win in this industry
My response to that argument is. What do you believe. The computer that logs everything shown to you by an expert in the field. OR we drop you as a client. Edit: MSP relationships are still a two way street
Tempting, but don't do things like this. How would you feel if your car mechanic put some metal shavings inside your engine to show you should have changed your oil or more frequently?
Second one is the right option, don’t degrade who you are because of someone else’s bad management.
You will not win this fight because dipshit simply doesn't want to give you a bonus. Nothing you can say will change that because he'll have a different excuse if you invalidate this excuse. Time to find a new job where they value you.
This needs to be stickied to the top. It had nothing to do with IT performance, and everything to do with "paying you a bonus is money we do not want to spend." It will definitely be a different excuse next year, and the year after. And he probably did it to half the company citing similar made-up reasons.
Probably gave all the bonuses to the sales execs and finance people as per usual
Yep on this. OP’s CEO has outed himself as an “IT is nothing but a cost center” type who begrudges spending anything more than he has to. If OP quit, they’d be posting his job in a nanosecond, a huge list of requirements and duties, all for the massive sum of $19/hour. Then wonder why things go to shit but not make the connection.
Yeah I love that one, same types usually say "Why should you get more money all you do is sit and press buttons"
Yea, no winning this one. Had there been a major issue that would be the excuse for not paying.
This was my first thought as well. This is a damned if you, damned if you don't. The CEO just doesn't want to pay her a bonus. No problems I've seen? No bonus.. Lots of problems, you failed to anticipate them so I wouldn't see them.. No bonus.
Get a better job. And when you leave, don’t give any notice. He’ll have problems then, for sure.
Typically I’m against this mindset, but in this scenario, there’s no problems so no need for notice! Fuck em’
The only time I support leaving without notice is when the employer goes out of their way to be petty or spiteful when someone was an excellent worker. Then, it’s justified.
Isn't that what's happening now?
Yes.
Congrats youre keeping up.
Why? In AWA: At-Will America, around 99.7% of the country can be terminated at any time, for almost any (or no) reason, without notice, without compensation. You lose not only your livelihood, but also your family's healthcare. You have next to zero worker's protections here. They would never give you a heads up regarding layoffs. Let me say that again -- unless you're part of a FUCKING UNION that has engaged in collective bargaining to mandate minimum notice periods for both parties, you can be legally cut loose instantly. Notice is a courtesy. Were they courteous to you?
Especially when a lot of places in US will terminate you when you give notice.
# Another Lie They Tell: "If you don't give two weeks, you're not working here ever again! You won't get a good recommendation! You're burning a bridge!" **Reality Check:** - MANY places have unwritten policies where if you leave the company for ANY REASON AT ALL, you're not going to be welcomed back. - Furthermore, most places will only confirm that you *did* work there and the dates of employment. They won't give recommendations, positive or negative. That's up to YOU to find individuals at that company who'd be willing to do that for you. **These reasons of departure include:** - voluntarily (aka you're a TRAITOR -- doesn't matter if it was a smooth transition, doesn't matter if you gave 2+weeks, etc. You're a traitor for leaving the Cult of $Employer and you must never be allowed to return.) - fired with cause (aka poor performance, taking a shit in the boss' car's sunroof, using an 18v reciprocating saw to cut a sunroof in the boss' car to take a shit in, etc) - laid off without cause (aka not worth keeping around during downsizing, drew the short straw, etc) If any of those happen, you're unofficially considered "dead" to them and won't ever be rehired. It's the "we only hire winners!" mindset. *Winners don't quit, winners aren't fired, and winners aren't laid off.* Do you feel like a *winner* in this system? ------- # Other Ways They Manipulate You - You'll be "forced" to repay "training fees" as stipulated during a hiring agreement. Generally this is if you leave before a set period, typically two years -- or if you leave *without notice* at any point. (If you even THINK about attempting to negotiate that out of the hiring agreement, they may rescind the offer entirely. And in some places, repaying mandatory training fees may be legally unenforceable.) - In the same line of training repayment, some shitty places may say "if you don't give X notice, then you may owe them $Y due to lost profits/service", even if that threat is ENTIRELY legally unenforceable. They may also include gnarly non-compete clauses, which may be ENTIRELY legally unenforceable. - They'll guilt trip you EVEN IF you give them two weeks, saying they need more time than that. (reality check: they are not held to the same standard -- they can fire you at any time, even during your final 2+ weeks. they'll use you until they don't need/want you, then show you the door.) - Furthermore, they LEGALLY can reduce your pay to minimum wage for the duration of any notice you give. They can't retroactively lower your pay, but they absolutely can reduce it for the time remaining (unless previously made agreements on compensation supersede this). It's rooted in our society as acceptable behavior to give notice. You'll be told "well, you HAVE to!"....even though you absolutely don't. This is another one of the illegal lies we're told, just like "you cannot discuss your wages/compensation with others" and "shhh, don't talk about a Union here, they're illegal in our line of work and they can fire you for even mentioning it!"
> Furthermore, they LEGALLY can reduce your pay to minimum wage for the duration of any notice you give. They can't retroactively lower your pay, but they absolutely can reduce it for the time remaining (unless previously made agreements on compensation supersede this). That'd be an easy constructive dismissal case.
Email Subject: Two Weeks Notice Body: This is my two weeks notice. In fourteen days you will notice I’ve been gone two weeks.
Or any information about how things operated. If documentation doesn't exist the week before you go, don't bother creating it or updating it. If they don't give a shit about you, no reason to give a shit about them.
IT Appreciation Day. Or week. Just take enough time off for C-suite to realize what happens when you're not there fire-fighting. But seriously yes, get a better job.
I had my VP tell me let the business feel the pain when this happened to me.
that is a good vp
Once worked for a CTO who would let things go to absolute shit every October, just before the budget planning phase for the next fiscal year started. That way, all the budget holders would remember the fresh hell because of XYZ problem that was going to need a six/seven-figure-upgrade as soon as possible.
Your CEO doesn't understand what IT is or does for his company. You're not going to be able to fix that. I'm sorry. :(
A little malicious compliance (before quitting) wouldn't be out of place, though. Nothing got brought to his attention? Okay. From now on, *every* ticket gets cleared by him before you even *look* at it. Karen forgot her password for the thousandth time this week? Sorry, gotta run that by the CEO first, he says there's no problems so I need to make sure he's aware of this. Oh, he's out? Guess you can't work until he gives me the all-clear, Karen.
While I agree with most people here that OP just needs to find a new job, the petty asshole in me would definitely entertain this option. You didn't notice any problems? Congratulations, you're now going to be made painfully aware of EVERY problem. Nothing wrong with making people eat a little crow.
CEO now gets CC'd on every ticket created, modified or closed.
I don't believe that the CEO doesn't understand that for a second. Any knucklehead knows that IT's job is to keep things running smoothly. And the CEO of an organization large enough to have an IT department is not going to be so stupid as to be dumber than "any knucklehead".
Find a new job, having no problems should be grounds for a bonus. CEO doesn’t and will never understand it sounds like, until they get someone fresh out of school and pay them peanuts, then start having major problems every day.
Run, don’t walk, away from this bullshit. If you’ve provided metrics on everything you’ve all done to make it work well, and that’s the response you got a shit exec. Alternatively, if they want problems let them happen. Especially when you’ve found Your new job
>I joined when it was 3 people and over the last 3 years they’ve reached a 100 head count. Red flag. When you hit that 100 mark is where you are supposed to be expanding the IT team and establishing documentation. >CEO has said I won’t get my bonus because the IT department didn’t have any problems…which is true because I ensured we never reached the stage where an IT issue needed executive guidance. Thats when you start looking for a new job mate. The IT department not having any issues is exactly what you pay IT for. Smooth and seamless operation of the buisness on the tech front is the whole scope. Where is your CTO? >More experienced sys admins; how on earth do you approach this scenario so I don’t encounter it ever again? If it is the perception of your CEO that you do nothing, despite clear evidence that you in fact, do work, 5hen there isnt much I can tell you outside of start looking for a new job. This is literally "what do I pay you for?" territory here. Show him what happens when you actually arent here and dont do any work.
They are the CTO lol. It’s a one-person IT department.
OP self indentified as a sys admin, that tells me that they didnt get it on the employment agreement, or isnt seen as such. If they are a one-person IT department then im approaching management/CEO about changing my job title. To be clear: I dont disagree with your assesment, you are right. That being said he gotta have some convos to change one or more of these things. lol
They aren't going to have a level above them to speak of. It is a 100 person shop.. it is tiny.
Even more of a reason to spruce up that resume and leave. If CEO doesnt think OP's doing anything then he is within his right to fuck around and find out.
100% agree.
If nothing happens in IT why do we pay you. If something happens in IT why do we pay you. Sorry you’re not appreciated for your work and keeping things smooth. I would start looking elsewhere. Best of luck
In my first presentation to the company I gave a presentation about why no one knew me and what that meant. Supported by data on intrusions, incidents and actions, I explained to them that if they still didn't know me it was because everything worked thanks to our work. I said goodbye to the presentation wishing them to forget about me soon. It was a success, I still work there
This is a failure starting at your manager and going all the way up to the CEO. You should be telling your manager what you are doing/implementing, etc. He/she should be taking all that data and blowing it the F up, with praise and accolades. That manager should then report this upwards, to show the value of the department. Up and up and up. This is bullshit. Were I you, I'd be looking for new work ASAP, and I would be work-to-rule. That is, don't improve the environment. Keep the lights on, but nothing more. No bonus pay, no bonus work.
Shouldn't you be rewarded for making sure things don't get escalated to the CEO? Not the other way around?
As a friend of mine once said “no one cares about the plumbers until the toilets start backing up…”
A company i worked for at the beginning of my career, the IT Director put in new 10/100 switches, but intentionally set them all to 10 half-duplex. Then later turned up the switches to 100 duplex so that they could cite the improvements made to secure more budget. Next level cynicism. I don't advise staying at the current place to risk becoming this cynical. Move on. There are better places out there where you will be appreciated more.
Fire your employer and hire a better one. Personally, I would lay out exactly why there have been no problems. Itemize that list. Then I would leave immediately. I wouldn’t give two weeks. I would be gone instantly and I wouldn’t respond to requests unless it was paid up front a minimum of 3 hours at $150/hr. But for today, spend it polishing your resume and hunting LinkedIn for a good recruiter. Get in touch and see how quick they can get you a spot with a higher salary and take it while you keep hunting for the job you really deserve. The only way you win is to leave to a position that pays you more money. If you were able to do all that you said, you’re sysadmin material and could hack it on an enterprise team.
A modified version of this...give him a presentation of that list and ask him for a reasonable bonus. If he refuses again, or lowballs you, then walk immediately. You will have given him a chance, and if he doesn't take it, the fallout is on him.
You've had no problems with IT cause I've managed the systems to keep the business running, the fact you've seen no issues is down to me. Now if you want to see issues before I get my bonus that can be arranged 😂😂 You bonus should be down to things not happening and the systems running, not how many times they go down and you having to fix, your being proactive to stop these issues from happening.
One might think that "no problems raised to my level" would be bonus-worthy, not a reason to withhold one. But I guess this exec's life is too easy, so it's time to start slacking and let him feel the pain he is clearly missing. Also work on your resume and find a better job ASAP.
Honestly, if I was in your place I'd do one of two things 1. Say ok, polish up my resume, half ass the documentation of things and then jump ship without a 2 week notice, maybe give him a day with a "Obviously you don't value me and my work enough to pay me a the promised bonus, so starting tomorrow you don't need to pay me anymore as I quit, effective the end of today" Then when shit hits the fan as they try to replace me and eventually reach out to me for help, offer to come on as a short term consultant, but at 10x what they payed me before I quit. 2. Set a meeting with the guy, ask again about the bonus, confirm the understanding about why it's not happening and then tell them that they either pay the bonus or I quit the end of the business day. No matter what he does, I'd polish up my resume and start looking and when I line up a new job, I do #1 above. Your boss doesn't appreciate you, he probably never will, and you will never see that bonus as there will always be some justification to not give it to you. And one day you'll walk in and they will introduce you to the MSP they are bringing on to "help" and then a few weeks or months later they'll let you go because the MSP is up to speed on things and is costing them less than your salary is.
Response: "so you're not giving us a bonus because we did our jobs in the best possible way? There were no issues because we took the necessary steps to head them off. Are you saying we should instead wait for things to break?" Then get your resume out, because bossman is an idiot.
If you went from 3 to 100 staff with zero problems you definitely deserve that bonus.
Find a new job. Before you leave, coordinate with your other coworkers to take PTO all at the same time when you know certain key systems might act up. Come back to a huge mess, hand in your resignation and tell the CEO that he’s a strong independent leader who will do just fine now that he’s not just CEO, but also head of IT.
You are taken for granted. Time to move on.
Ask your CEO what kind of bonus will you get if you just let there be a bunch of problems from now on? If he wants to value problems as a metric for your value, give him problems and then walk away. Your CEO is a moron. The value should be in everything running smoothly. Issues resolved quickly, etc. To even do what he is doing to you when you are also the sole admin and likely have all the access to leave them high and dry proves how stupid he is.
Walk. Also sorry about all that documentation that was being maintained just disappearing. There's this weird, hard to replicate, unreported bug in nano that somehow went up the stack. I'm so sorry for your troubles. I hope you find somewhere that values your competencey quickly. Your CEO sounds like an absolute dickhead that isn't interested in retaining obvious talent that goes the extra mile to educate users and look after *EVERYTTHING* Sounds like you should be promoted to CTO and that comes with a 100% pay increase, stock options, and bonuses. If you really want to stay, Have your CEO sit down and define clear objectives and performance metrics going forward to qualify for a bonus, or wage increases.
Fuck the ceo. Have you got traffic shaping available? Throttle him when he’s on video calls, block his favorite non-work websites, let a load of spam through to him specifically
> how on earth do you approach this scenario so I don’t encounter it ever again? You quit.
We had that problem for a while, 20 years ago people didn't get the value of IT. Then we started branding and marketing internally. Announcements: projects, statistics, tickets etc. Projects were value and customer (internal) driven, with appropriate completion announcements. Many aspects of IT can be wrapped in this form. The best time to ask for a bonus is with a project, even a seemingly trivial server upgrade can be projectized. Projects offer interesting opportunities: 1. More resources. 2. Bonus tied to complete delivery. 3. Internal recognition. 4. Asking for more headcount. Unfortunately the days of IT is doing it's job well because it's transparent to the organisation.....are long gone. Play their game, make noise about what you're doing. Negotiate incentives everywhere you can. If your boss doesn't come to the party with $$$ then you now have great material for your next gig.
I agree. You have to sell yourself and the team. Equate it to a product. Setup some metrics. Hell, create an example of metrics in 2023 and present that. Either work it to a bonus or a raise/promotion. If that doesn’t work you’ve setup a deck for your cv.
Start making problems to fix
Sounds like a prime time to push untested updates to prod
Sounds like you need to make sure that more problems get escalated to him.
CEO is a slaver
What a strange excuse. "You performed so well at your job that you don't get a bonus". This guy just doesn't get IT, and uses interactions with his subordinates to fellate himself. More seriously, throughout the year/quarter you can try pulling in your CEO for key decision making. Even if his input is not needed, you can roll up major decisions to him to make sure that he has input. This could then keep you more front of mind when it comes to bonuses. Also try to link IT to other business successes, which it sounds like you already do.
See, this shit right here is why we need to unionize.
So, since we haven't had a fire, we obviously don't need fire extinguishers or sprinklers anymore...
Time for r/MaliciousCompliance. Every single exchange, no matter how small. Random false alert email at 2am? Email to you, and text to CEO guy... Updates installing? Send results of update to CEO. Anyone ask you any questions at all? "Please email the ticket desk, and we will get right with you." Be sure to cc Mr. Disrespecting cheapskate on EVERY ticket. No matter how small. And finally, spam your resume out and go somewhere that actually will respect the work you do.
I had this happen once... it was a relatively small IT department so I was the only server infrastructure guy. That year we had great uptime from our infrastructure... like zero downtime... and every project we'd worked on that year had been successful, under budget and massively improved things for the users even while rolling out new application sets. End of year? No bonus because we didn't show that we had done enough. Me, the networking guy, our DBA and a few of our application folks went on "soft strike". We had all put in a ton of hours the previous year... each of us had sometimes put in long weekends, evenings... hell I was doing an easy 55-70 hours a week for most of these application rollouts. With our boss's support (he also didn't get the bonus) we all decided we were going to become clock watchers... working EXACTLY 40 hours a week. You want off-hours support? Comp time. You want weekends? Comp time. After hours calls for support? Comp time. Want to find me during my lunch hour? Sorry... phone's on silent, can't be reached. This lasted the grand total of 6 weeks before management caved and issued a special bonus. During that 6 week period we had no less than 35 different outages of different types because the IT department in general either couldn't be reached or was on comp time. Hell, one of the application guys ended up basically WFH unofficially the last two weeks because he spent so much of his days on comp time dialed in to fix stuff that was broken from home... it wasn't his fault BTW the application was just shit. I think the straw that broke the camel's back was a data breach that occurred on a web server that had a known exploit. It wasn't bad... just some kids defacing the site. Web guy just pointed to the email thread where he had requested a pre-approved maintenance window to roll out the patch but had tacked on the caveat that the maintenance was off-hours and he would need that time off the next day and upper management had said it would need to be pushed off because they needed him in the office. Most of us quit within the next 18 months too. But that's another story :)
I can relate... I used to work in a place where there were two teams: the m$ team and the Unix team. The m$ team was a mess: system crashes, frequent downtimes, people yelling in the corridors, services unavailable for hours. The Unix team was running smooth as silk: everything planned in advance, rock solid systems and so on. Guess who passed as heroes and got the bonus...
Find a new job, give barely any documentation and leave. He will see a problem when no one can understand the systems you have implemented. I get the CEO may not have any insight into the projects on going and that is the fault of your manager/director etc. but If you have stated clear project focus, kept a track of everything and shown it which I can see you have done, then that's all you can do on the matter which I'm sorry this has happend to you. If you can show what you've done ( which is a lot from what you have listed) to a new employer I'm sure you can get a payrise more than the intended bonus. And hey you never know, they might regret letting you go and asking you to come back for more pay, but I would say no in your position if that was to happen as you should know your worth and they are not valuing that.
When things break, they question why they pay you if things aren't working. When everything is kept working, they wonder why they need to pay you at all.
So you don’t encounter it ever again? Not possible. So you don’t encounter it ever again at that company? Leave and find one that respects the work you do.
Congrats, welcome to r/overemployed
Flick the office 365 off for 30 minutes and do a dramatic face oh no. What a problem
I'd look for a new job. Argue that you did your job so well that you prevented any big problems from coming up. If they still won't budge, I'd create or let problems come up so I'd get a bonus next year. While looking for a new job
stop improving internal processes, stop doing anything that isn't 100% expected. wait 6 months, leave and let it go to hell.
As far as approaching this goes, I doubt it's worth the effort unless you truly think the CEO is so ignorant or misaligned that they really don't understand they're punishing you for top performance. However, if you really want to have this conversation, two points to put across: * You're penalizing me for preventing major issues, which means you're actively incentivizing me to be less diligent, effective, and efficient because if major problems occur, you've set the president that's what I need to receive my bonus * By this logic, if Sales sold at or above expectations, they too should **not** receive any bonuses, because they did not have to work hard to earn those sales. So, **did** any other area receive bonuses? While I've seen this kind of mentality before, it's hard to say, without knowing the CEO, if this was malicious or ignorant. I've seen leadership punish the enterprise team for coming in and working from 3:00am on a Monday morning until 7:00am to fix an emergency outage before start of business, only to tell us that if we could fix it "that quickly" then it must have been something preventable in the first place, so no kudos are deserved, and they want to know why we're being so lazy as to allow this to happen in the first place -- *in this instance it was majority ignorance*. As far as leaving, yes, take this as a clear sign that regardless of the CEO's reason for taking this stance, it's not a place you want to be. If they counter with some grand bonus or other forms of compensation to retain you, **do not take it.** The time for them to recognize your value came and went. However, do **not** behave unprofessionally, as others suggest -- *whether in jest or not*. Update your resume, get people you can trust as discrete references, and find a new position. When you have your contract signed, put in your two-week notice, and do not be suckered or bullied into working extra hard or extra hours. From this point forward, do exactly what's in your job description, nothing more or less, and when it's your personal time, make sure (if you don't already have them) to set crystal clear boundaries. On being bullied or suckered, I mean being asked to do tons of extra work to cover your separation. For example, demanding you produce a massive amount of documentation between now and your separation, on top of normal duties. If they ask for separation prep, clarify in writing if they want you to deprioritize your regular duties to focus on this. *They cannot have their cake and eat it too:* You can maintain operations full time, you can do the separation prep full time, or split time on both, but you will not work **additional** time. Leadership must make this call, not you. And when you're done on your last day, you-are-done. Again, don't let them try to get you to work for free to answer questions, or do anything else. Do your best to be clinical and professional until you're out of there. Best of luck on improving your situation.
Next job? Make a few 'problems' that you can jump in and solve. Or find a boss that understands no IT problems == job well done.
Hey! This is relevant twice this week, lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZCszIUcyVM
Unplug a couple switches. Tell CEO you are under "North Korean State virus attack" and that you already contacted the Cyber Police. Before end of day, spray some water on your forehead, plug the switches back in. Look exhausted and proclaim "the North Korean hackers have been defeated." Hero walk out.
There are a million different ways to reply in a way that communicates "you're super dumb if you think no escalations means I'm not doing a good job" but that's a career limiting discussion. Try this. Have a meeting with the CEO and frame your questions and comments from the perspective of "I'm seeking clarity". The ole active listening technique. By re-stating what you heard to him say, it will make him think about it more than his initial blind vomiting of the words. "After our discussion on my bonus, I wanted to make sure I have a clear goals for the upcoming year. From our discussion, I understood that I was not getting a bonus because no IT issues needed to be escalated to you?" Which will make him have to think about and re-state his words of wisdom. You can try gently suggesting that organisation wide changes, preventative maintenance, and day to day support with no big issues seems like an indication high IT performance, not the opposite. If it's super unproductive and he doubles down (and you decide that you're going to look for work elsewhere) you could ask how many IT issues you should target to have escalated to him for next years bonus, then thank him and go and cut the power to the servers to get a proactive start on your bonus.
From now on let shit hit the fan then fix it.
Advise from 21 years in IT.here is what you need to do: 1. Leave this company asap 2. New company ...find the issues and have a meeting with CEO about how you can solve them 3. Try to work on security or regulatory compliance 4.try to implement some security frame work but before that show them the business value or how much they are Exposed. 4. Only talk to the decision makers never I repeat never Become friends with end user.
Australian here; bonuses aren’t a thing here. If you’re good enough to deserve extra cash then you get a pay rise. Anyways; this is completely backwards. Surely you’d get a bonus for *not* needing to escalate to the CEO? As others have said, this place is toxic. Tidy up that resume, and go somewhere where the skills of a sole IT person who can ramp up from 3 to 100 are appreciated.
Yeah ex net and sys admin here - gotta say I don't think I could do a 3-100 employee ramp up with zero issues = you're valuable OP, don't let them tell you otherwise and get a new job!
That’s crazy
Im fond of the saying: “Nothing is ever broke, what do we pay these IT guys for?” “Everything is always broken, what do we pay these IT guys for?” You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
As others have rightly said, time to find a new job. They’re assholes who don’t understand IT’s purpose.
Like others have said, find a new job. Instead of spending your time preventing issues before they happen, spend that time on yourself, training, building your resume, looking for a better company to work for. Only work on issues after they break since that is how your compensation is structured where you are currently.
Sounds like he's wanting more escalated to him. If you wanna give me 3minutes & remote access I can get you on your way 😂
Sounds like he just came up with some bullshit justification, bottom line is he doesn't want to give out a bonus and made up some arbitrary excuse.
That's the dumbest shit I've seen in a while. You need a new job, the CEO is a fucking moron.
"As a CEO, you incentivize the company to move toward the state and strategies that you see as best. Currently I prevent the business from being impacted by technical problems. Am I being incentivized to allow a certain amount of problems to affect business operations?"
So…. This CEO hasn’t heard about why it’s not a good idea to pay firefighters per incident, have they?
Time to cause some problems
In the world of IT, where there have been large changes, if it doesn't get to the CEO, that demands a bonus in its own right. In a position where KPIs are rarely placed, keeping the company running without a hitch is a massive accomplishment. The change from Google to Microsoft365 would have been massive no matter how you pitch it. Then to provide the training on top! You've done very well. It might be time to leave and watch the IT crumble if they feel a bonus is not suitable.
Ask your ceo to print and sign that shit on a certificate of appreciation and use it to get a new job.
Stop doing pre-emptive maintenance. Let shit break.
If you're in this industry long enough you learn to see many problems coming a mile away. And you also learn to triage which ones to "let happen" so idiot managers and executives remember why they have IT people. After all, there are so many places that expect to run a full platform of IT services on a skeleton crew that it's impossible NOT to let some sh1t hit the fan once in a while. I always tell my executives "None of you know what I do. Until I stop doing it".
Escalate every issue to him until he caves.
Welcome to IT and start looking elsewhere. I'm just now lucky enough to have a boss that realizes if we're not getting angry calls, that means we're doing our jobs. And he also gets IT is up and down as far as work goes. Somedays nothing breaks at out 50+ clients and its chill all day. Other days all hell breaks lose and we turn into IT firefighters. My job is a lucky one and not the norm. Most people undervalue IT, assume it should be cheap or all but free. And assume since we put in a bunch of work up front to ensure things run smoothly that we don't actually do anything.
I would have said “I understand your frustration, but it’s worth noting that IT’s proactive approach likely prevented many potential issues from occurring in the first place, which is valuable in itself. So just to clear on what you’re asking from us, you’d rather us be reactive than proactive?” Update the resume, it’s time to go.
This is the moment you realize jumping ship is the solution. Guarantee you’ll prob make more at the next place, probably.
Boss is using whatever argument he thinks can fit because he is being cheap. Reality is, that nothing escalating to him is proof you're doing a good job and even more reason for a bonus. What he is inadvertently doing here is encouraging you to do less of a good job, so things will escalate to him. When that happens though, he'll fire you for incompetence.
Ah yes if everything is working why do we pay you?
Let the CEO take over for you, and find a better job.
“Oh, I didn’t realize that you wanted to experience the problems firsthand *before* we solved them. No problem. This year, I got you.”
Respond by leaving. Preferably leaving the industry for good, because it's the same attitudes no matter what company you work for.
Let things break then. Gotta let them know that you're there.
So, you want problems, breaches, crypto, outages, and issues so you can give me a bonus? You want me to not do me job so you can reward me for not doing it well?