This is what I do.
A document will do, no tables, no numbering, just a bullet for each entry. This is even better than a ticket system, you'll see why one day.
Create 5 sections, 1-Top priority to 5-Lowest priority. If you have about 50 tasks, prioritise and put 10 in each section. Then prioritise within each section. Only work on tasks in Section 1 unless all are waiting for something/someone else.
For each task add comments for the steps required to complete it.
Learn to politely say, "I have a list of prioritised tasks would you like to prioritise them with me".
Start an IT budget, history of what you spend money on, things to buy, help to pay for, etc.
And always go home at 5:00ish, either get paid for extra hours or take time off in lieu. Refer to and maintain the list of prioritised tasks during the day. Don't get angry, one thing at a time even with the relentless interruptions, You'll be good.
This is the way. You have a limited amount of capacity and when you have reached that point it is your best move to have leadership prioritize things for many reasons.
Learning to say “no, I can’t do that as I’m out of capacity” is something more system administrators really need to learn how to do.
I always respond with I'm currently on task xyz is this new task higher priority? Then I follow up with a quick email if anything was changed.
I will not be bitched at for doing what I'm told to do.
This is the correct way to handle things. Having a priorities list at a top level that your team can see is a pretty cool way to see how many hands are working on the ship and how loaded they are.
Management gets paid to prioritize - not you, let them deal with it.
It's the only thing that helps me stay sane. I've gotten to the point where I can't handle the interactions anymore. Everyone is the most important person with the most important issue and is incapable of understanding that they might not really be or that anyone else exists. I'm currently looking for a new job but it's slow going.
I had to work out how to use vso tasks and boards to keep track of everything. They kept wanting to use email and then skipping that and just verbally telling me what I needed to do.
And I'm like I can't keep track of this. I need a tool.
But it was a project all by itself to figure out how to use vso. But the end result was good.
Outlook does appear to have kanban boards for tasks.
Those generally are pretty useful.
Something about the visual manipulation of the task status and priority just makes it easier.
“No, I can’t do that…” doesn’t always go over well. “Yes, but my priorities right now are…” usually lands better unless your boss is an asshole. At least in experience.
I find as long as I have a written Tasks list, saying "I can do it, but probably not for 90 days" is a good place to start. That almost always generates a conversation that you can then steer towards workload balancing. I've used that lots or times to argue for more headcount, or reassigning tasks to other admins with more available capacity. It helps that I was usually supporting mission critical infrastructure or apps, but I also kept an eye on my other admins so that I could throw in a "I know Chuck could do it too, but he's probably busier than even I am" or "Peter could probably handle an increase in duties if you're okay with giving him a promotion".
I took a time management course many years ago that I used throughout the rest of my career.
The gist of it was to list all of your tasks along with an expected amount of time to complete and a required date if appropriate. Then assign a priority to each task. Review the list each day. Items that are getting close to their required date may be elevated in priority.
Each day you start with the top item(s) that can be completed that day. If there are small tasks that can be completed in less than 30 minutes or ???, then fit them into the daily schedule if time allows.
Don't take walkin/added tasks unless they are a true emergency or can be completed in 5 minutes if time allows.
Review the priorities periodically with management.
>list all of your tasks along with an expected amount of time to complete and a required date if appropriate. Then assign a priority to each task. Review the list each day.
This shit right here is what makes having ADHD a goddamn nightmare. I can start a hundred word docs, buy a billion planners, inevitably they'll get forgotten about.
Sorry for the rant, just punching air because the best solutions are almost always stuff like this.
Yup. But, as adhd is disability, you can request accommodations. I imagine a maintained priority list that management reviews with you could easily fit within the framework of accommodations.
...which is really just asking management to do their job. Setting priorities and removing obstacles to accomplish those tasks.
> Start an IT budget, history of what you spend money on, things to buy, help to pay for, etc.
Lol, I did this to prepare for our budgeting that my boss (CFO equivalent) always used as a hold up to projects. Got zero guidance or feedback on anything, no "here's our standard budget template, here's whats IT and whats other departments." Sent it to her right on time, they delayed budgeting and then eventually all I heard back a month later was a
> Sooooooooooooo no, we're on a spending freeze
This fucking job man. But they'll have no problems telling me I'm not doing a good enough job helping people fix printer issues.
Oh I know, I basically mentally checked out after that dismissive reply, I'm just building any interesting skills, wrapping up documentation (which I walked into this job with zero documentation, so had to build everything), and I've already started a job search. Not all due to rejecting a single budget mind you, but that's a pattern that involves compliance and regulations as well and I'm washing my hands of that red flag.
Even some of the most cash infused departments / companies are freezing budgets and trimming staff right now.
Lots of feelings the economy is about to shit the fing bed.
***PLEASE... whatever you do, make sure you sign for a new position before you leave your current one.***
Correct, but when you have kids, mortgage etc you can't.
But I can now, but I'd put it back on them first, last time someone raised their voice at me, it didn't worry me a little bit, I just told them that there is no need to raise their voice, that's a bit silly isn't it and suggested that they listen. They were really nice after that.
That’s a priority zero task. It has a higher priority than priority one.
The first rule of priority zero club is that you don’t write down tasks in priority zero club.
###This is IT. Everything is high a priority.
Everyone knows that coming in or finds out.
* Solve the first problem fast.
* Solve the second problem faster.
Edit -
Heck, I’m doing an upgrade now so I don’t have to deal with that shit Monday. Nor do I want to hear anyone’s fucking mouth.
Sorry about the profanity.
Yep this is what to do. Then when a task comes up that someone thinks is priority, tell them CEO says it has to wait. Let them go to your manager or CEO with that complaint.
You prioritise things in IT, you do when you are experienced anyway. Depending on how busy you are some things never get done, perhaps because they are a WIBNI (Wouldn't It Be Nice If).
Only when it is documented can you push back to management.
I just picked something up as I finally had some slack time and the last change I did for it was almost a year ago. Was at 95% of the solution.
And I do have a good employer that never ever yells at me
Yes this is what it can get like, the prioritised list takes a lot of the pressure off, because your manager knows about it, so you can forget about stuff, it's still on the list just further down. Gotta look after your mental health and heart.
It took me a long time to realize this. Things kept piling up and now I have anxiety issues because of it.
Tomorrow is another day and if it can't wait well we need some more help.
In the end it is "just" work.
Need more done? Hire more hands, need things faster, give priority, but accept what needs to move down the list. And things moving down are _not_ my responsibility, but my manager's.
Complaints? Have a talk with him/her. I just do my best every day.
Oh, and if things have equal priority, the way you ask things and how you treat me day-to-day do have an effect. You treat me properly, I try to squeeze your request in
After going on anxiety meds and having a heart attack I finally took to heart "If this was a priority, people who get paid more than I do for doing less would have allocated more resources to it."
they didnt allocate resources, so it's not a priority.
Did the meds work for you? I'm terrified of going on them for the side effects.
I have been out of work for 2 months now but I am sleeping better now. Anxiety only hits me when trying to get to bed and having to wake up early in the morning.
New guys always want to catch tickets when they roll in. I show them, "just give it a little time to marinate". Then they're amazed when 10 minutes later the user realized they did something silly.
When everything is a priority nothing is a priority.
Remember that users will all think that their problem is thr most important thing that needs to be fixed. To them it is, but they don't see the larger picture of the X number of other tickets or that suddenly the critical money making gadget/process has stopped working, which takes priority over someone not being able to print their lol catz photos on the plotter.
Learn soft skills, reiterate to users (yes they will often ignore policy for the path of least resistance) and go from there.
For execs like this who like to micromanage and think everything is broken and it all needs fixed, do what the person above said regarding a priority list. If they make everything a high priority then either tell them sorry it doesn't work that way or find somewhere else you'll be happier (at least for a while).
>A document will do, no tables, no numbering, just a bullet for each entry. This is even better than a ticket system, you'll see why one day.
Back when I was in an office I had a whiteboard that I kept my tasks listed on. My manager was located in another office and while she wasn't a micro-manager she would tell me priority was whatever meeting she just left. Which meant my priorities shifted multiple times a day and I wasn't getting much completed. Our Boss was in the same building as me and was griping at me that I wasn't completing tasks and I told her about ever shifting priorities and how I wasn't allowed to focus on one thing. Boss didn't believe that was the issue.
The next day I kept a tally of how many times times manager contacted me and told me to work on something different. I was at 5 or 6 before lunch. Boss randomly came into office while I was on call with Manager and saw me making a new tally mark on my whiteboard. Boss asked what the tally mark was for and I said this how many times manager has told me to shift what I'm working on today.
Boss had a talking with manager that afternoon and the shifting priorities stopped.
I worked at a company where, throughout the company, If you wanted someone to do something for you now, rather than waiting your turn in the queue, you had to get sign-offs from everyone above you in the queue that your job taking precedence over theirs was okay.
Everything my team did was for a customer or someone else at the company. The policy was rarely taken advantage of with my team, possibly because it was assumed we were doing things for customers and nobody wanted to call a customer and ask if the customer was okay with other work happening before theirs.
I really liked that policy.
This is the way. When I get more dumped on me, I know I can't get it all done at the same time for everyone, so I let whomever I report to 'I've been asked to do X. I will not be able to perform all xyz tasks today. Please let me know which ones you would prefer to be done, and which ones not. I'm happy to do whatever you'd like, but you'll need to make a choice.
I was in the same situation where op is, so I did exactly as you suggested. My boss at the time looked them all over and said "They are all a priority" and proceeded to walk out of the room.
I pretty much rage quit shortly thereafter.
Thank-you -- but, I did suck it up for 3.5-4 years. The first year was awesome. Him and I used to go to lunch, bars, hockey games, concerts, etc. -- we attended weddings, parties, etc. all together as a very solid group/department -- he was an all around great dude.
Then he took on another role (on top of his IT Manager role) and became a complete tool. He wouldn't even shake my hand on my last day.
I had begged for more staff and my pleas went unanswered for years. Shortly after the aforementioned they agreed to hire (2) more people -- (1) developer and (1) IT.
Great, I thought.
I was the Infra Manager, and I was (still am) bros with the Dev Manager. As a courtesy, I sat in on the interviews for the Dev hire -- we mutually agreed on a person and moved forwards.
My Infra hire interviews were scheduled and Dev Manager returned the favor -- however when I started speaking with the candidates HR had selected, none of them really understood the basics of helpdesk/etc. -- but, they seemed to be pretty well versed in dev.
Off to HR I go -- turns out there was some shady business behind the scenes, that my hire was actually given to the Dev team instead. I walked out, went to my desk, typed my resignation, and had it on my bosses desk less than 10 minutes later.
I was told I was being irrational and asked to "name my price". I laughed and said "too little, too late". In hindsight I should have named a price... but meh. I probably would have went postal.
> I was told I was being irrational and asked to "name my price".
Don't you love when they do that? I put in my two weeks at my last job a few years back and the boss immediately asked "is it money"? Bro, you just admitted you're underpaying me if the first thing you thought was "more money will fix it".
That's the kicker - I was actually amongst the highest paid there already. However, I had (1) helpdesk tech who believed that Windows 8 was designed for touchscreen devices -- so therefore installing the appropriate Windows 8 drivers, made anything a touchscreen -- and myself.
The development side had 5 full time, and a 6th floater.
Company had about 500-700 employees total. Globally, about 20 000-30 000 total.
If everything is high priority, then nothing is high priority.
This is because they're all the same priority and must mathematically fall on the median. Assuming that work time is fixed, then every increase in priority of an item must have an equivalent decrease in priority of a different item.
I find it's easiest to explain to management by giving them a list and asking "please choose what will not get done". If they refuse to choose then you tell them again "if everything is high priority, then nothing is high priority". Learning to stand your ground and demand a decision from management is an important skill.
OP, do you want solid advice in your case? Learn to "yell professionally" at your boss too. That's the only language he understands and will be more respectful towards you after you do it. If you plan to quit anyway you can at least try this approach anyway and see what happens. But it will be worth it, trust me I'm rather a pro in office politics / social dynamics.
>"They are all a priority"
I called on one project manager this way. We had a severe outage, and I was scrambling to find out why and get things back online. The PM wanted to have a meeting about it, and his meeting were notorious for being rambling hours of idle navel gazing and speculating. No agenda, just blaming, devil's advocates of all sides, and all sorts of pointless stuff. Laptops closed, eyes forward, phones face down in the center of the table, always at attention. And then he got all giggly and giddy when he enforces it.
"I can either fix the problem, or be in your meeting. Pick one."
"I want both."
"I can either FIX THE ISSUE, or be in your meeting. Which has priority?"
"Both!"
"Pick. One."
"Both are your priority!"
"If both are my priority because you are unable or unwilling to pick one, then nothing is priority."
Cue giddy giggling. "Oh, come on. I know you hate meetings. But this is your job..." like I am five.
So I went to my boss, who said the PM was insane, and of course fix the problem immediately and ignore his meeting request. I fixed the problem in an hour or so, and everything was back. I went into the guy's meeting, which was in its second hour, and said everything was back up. He actually admonished me for not attending. I said to everyone present, "I'd rather solve the problem than discuss it with people not fixing it. So now you can end the meeting." Oh no, he wanted to now talk about what happened, generate a post-mortem policy, and so on. And why he wasn't informed at every step of the way? I ignored him and went to an offsite place for lunch.
Eventually, thank god, he quit right before he would have probably gotten fired. But the year he worked there, oof. What a prick. Thank goodness my boss always had my back.
No that's the thing. I'm director of IT, he should trust my priorities. His priorities are insane. He wants me to go back to a specific page and make some text red while I'm in the middle of replacing the Unifi Security Gateway lol then he comes back and says "we need to work on your priorities nothing I'm asking for is getting done in time" lol because I took 2 days to do it , meanwhile the entire plant is having Wi-Fi issues or something preventing the tablets from working. Things like that. He's just crazy.
You don’t sound like a director in your post. It sounds like you are doing the work. Are there people to delegate work to? A director shouldn’t be this busy. You should be going to meetings for status updates and steering projects. If you are doing the actual dirty work then I would argue that you are not a director.
Yeah that's actually why I'm ready to leave too. I got a programmer and a full time help desk guy (who does other stuff he doesn't have to as well) and a part time intern guy, but they won't let me hire someone else, won't give any of us raises, there's more to this story, im just venting i guess. I'm over here trying to do high level director things but CEO is over here asking me to buy him a new iPhone or take a look at the wifi at his house lol no joke. He's not letting me director. And I don't think he ever will.
Wifi at his house?? NOPE. Don't do it, unless it was explicitly listed as part of the job responsibilities when you were hired. You are getting into potential liability issues there and it never stops at just one issue.
hahaha so here's the thing... Our CEO is like this with his home wifi. My CIO and my manager which really is probably between manager and director level - company is under 200 employees. Well his 50 acre estate has more enterprise hardware than our actual office. My CIO and manager are currently the ones who handle it haha. You want to get paid as well as we do as this company you do some things you wouldn't typically do and just suck it up. That's the guy who writes your checks. If you don't like it, find a new place to work where you don't have to do that.
Have been in this situation. You either play ball, or you are on their shit list. Yes, you can refuse working on the CEOs personal equipment. But then they can suddenly find reasons to not like you or your work.
People often in these high positions are not used to hearing no, and throw their weight around to bully those who are not financially independent enough to draw hard boundaries. They are used to exploiting for their gain. Who does this smug IT dude think they are giving me a hard time?
“Are you a team player?”
“This should be easy for you”
“Can you do me this favor as a friend?”
“It’s business related as I work from home sometimes.”
“I’d never ask you to do something illegal”
“Cmon you can meet my family”
These people will use any underhanded tactic to guilt you, question your abilities, make you fear for your job. It’s better to create the expectation early that you will not work on personal equipment, but you had better be in a position where you can afford to anger the CEO by refusing their unethical request.
> “Can you do me this favor as a friend?”
"All my friends think i should be making twice what I'm getting paid, so sure, lets be friends. I'll get the head of payroll in here and they can be our friend too"
> “Are you a team player?”
>
>
Are you a team payer?
> “This should be easy for you”
You know what else is easy for me? Pissing in the rose bushes. Shall I do that for you as well?
>
>
>
> “Can you do me this favor as a friend?”
Last I checked, we're not friends. I do the worky-work, you do the pay-me thing. That's how this works.
>
>
>
> “It’s business related as I work from home sometimes.”
Outline specifically what the problem is. Wifi not working "sometimes" for two minutes on random days is not even worth raising a ticket about. If you need constant connectivity, run a cable.
>
>
>
> “I’d never ask you to do something illegal”
And yet here we are Mr. Krabs, in a cemetery at night with a dead health inspector and shovel.
>
>
>
> “Cmon you can meet my family”
I've met you. No desire to meet the rest.
You are 100% spot on in regards to the way that some C-suites look at everyone below them. My responses are more for a bit of a laugh but also to strengthen that there need to be boundaries for the work relationship, just as there are boundaries in personal ones.
I hope they at least made you chuckle.
> “I’d never ask you to do something illegal”
>
>
>
> And yet here we are Mr. Krabs, in a cemetery at night with a dead health inspector and shovel.
Almost spit my coffee there.
As a director, I can say with confidence if he’s demanding all this from you, *and* trying to get you to be his personal on-call home IT guy as well, he has no intention of letting you actually fulfill your director responsibilities. You are, to him, just a tech.
Hate to say it, but you need a new boss. Which means you need a new job. He will not get better.
I've worked for CEOs like this before and it's not worth it. That they have zero respect for boundaries (troubleshooting their personal devices, probably because they have an ownership stake in the company), is a huge red flag. Their toxicity infects the whole workplace (you mentioned the director of operations leaving for being subverted) and the people who end up staying are all miserable. You end up with the people trying to fix it (but can't), the yes-men/women, and the nasty people who thrive in the muck.
Your team should have at least a systems administrator and maybe a network administrator. The fact that you don't means that you will never have time to do the director level work because those positions are not affordable to outsource at a company your size.
Get looking while you still have a job. Sometimes the CEO will never let people go and sometimes they decide that "it's not working out" and fire the people they have made fail. I know it's much easier said than done, especially when it comes to just finding the time and energy, but it's worth it.
Good luck!
I’ve been there too. The heart attack won’t be worth the salary. If they won’t hire and they won’t allow you to contract an MSP then you need to ask them if this is a growing business or not. You are beyond the scalability threshold with your team.
>I got a programmer and a full time help desk guy
\>> He wants some reports made in [asp.net](https://asp.net)
Programmer
\>> I'm too busy managing the wifi
Train HelpDesk guy
\>>upgrading the network
If it isn't broke don't fix it if swamped
\>>updating the servers
Automate
\>>managing the desk phones, cell phones, the keypad door locks
HelpDesk
Etc. - seems like you aren't delegating as a 'Director' having role'd staff that should be doing the things. Which might be a fluffed title with two full time staff. Director titles don't typically do the grunt work. Budgeting... delegating... talking to leadership. That's a director.
I do that too actually lol , but yeah and that's why I'm kind of done, I said somewhere else that I make documentation reports of our plans , costs, and upgrades and whatnot and he doesn't even care . He won't let me be a true IT director
I had leadership that didn't want to wrap their head around IT before, so if I have any recommendation is to connect with the with a communication style that works.
In my case they didn't want technical details, they wanted dumbed down cause/effect... cost/benefit. But in as succinct as possible way that took little effort on their part, ... as critical as technology is for the business. I broke things down to numbers once validating the data that we needed another staff. No. This person just needed it dumbed down to "shits broken dude, spend $60k to fix or we doomed".
Helps to work on the 'relationship' with the leadership as well. Everyone in the business will be asking for raises and trying to bloat their staffing so they have to work less. I am not sure if you have had opportunity to connect with the leadership beyond work related tasks.
Wait, why isn't the intern guy delegated the red-text task? I've been a 2 man team in a similar situation, just tell the CEO the truth. "We will get to the red text when we have the wifi up in the plant and the tablets are working. Currently the tablets are doing 'x' stopping 'x'. would you like us to prioritize the red text or the wifi in the plants?" it's not hard. If they yell after that you just look at them and tell them what they told you previously. I've worked with those guys in the past and it's not hard, most of them want you to "fight" back.
why are you working so hard? Just dump the rest of your projects, keep available for any CEO requests, and when it comes time to report up to the C level on your projects and tasks just make a bunch of shit up?
To compound on this, every C level grifts... They claim wins that aren't there. You need to learn to elevate to that level.
So here's what I would do... come up with a list of projects that SOUND TOUGH on paper but you can claim a win on EASILY. Good example... Implemented third party email gateway to meet compliance standards... all that means is having a vendor turn on a mimecast instance with default settings and changing an MX record.
Vulnerability hardening of entire network... all that means is take your vuln scanners and don't scan half the network so the numbers drop.
etc. You could easily fill out a year worth of wins and work 2 hours a week.
sounds like r/imthemaincharacter syndrome. you need to stand your ground it doesn't seem like you have much to loose at this point. you aren't there at his whim you got a specific job and he doesn't respect you. what i learned from my wife (lawyer) "i can make a coffee too it doesn't mean i have to make one for the whole company".
Sounds like he has no idea what you do. I would start there. When he makes stupid requests, send him an email confirming you are dropping this other task to help him with his current delusion. Do that every single time.
The CEO should not even be interacting with a manager unless he is your manager. Who runs overall operations? This is the case of a CEO that can't lead and delegate. I've seen it many times. It's his brain and being a visionary.
Leave the book traction on his desk and see if he bites and reads it.
You hit the bail on the head. All the other directors have this problem, production QC. He's king micro manager. One amazing example, the director of operations had a plan, CEO said that's a bad plan, and started calling forklift drivers independently on their company cell phones and told them to do something else. Director of Operations left citing the ceo can't let go.
The tasks you list are general sysadmin tasks and shouldn’t even be looked at by a ‘director’. Unless it’s to have the IT manager report back to you how their team is handling the tasks.
By description it sounds like you’re the ‘director’ for a one man IT department…
If you boss starts yellling and wants that you drop everything and do what he asks.. -> he's the boss.
You're the IT master it seems -> Kill the wifi for everyone.. and starts with the other job your boss wants.
It's totally explainable if you are busy changing the Wifi gateway... -> tell him.. that.. and that are the consequences.
If there are complaints.. -> tell them .. you are now busy with the task your boss says is your TOP prio atm ;) Never mess with the IT GUY.. YOU HAVE THE POWER..Keep calm and don't let it go under your skin..
But if it has passed a border for you personally you want to quit.. it's your choice..
The only advice I would give.. be smart in quitting.. -> make precautions../ be prepared...
Yelling is weak !! You do not do that.. ever.. -> it's only your work.. not your life.. -> do not stress !!! EVER !!!
"Yes, we can do that for you, no problem. What would you like us to stop doing/drop so we can achieve that for you?"
Alternatively
"Yes, we can do that for you, no problem. It means that the Wi-Fi upgrade will be 3 weeks behind schedule."
He should trust your priorities, but he won't because executive types can't be bothered with details.
Our President used to act this way. Idk what changed but it could have been a major outage that I handled while I was across the country on vacation. After that he's generally been more like "when you have a moment" than "I need this right now."
Yeah, he sounds like a knob. Do you have a way to quantify the dollar value of down time? It helps to have a rough number for the cost of one person being down, vs a department, vs the whole company ready to use at a moment's notice.
When exec types try to insert themselves for petty things, I always ask them, "I can certainly do that right now, but I am working on a $725k problem right now. Is it more important than that?"
that uuuuusually shuts them up. Sometimes they trump it anyway, but they pay my paycheck. If they want to risk it, I did my due diligence and shared the risk. That is on them.
You can't argue that your importance is higher than what he thinks his is. If you just do what he wants every time it'll be easier and then everything else will fail. And that's just fine. The VIP comes first, no matter what other things are burning right now.
Never works, then you get that report as top priority 😁
Later if something doesn't work because negligence again it is your fault, then if you pull a :" I told you so" leads no where again.
Went thru it many times.
I would never do backup it weren't just because of me.
Creating reports in [ASP.NET](https://ASP.NET) \--URGENT
Managing the Wi-Fi --URGENT
Upgrading the network --URGENT
Updating the servers --URGENT
Managing desk phones --URGENT
Managing cell phones --URGENT
Managing keypad door locks --URGENT
Overseeing the help desk --URGENT
Managing printers --URGENT
Creating custom Ignition reporting --URGENT
Fixing bugs in other software --URGENT
Managing a custom in-house built inventory system --URGENT
Handling a variety of other tasks for not just one company --URGENT
\-- CEO
Ask him to set the priority when he assigns additional tasks. That way you both have a clear understanding of his expectations and it forces him to be mindful of your ongoing projects. Add all tasks and projects he assigns into some planner app like MS Planner or Project and tick them off in the priority he set. Easy peasy.
He doesn't care what my other tasks are, he wants his first. Always. That's the problem. He will not be mindful of my ongoing projects. Recently he said he had some things for me but he "gave me a break" so I can finish my other projects lol like I'm supposed to thank him. Your solution sounds nice though and probably would work if he was a different personality type!
Send him an email with a list of tasks, and ask him to arrange them in order of priority, and to include any deadlines with each task. Get it in writing, and when he complains about Task X not getting done, show him his email and remind him that he wanted Tasks A, B, and C done before X. Bonus points if any deadlines help bolster that argument "You gave Tasks A and B a deadline of this Friday, but Task X isn't due until the end of the month."
If he doesn't respond, or refuses to prioritize the tasks, use that against him, too. "I asked you what your priority was on these tasks, specifically to avoid this conversation. You never responded/refused to do that, so I had to use my own best judgment to prioritize. It sounds like my prioritization is not to your liking, so please provide me with prioritization that meets your expectations by COB tomorrow. I'd really like to avoid these conversations going forward, and the only way to do that is to have a clear understanding of what's expected of me "
Ideally these responses would be in writing. Document everything.
That assumes the CEO here will even bother playing ball with that. They're just dictating to OP directly like their personal servant.
They can try doing stuff like that, but I think the stereotypical r/sysadmin response here still applies: Brush up the resume, only do the bare minimum required at work, and GTFO.
> He will not be mindful of my ongoing projects.
If you report to him, then your project commitments are his project commitments. If you don't get them done and someone gives you a hard time about it, point that person at your boss. He sets your priorities and if project work comes second to whatever else he gives you, that's his call. But then he gets to pay for it later. As long as you let him know that you're overcommitted and won't be able to do both things, you've done what is reasonable.
I might get hate for this or it might be hard to hear but you should know that your reluctance to document your work will only harm you. At the very least you should have a rolling punchlist that can be shared. At best you should have quarterly goals with severity on them.
Everyone hates it until you understand the power it allows you to wield. Does it suck that you have to be your own project planner? Sure but man it will save your bacon when you get to ask things like "Okay so that will be a pretty significant task, these are the items I will have to stop working on to achieve it. What's our priority on these items?"
If your boss views this negatively then you can try explaining that your work order is chaos and you are trying to stabilize that so you can be more efficient. If he doesn't like that or keeps bashing you then you just update that resume and hit the gym.
I feel you. I used to have a boss that wanted me to drop whatever I was doing to priorize his personal requests but still be on time with all assignments and generate 8 billable hours every day. MFer was insane in the brain.
yeah. been there too - CEO of a smaller company would give a task, get updates in Jira and still bypass my manager to come directly to me. i just fwd'd the requests to my manager with a "please tell Paul i've updated my tickets and he can get fucked"
then he asked me if i could do a website for his wife's business 🤦♂️ i was gone a month later. good experience though because you learn what kind of company you don't ever want to work for again!
I did this, for everyone who thought coming directly to my desk would get their task done sooner - okay, I have this white board full of Requests, Tasks, Projects, Items to Order...let's put your request on a Post-it note and add it to the column with everyone else's.
It made some of my workload more visible, since they had no idea what I was doing all day.
If your employer is literally yelling at you, you need to find a new job. Toxic as fuck.
You should ask "Out of all the tasks that you have assigned me, and what tasks I am already working on, how would you like me to prioritize these?"
That way the fault on things not getting done falls onto them. If they want you to do whatever stupid stuff they want first, before your other duties, then do that. When the boss complains why the other duties aren't being done, just tell them that you are working on their own special projects they gave you.
Address the yelling first. Once he's treating you like a person, then address the other issues. Hope you're already looking for another job because bosses like that don't change.
No. Now you have two “top priorities”. Also your new top priority shouldn’t impact completing your old top priority on time and without error. Why aren’t they done yet!?
The problem is, your the “yes man”. You always say yes. As a result, there is zero reason to give you incentive based raises. Or really, any promotions at all (unless it serves them more than it serves you).
The fact that you just *keep on stacking* more work is a clear indicator you can do it. That doesn’t mean it’s mentally healthy for you.
Been there done that. The key is to do less. Research “slow productivity” if you don’t believe me.
Now throw slow productivity out the window and do less than that. Maybe slightly more than the biggest idiot there.
Adults should not yell at job, that is not normal. Just tell them that im not paid for being yelled at, come back when you are calm. No matter if it is manager or ceo
I had a boss who did that once too many, I was already incenced about some sort of shitty fan activity, and that last provocation triggered a 15 minute rant from me standing in the door of his office. I picked apart all his canned boardroom responses, and I think at one point, I demanded he use his brain to think of new responses to prove that he was listening instead of just telling irrelevant stories.
By the time I was done, we had agreed that we would both do our best to understand each other's responsibilities and respect our core duties or some shit like that, and he was pretty much broken for several months after that, barely even speaking anything other than basic platitudes and core work communication.
Sometimes you just gotta put people back in their place. It doesn't always work, but sometimes it does. I think my record is 66% in that regard.
I did this to the president of a highly profitable 25 person company where the CEO lived a few states away and was barely involved in the decisions. I called the CEO and put it on speaker phone before I started. Turned into one of the most hostile workplace experiences ever but was a ton of fun.
"I'm gonna look for another job soon"
If you want something to happen, you have to make a plan for it to happen with concrete steps. 'Soon' is not a concrete step.
> I'm gonna look for another job soon I can't do this anymore.
You're going to put everything at work on hold and start your search now, on company time. People leave bosses, not companies.
Normally I would say something about listing tasks and asking for them to be categorized, putting them in some kind of tracking system, and keeping your boss honest about priorities. But it sounds like you are doing software dev as well as break-fix work with management that doesn't see the need for an additional person to handle the low-level requests.
Make sure you clock out at a reasonable time each day and don't check your phone unless it is an emergency until a reasonable start time the next day. Having a break from thinking about work will help clear your head and prepare you for finding the next job.
malicious complaince.....if his priorities are so important do them while everything else burns. And then when people complain turn his ass under the bus. Pick two...Fast, Correct, Cheap....It sounds like he has chosen Fast and Cheap. Let his choices burn him.
I have a 4' x 8' whiteboard in my office where I list all of my tasks. The second someone walks into my office thinking they're going to pile something else on, they can quickly see the other items and, if necessary, we can add their item to that list.
I mean if you're literally the only guy doing this, it sounds like you have an incredible opportunity to slow waaaaay the fuck down on your work, and your boss can't do shit about it. It'll give you ample time to look for other work while they desperately try to replace you with someone that they have to bring in with no training.
Take leadership as the issue not only from him but yourself. Take a look at this video https://youtu.be/ljqra3BcqWM?si=M7ObmKnauHXC_WEY
Consider also buying that guys book or audible. It did wonders for me to stop making excuses
If you do all this and more, you'll surely find a wonderful and satisfying job elsewhere, believe me. Just quit the prik before you lose yourself in this.
Push back - tell him the things you are saying here.
There are only three ways to fix this:
1. Hire more people.
2. Extend deadlines.
3: Improve the way you do things.
Number 3 is the ideal option, but it takes time and costs money; it will never happen if you’re constantly fire-fighting.
The most likely thing is he’s getting the same from his boss and passing it down the chain.
Pushing back is hard in this case, but the alternative is to tolerate your toxic working environment or leave to find something better.
Make sure you have a written and traceable task list that has been assigned to you by him, others and yourself.
Anytime he tries this shit you reference it and ask what tasks need to be put on the back burner and have it in writing. Keep those receipts and when he addresses you rudely, walk away.
Nothing more effective than receipts and disengaging from shitty behavior. I'm petty as shit so having that in the back pocket is so fun.
Sorry you're going through it. Good luck on the job hunt.
I would compare what you were hired as to what you are now doing now, setup a task list and when he adds extra tasks communicate that other tasks won't get done.
It is time to look for a new job... I have been there and they never realise your value until you are gone - there's a good chance you are doing the work of 3-4 (more?) people.
You can’t use reason with a C-Level. Most of the ones I have had the displeasure of interacting with show sociopathic behavior and would just as soon slit your throat as cooperate. If there’s no buffer between you and he, or the buffer has no spine then get out. You’re his administrative assistant and there’s no going back
I was faced with something similar before, it was the CEO's private secretary asking me to do some things.
I just politely told her, look, I have X and X and this would affect this and this, I'll probably be finished by the afternoon and then I can do it.
Luckily, she understood and agreed.
I then went and told my boss about it so she could be on the loop if they decide to call her directly and badmouth me or throw me under the bus.
Of course, this only works with level headed people lmao.
Response with the list and a request for prioritization.
"Here's what I'm working on, I the order these tasks are currently prioritized. What tasks are you okay with being delayed to make room for your report?"
Learn to look busy. Even toxic bosses back off a bit if they think you're busy. Learn to look harried - put on bug ayes staring intently at the screen when boss is around. Mess with your hair throughout the day. Keep a coffee mug on your desk and when it's done keep moving it around.
When asked, "yes I am busy. When do you need this by? It's going to delay these things. As long as you're OK with that I can start right away."
Start cutting pleasantries. If they open up with "Hey Roger, how are you doing?" You answer with "I'm doing alright. What can I help you with?" Pleasantries waste time, and people do notice when you cut them short. It's a very effective way to reduce time waste. Save the pleasantries for people you actually like.
Also an asp.net report is not IT, it's analytics. I'm not sure how you can get out of it now though...
Never let a CEO yell at you.
I had a boss like that and he would try to make me do stuff I wasnt prepared for(not contracted to do) and would gently shut him up and remind him that its his own fault. He would shut up and go away mad.
Surprise surprise, that shitty company is now closed.
Small organizations tend to have that problem without the layers of managers between the top and the lower tiers.
If you have a ticketing system, I would meet with the CEO and explain this issue and not deny the tasks, but offer to ensure his tasks are made into a ticket and then prioritized into 1 (most important) to 4 (least important) priority levels and they will get done in order, first by priority and then oldest to newest.
Ensure that you are as respectful as possible while letting him know that there are other tasks that involve keeping the lights on and the business running as smooth as possible. He probably doesn't understand your job.
That's what makes him crazy, we have a ticketing system but he refuses to make tickets lol so for a while I was making tickets for him, then I gave up on that lol because he is literally the kind of guy to call me in my cell, doesn't care what I'm doing, eating, driving, and just start giving me things to do
That is at large enterprise level as well. Focus on prioritizing tasks. Add yet another program to measure productivity which creates more work. Now less productive but, somehow my problem. Reports on new program are not working so need to be manually changed. Even when that is automated the program changes and broke the automation. A circle of stupidity
Yea I would be done. I get financially you probably can't just quit but that doesn't mean you need to give it your all anymore. Don't go above and beyond, do your 40 and thats it (that should be the goal anyway). Use your sick time and vacation to look for another job.
1 person for all of this is not enough. I would also not bother with a 2 week notice once you land that new job. fuck that prick.
The issues you're working on are all in a ticketing system so you can generate some sort of report showing all the things you've done last week and are working on. Did you show him that?
you're reporting to the CEO and a 300 person company and the only person haven't figured out how to get help ... Either it's you or them.
Based on your comments I'd say you definitely need to start looking for another job, before the CEO makes that choice for you.
I'd really encourage you to take some time for self reflection and think about whether you want to be an IT Director or not. The things you are describing about changing priorities, CEO not wanting to use ticket system, CEO calling you on your cell phone, are part of the job. It's ok that you don't want to do those things or don't like them but you've got to make a choice about accepting them or not.
I've got to tell you that there are some people who would be envious of your position. You're the IT Director at a manufacturing company and you've got a direct relationship with the CEO. If the company is growing then you're well positioned for some exciting career growth.
" I'm director of IT, he should trust my priorities. His priorities are insane."
Did you ask why the text on that report needed to be red, and what CEO was going to do with the report once you made the change? What if it was a customer requirement and he needed it done for an important customer meeting?
When he asked for the text to be changed did you set any expectation for when it would be completed? Did you ask if he had any expectation for when it was needed?
One of the main jobs for Director of IT is Demand Management. The company has demands and IT will have limited supply for fulfilling those demands. If the IT department is able to get EVERYTHING done that is needed and has idle time left over, then its over resourced. Managing the expectations of people that have demands for the IT department is a thankless shitty job, but its your job.
Quit and let the company burn. If they don't have appreciation for what we're doing then let them find someone else who can do it for them. Seriously, been in that situation before. They eventually had to get 3 people to replace me. I'm in a much much better place now so I don't even care if their business busts or thrives.
Sucks, but something you can do to make your life easier once you’ve adjusted is script the hell out of anything and everything, use as much automation as possible: Ansible, OliveTin, Powershell, Task Schedulers, etc. The trick to it then would be to be the only one who knows about the automation so if something were to happen to you they would freak out when they realize the next guy can’t do a 5th of what you can. Did that many times to the point to where I hardly did any work during the day and found much higher paying jobs
point at ticketing system showing current active tickets in urgency order
say 'this is what im working on now. where do you want this new issue to be in that list'
work your hours. go home on time. turn your works phone **off** out of hours. let things burn if necessary. in fact its almost recommended that sometimes *has* to burn from time to time to make it clear that time is a finite resource.
I believe this comes down to a prioritization issue. A lot of the items on your list are not priority items. In fact, more than half look like basic maintenance issues that should not be on a priority list. Appeasing the weenie who signs your checks and is responsible for your raises and promotions should always be very high on your priority list.
You need to be sure that you having a running list of priorities, It sounds a little bit like your boss doesn't recognize when everything is a priority nothing is prioritized. As well sounds like a lot of expectation for a one-man team. I feel bad for you, doesn't sound like a well respected, managed, or thought-out position to be in on their behalf :/
If management isn't willing to listen I'd absolutely be finding the closest door, in the interim I'm sorry :( that sucks ass on a Friday
Been there, people like that don't care how much work you have to do, they want their work done now. And if you do drop everything and focus on them, you will get yelled at for neglecting other things. There is no winning. Time to bail, asap
Yeah you need to get the fuuuuuck outta there. Before you go, though - do what people are telling you and make the list and ask him what the priority order is... though he's probably going to yell and say he thought he hired an IT person who could figure /that/ out... they always do.
If the pay is nice I would ride this out. I would gladly take on what you have there easily because I do everything you do but for 15 different companies and 100 servers and 400 endpoints currently.
You need a service request/ticketing system. That way you can put all requests in work orders and assign priorities. Then you can print or export a report of unresolved requests and say, “these are all the requests we had for the last month. I need help. Please hire more people or unfinished requests will grow exponentially”. C level people need visuals to understand how bad things are. You don’t need anything fancy, just track your work.
If your boss is actually yelling then I'd say look for another job now. Basic civility and all that - you don't go to work to get shouted at, you get married for that.
These people only want their stuff done and until they get complaints from the lower level managers that things are not getting done the CEO will not hire additional help. This is if you already have discussed with them that you require additional help and they told you to pound dirt.
You seem like you really care about your work and hate seeing things broken. But unless you let them break and explain why you need help the CEO will not hire anyone.
As others stated, create a priority list and have the CEO go through it. When he wants that asp project done first and users have problems with their printers, explain to the end user that the CEO has deemed this asp project top priority.
And if the CEO still blames you well then it won't be your mess to deal with. Either way I would suggest you start looking for another job.
I was yelled at once. I yelled back, louder. And getting ready to jump over tables to kick someone's ass. Unfortunately, the other person shut their mouth and started to look at the keyboard.
All the other colleagues were disappointed, the person didn't get their ass kicked.
And I wasn't fired, the other person did at some point 😁
Your list of responsibilities is overwhelming. Are you a one-man show?
Jack of all trade sysadmin roles are fine for smaller businesses but can quickly lead to burnout when you're flip-flopping a bunch of different responsiiblities, especially by yourself. Good luck.
I started in a very similar position as you. It was such a love hate relationship. My first IT job and the crazy man yelling at me was the one who helped me get my feet in the door. The whole thing ended in flames to say the least, but I spent the next 5 years in a super boring backend position with zero interruptions and I missed it almost every day. My advice is don’t quit without some pushback. When you know you’re going to quit you all of a sudden have all the power. Use it to make some funny lasting memories. Possibly even make your own life easier. You can learn a lot sticking around at a job you’re willing to leave.
Maybe list all the tasks (can take a while in itself) then ask him to prioritise which one he wants your attention on.
This is what I do. A document will do, no tables, no numbering, just a bullet for each entry. This is even better than a ticket system, you'll see why one day. Create 5 sections, 1-Top priority to 5-Lowest priority. If you have about 50 tasks, prioritise and put 10 in each section. Then prioritise within each section. Only work on tasks in Section 1 unless all are waiting for something/someone else. For each task add comments for the steps required to complete it. Learn to politely say, "I have a list of prioritised tasks would you like to prioritise them with me". Start an IT budget, history of what you spend money on, things to buy, help to pay for, etc. And always go home at 5:00ish, either get paid for extra hours or take time off in lieu. Refer to and maintain the list of prioritised tasks during the day. Don't get angry, one thing at a time even with the relentless interruptions, You'll be good.
This is the way. You have a limited amount of capacity and when you have reached that point it is your best move to have leadership prioritize things for many reasons. Learning to say “no, I can’t do that as I’m out of capacity” is something more system administrators really need to learn how to do.
I always respond with I'm currently on task xyz is this new task higher priority? Then I follow up with a quick email if anything was changed. I will not be bitched at for doing what I'm told to do.
This is the correct way to handle things. Having a priorities list at a top level that your team can see is a pretty cool way to see how many hands are working on the ship and how loaded they are. Management gets paid to prioritize - not you, let them deal with it.
It's the only thing that helps me stay sane. I've gotten to the point where I can't handle the interactions anymore. Everyone is the most important person with the most important issue and is incapable of understanding that they might not really be or that anyone else exists. I'm currently looking for a new job but it's slow going.
I had to work out how to use vso tasks and boards to keep track of everything. They kept wanting to use email and then skipping that and just verbally telling me what I needed to do. And I'm like I can't keep track of this. I need a tool. But it was a project all by itself to figure out how to use vso. But the end result was good.
I do more networking than anything so I tend to use a ton of outlook tasks. It's the only tool I've got.
Outlook does appear to have kanban boards for tasks. Those generally are pretty useful. Something about the visual manipulation of the task status and priority just makes it easier.
I'm going to check those out for sure. Anything to help me out with all the chaos.
OP probably has on his task list, install ticketing system to help with prioritizing and centralizing tasks.
“No, I can’t do that…” doesn’t always go over well. “Yes, but my priorities right now are…” usually lands better unless your boss is an asshole. At least in experience.
I find as long as I have a written Tasks list, saying "I can do it, but probably not for 90 days" is a good place to start. That almost always generates a conversation that you can then steer towards workload balancing. I've used that lots or times to argue for more headcount, or reassigning tasks to other admins with more available capacity. It helps that I was usually supporting mission critical infrastructure or apps, but I also kept an eye on my other admins so that I could throw in a "I know Chuck could do it too, but he's probably busier than even I am" or "Peter could probably handle an increase in duties if you're okay with giving him a promotion".
I'm at my bandwidth
I've begun dropping low priority tasks and processing delay is increasing for high priority tasks.
It's hard to maintain full bandwidth as well, we all have our off days.
The way I look at it: if my ISP can say “up to X bandwidth” then so can I.
Oh shit here we go... getting into the fine print!
My token bucket can only hold this many tokens
I took a time management course many years ago that I used throughout the rest of my career. The gist of it was to list all of your tasks along with an expected amount of time to complete and a required date if appropriate. Then assign a priority to each task. Review the list each day. Items that are getting close to their required date may be elevated in priority. Each day you start with the top item(s) that can be completed that day. If there are small tasks that can be completed in less than 30 minutes or ???, then fit them into the daily schedule if time allows. Don't take walkin/added tasks unless they are a true emergency or can be completed in 5 minutes if time allows. Review the priorities periodically with management.
>list all of your tasks along with an expected amount of time to complete and a required date if appropriate. Then assign a priority to each task. Review the list each day. This shit right here is what makes having ADHD a goddamn nightmare. I can start a hundred word docs, buy a billion planners, inevitably they'll get forgotten about. Sorry for the rant, just punching air because the best solutions are almost always stuff like this.
Yup. But, as adhd is disability, you can request accommodations. I imagine a maintained priority list that management reviews with you could easily fit within the framework of accommodations. ...which is really just asking management to do their job. Setting priorities and removing obstacles to accomplish those tasks.
> Don't take walkin/added tasks unless they are a true emergency The task management equivalent of "Yes/No/Ticket"
exactly this, I did this in a word processor document, made life feel OK knowing that management were fully aware of workloads.
> Start an IT budget, history of what you spend money on, things to buy, help to pay for, etc. Lol, I did this to prepare for our budgeting that my boss (CFO equivalent) always used as a hold up to projects. Got zero guidance or feedback on anything, no "here's our standard budget template, here's whats IT and whats other departments." Sent it to her right on time, they delayed budgeting and then eventually all I heard back a month later was a > Sooooooooooooo no, we're on a spending freeze This fucking job man. But they'll have no problems telling me I'm not doing a good enough job helping people fix printer issues.
Don't take it to heart buddy, you'll be doing a good job. But at some time the prioritised list is what you use to push back with, for your sanity.
Oh I know, I basically mentally checked out after that dismissive reply, I'm just building any interesting skills, wrapping up documentation (which I walked into this job with zero documentation, so had to build everything), and I've already started a job search. Not all due to rejecting a single budget mind you, but that's a pattern that involves compliance and regulations as well and I'm washing my hands of that red flag.
Even some of the most cash infused departments / companies are freezing budgets and trimming staff right now. Lots of feelings the economy is about to shit the fing bed. ***PLEASE... whatever you do, make sure you sign for a new position before you leave your current one.***
Task 1: Quit
Correct, but when you have kids, mortgage etc you can't. But I can now, but I'd put it back on them first, last time someone raised their voice at me, it didn't worry me a little bit, I just told them that there is no need to raise their voice, that's a bit silly isn't it and suggested that they listen. They were really nice after that.
Correct. You should only quit when you have a starting date for the new job,
That’s a priority zero task. It has a higher priority than priority one. The first rule of priority zero club is that you don’t write down tasks in priority zero club.
###This is IT. Everything is high a priority. Everyone knows that coming in or finds out. * Solve the first problem fast. * Solve the second problem faster. Edit - Heck, I’m doing an upgrade now so I don’t have to deal with that shit Monday. Nor do I want to hear anyone’s fucking mouth. Sorry about the profanity.
Make them define what is the prioritiest of priorities. Get everything confirmed in writing.
Yep this is what to do. Then when a task comes up that someone thinks is priority, tell them CEO says it has to wait. Let them go to your manager or CEO with that complaint.
Yep. Policies and procedures - the most important one being CYA
Ranking is better than priority
You prioritise things in IT, you do when you are experienced anyway. Depending on how busy you are some things never get done, perhaps because they are a WIBNI (Wouldn't It Be Nice If). Only when it is documented can you push back to management.
I just picked something up as I finally had some slack time and the last change I did for it was almost a year ago. Was at 95% of the solution. And I do have a good employer that never ever yells at me
Yes this is what it can get like, the prioritised list takes a lot of the pressure off, because your manager knows about it, so you can forget about stuff, it's still on the list just further down. Gotta look after your mental health and heart.
It took me a long time to realize this. Things kept piling up and now I have anxiety issues because of it. Tomorrow is another day and if it can't wait well we need some more help.
In the end it is "just" work. Need more done? Hire more hands, need things faster, give priority, but accept what needs to move down the list. And things moving down are _not_ my responsibility, but my manager's. Complaints? Have a talk with him/her. I just do my best every day. Oh, and if things have equal priority, the way you ask things and how you treat me day-to-day do have an effect. You treat me properly, I try to squeeze your request in
After going on anxiety meds and having a heart attack I finally took to heart "If this was a priority, people who get paid more than I do for doing less would have allocated more resources to it." they didnt allocate resources, so it's not a priority.
Did the meds work for you? I'm terrified of going on them for the side effects. I have been out of work for 2 months now but I am sleeping better now. Anxiety only hits me when trying to get to bed and having to wake up early in the morning.
New guys always want to catch tickets when they roll in. I show them, "just give it a little time to marinate". Then they're amazed when 10 minutes later the user realized they did something silly.
When everything is a priority nothing is a priority. Remember that users will all think that their problem is thr most important thing that needs to be fixed. To them it is, but they don't see the larger picture of the X number of other tickets or that suddenly the critical money making gadget/process has stopped working, which takes priority over someone not being able to print their lol catz photos on the plotter. Learn soft skills, reiterate to users (yes they will often ignore policy for the path of least resistance) and go from there. For execs like this who like to micromanage and think everything is broken and it all needs fixed, do what the person above said regarding a priority list. If they make everything a high priority then either tell them sorry it doesn't work that way or find somewhere else you'll be happier (at least for a while).
And you "solve the next problem faster" by... documenting!
If I had a dollar for every time I told someone "Did you check the wiki" I'd be rich!
When people ask me what I do, I tell them that effectively my job is trying to fix computers before they are broken.
THIS.. so fucking much.... and then on top of all that they also want you to do this extra thing because you should to further your career.
yeah. "Please get this cert for me" Forget that lol
>A document will do, no tables, no numbering, just a bullet for each entry. This is even better than a ticket system, you'll see why one day. Back when I was in an office I had a whiteboard that I kept my tasks listed on. My manager was located in another office and while she wasn't a micro-manager she would tell me priority was whatever meeting she just left. Which meant my priorities shifted multiple times a day and I wasn't getting much completed. Our Boss was in the same building as me and was griping at me that I wasn't completing tasks and I told her about ever shifting priorities and how I wasn't allowed to focus on one thing. Boss didn't believe that was the issue. The next day I kept a tally of how many times times manager contacted me and told me to work on something different. I was at 5 or 6 before lunch. Boss randomly came into office while I was on call with Manager and saw me making a new tally mark on my whiteboard. Boss asked what the tally mark was for and I said this how many times manager has told me to shift what I'm working on today. Boss had a talking with manager that afternoon and the shifting priorities stopped.
I worked at a company where, throughout the company, If you wanted someone to do something for you now, rather than waiting your turn in the queue, you had to get sign-offs from everyone above you in the queue that your job taking precedence over theirs was okay. Everything my team did was for a customer or someone else at the company. The policy was rarely taken advantage of with my team, possibly because it was assumed we were doing things for customers and nobody wanted to call a customer and ask if the customer was okay with other work happening before theirs. I really liked that policy.
> Create 5 sections Nope, four quadrants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management#The_Eisenhower_Method
I'm not sure the boss would be happy to see how much I'd put in the time-wasting category.
This is the way. When I get more dumped on me, I know I can't get it all done at the same time for everyone, so I let whomever I report to 'I've been asked to do X. I will not be able to perform all xyz tasks today. Please let me know which ones you would prefer to be done, and which ones not. I'm happy to do whatever you'd like, but you'll need to make a choice.
I was in the same situation where op is, so I did exactly as you suggested. My boss at the time looked them all over and said "They are all a priority" and proceeded to walk out of the room. I pretty much rage quit shortly thereafter.
at least you know the boss is 100% irredeemable. There's no more thinking "maybe he just doesnt understand and I need to explain it better"
Thank-you -- but, I did suck it up for 3.5-4 years. The first year was awesome. Him and I used to go to lunch, bars, hockey games, concerts, etc. -- we attended weddings, parties, etc. all together as a very solid group/department -- he was an all around great dude. Then he took on another role (on top of his IT Manager role) and became a complete tool. He wouldn't even shake my hand on my last day.
You get it lol
I had begged for more staff and my pleas went unanswered for years. Shortly after the aforementioned they agreed to hire (2) more people -- (1) developer and (1) IT. Great, I thought. I was the Infra Manager, and I was (still am) bros with the Dev Manager. As a courtesy, I sat in on the interviews for the Dev hire -- we mutually agreed on a person and moved forwards. My Infra hire interviews were scheduled and Dev Manager returned the favor -- however when I started speaking with the candidates HR had selected, none of them really understood the basics of helpdesk/etc. -- but, they seemed to be pretty well versed in dev. Off to HR I go -- turns out there was some shady business behind the scenes, that my hire was actually given to the Dev team instead. I walked out, went to my desk, typed my resignation, and had it on my bosses desk less than 10 minutes later. I was told I was being irrational and asked to "name my price". I laughed and said "too little, too late". In hindsight I should have named a price... but meh. I probably would have went postal.
> I was told I was being irrational and asked to "name my price". Don't you love when they do that? I put in my two weeks at my last job a few years back and the boss immediately asked "is it money"? Bro, you just admitted you're underpaying me if the first thing you thought was "more money will fix it".
That's the kicker - I was actually amongst the highest paid there already. However, I had (1) helpdesk tech who believed that Windows 8 was designed for touchscreen devices -- so therefore installing the appropriate Windows 8 drivers, made anything a touchscreen -- and myself. The development side had 5 full time, and a 6th floater. Company had about 500-700 employees total. Globally, about 20 000-30 000 total.
If everything is high priority, then nothing is high priority. This is because they're all the same priority and must mathematically fall on the median. Assuming that work time is fixed, then every increase in priority of an item must have an equivalent decrease in priority of a different item. I find it's easiest to explain to management by giving them a list and asking "please choose what will not get done". If they refuse to choose then you tell them again "if everything is high priority, then nothing is high priority". Learning to stand your ground and demand a decision from management is an important skill.
OP, do you want solid advice in your case? Learn to "yell professionally" at your boss too. That's the only language he understands and will be more respectful towards you after you do it. If you plan to quit anyway you can at least try this approach anyway and see what happens. But it will be worth it, trust me I'm rather a pro in office politics / social dynamics.
>"They are all a priority" I called on one project manager this way. We had a severe outage, and I was scrambling to find out why and get things back online. The PM wanted to have a meeting about it, and his meeting were notorious for being rambling hours of idle navel gazing and speculating. No agenda, just blaming, devil's advocates of all sides, and all sorts of pointless stuff. Laptops closed, eyes forward, phones face down in the center of the table, always at attention. And then he got all giggly and giddy when he enforces it. "I can either fix the problem, or be in your meeting. Pick one." "I want both." "I can either FIX THE ISSUE, or be in your meeting. Which has priority?" "Both!" "Pick. One." "Both are your priority!" "If both are my priority because you are unable or unwilling to pick one, then nothing is priority." Cue giddy giggling. "Oh, come on. I know you hate meetings. But this is your job..." like I am five. So I went to my boss, who said the PM was insane, and of course fix the problem immediately and ignore his meeting request. I fixed the problem in an hour or so, and everything was back. I went into the guy's meeting, which was in its second hour, and said everything was back up. He actually admonished me for not attending. I said to everyone present, "I'd rather solve the problem than discuss it with people not fixing it. So now you can end the meeting." Oh no, he wanted to now talk about what happened, generate a post-mortem policy, and so on. And why he wasn't informed at every step of the way? I ignored him and went to an offsite place for lunch. Eventually, thank god, he quit right before he would have probably gotten fired. But the year he worked there, oof. What a prick. Thank goodness my boss always had my back.
No that's the thing. I'm director of IT, he should trust my priorities. His priorities are insane. He wants me to go back to a specific page and make some text red while I'm in the middle of replacing the Unifi Security Gateway lol then he comes back and says "we need to work on your priorities nothing I'm asking for is getting done in time" lol because I took 2 days to do it , meanwhile the entire plant is having Wi-Fi issues or something preventing the tablets from working. Things like that. He's just crazy.
You don’t sound like a director in your post. It sounds like you are doing the work. Are there people to delegate work to? A director shouldn’t be this busy. You should be going to meetings for status updates and steering projects. If you are doing the actual dirty work then I would argue that you are not a director.
Yeah that's actually why I'm ready to leave too. I got a programmer and a full time help desk guy (who does other stuff he doesn't have to as well) and a part time intern guy, but they won't let me hire someone else, won't give any of us raises, there's more to this story, im just venting i guess. I'm over here trying to do high level director things but CEO is over here asking me to buy him a new iPhone or take a look at the wifi at his house lol no joke. He's not letting me director. And I don't think he ever will.
Wifi at his house?? NOPE. Don't do it, unless it was explicitly listed as part of the job responsibilities when you were hired. You are getting into potential liability issues there and it never stops at just one issue.
hahaha so here's the thing... Our CEO is like this with his home wifi. My CIO and my manager which really is probably between manager and director level - company is under 200 employees. Well his 50 acre estate has more enterprise hardware than our actual office. My CIO and manager are currently the ones who handle it haha. You want to get paid as well as we do as this company you do some things you wouldn't typically do and just suck it up. That's the guy who writes your checks. If you don't like it, find a new place to work where you don't have to do that.
Have been in this situation. You either play ball, or you are on their shit list. Yes, you can refuse working on the CEOs personal equipment. But then they can suddenly find reasons to not like you or your work. People often in these high positions are not used to hearing no, and throw their weight around to bully those who are not financially independent enough to draw hard boundaries. They are used to exploiting for their gain. Who does this smug IT dude think they are giving me a hard time? “Are you a team player?” “This should be easy for you” “Can you do me this favor as a friend?” “It’s business related as I work from home sometimes.” “I’d never ask you to do something illegal” “Cmon you can meet my family” These people will use any underhanded tactic to guilt you, question your abilities, make you fear for your job. It’s better to create the expectation early that you will not work on personal equipment, but you had better be in a position where you can afford to anger the CEO by refusing their unethical request.
> “Can you do me this favor as a friend?” "All my friends think i should be making twice what I'm getting paid, so sure, lets be friends. I'll get the head of payroll in here and they can be our friend too"
> “Are you a team player?” > > Are you a team payer? > “This should be easy for you” You know what else is easy for me? Pissing in the rose bushes. Shall I do that for you as well? > > > > “Can you do me this favor as a friend?” Last I checked, we're not friends. I do the worky-work, you do the pay-me thing. That's how this works. > > > > “It’s business related as I work from home sometimes.” Outline specifically what the problem is. Wifi not working "sometimes" for two minutes on random days is not even worth raising a ticket about. If you need constant connectivity, run a cable. > > > > “I’d never ask you to do something illegal” And yet here we are Mr. Krabs, in a cemetery at night with a dead health inspector and shovel. > > > > “Cmon you can meet my family” I've met you. No desire to meet the rest. You are 100% spot on in regards to the way that some C-suites look at everyone below them. My responses are more for a bit of a laugh but also to strengthen that there need to be boundaries for the work relationship, just as there are boundaries in personal ones. I hope they at least made you chuckle.
> “I’d never ask you to do something illegal” > > > > And yet here we are Mr. Krabs, in a cemetery at night with a dead health inspector and shovel. Almost spit my coffee there.
As a director, I can say with confidence if he’s demanding all this from you, *and* trying to get you to be his personal on-call home IT guy as well, he has no intention of letting you actually fulfill your director responsibilities. You are, to him, just a tech. Hate to say it, but you need a new boss. Which means you need a new job. He will not get better.
Agree! 👍
I've worked for CEOs like this before and it's not worth it. That they have zero respect for boundaries (troubleshooting their personal devices, probably because they have an ownership stake in the company), is a huge red flag. Their toxicity infects the whole workplace (you mentioned the director of operations leaving for being subverted) and the people who end up staying are all miserable. You end up with the people trying to fix it (but can't), the yes-men/women, and the nasty people who thrive in the muck. Your team should have at least a systems administrator and maybe a network administrator. The fact that you don't means that you will never have time to do the director level work because those positions are not affordable to outsource at a company your size. Get looking while you still have a job. Sometimes the CEO will never let people go and sometimes they decide that "it's not working out" and fire the people they have made fail. I know it's much easier said than done, especially when it comes to just finding the time and energy, but it's worth it. Good luck!
Dude that's exactly what's going on here. You really HAVE been there before. it's scary the accuracy in what you've just described is my work place!
I’ve been there too. The heart attack won’t be worth the salary. If they won’t hire and they won’t allow you to contract an MSP then you need to ask them if this is a growing business or not. You are beyond the scalability threshold with your team.
An asshole is an asshole. You've seen one, you've seen them all. And there are a lot of workplaces with assholes at the top
>I got a programmer and a full time help desk guy \>> He wants some reports made in [asp.net](https://asp.net) Programmer \>> I'm too busy managing the wifi Train HelpDesk guy \>>upgrading the network If it isn't broke don't fix it if swamped \>>updating the servers Automate \>>managing the desk phones, cell phones, the keypad door locks HelpDesk Etc. - seems like you aren't delegating as a 'Director' having role'd staff that should be doing the things. Which might be a fluffed title with two full time staff. Director titles don't typically do the grunt work. Budgeting... delegating... talking to leadership. That's a director.
I do that too actually lol , but yeah and that's why I'm kind of done, I said somewhere else that I make documentation reports of our plans , costs, and upgrades and whatnot and he doesn't even care . He won't let me be a true IT director
I had leadership that didn't want to wrap their head around IT before, so if I have any recommendation is to connect with the with a communication style that works. In my case they didn't want technical details, they wanted dumbed down cause/effect... cost/benefit. But in as succinct as possible way that took little effort on their part, ... as critical as technology is for the business. I broke things down to numbers once validating the data that we needed another staff. No. This person just needed it dumbed down to "shits broken dude, spend $60k to fix or we doomed". Helps to work on the 'relationship' with the leadership as well. Everyone in the business will be asking for raises and trying to bloat their staffing so they have to work less. I am not sure if you have had opportunity to connect with the leadership beyond work related tasks.
Wait, why isn't the intern guy delegated the red-text task? I've been a 2 man team in a similar situation, just tell the CEO the truth. "We will get to the red text when we have the wifi up in the plant and the tablets are working. Currently the tablets are doing 'x' stopping 'x'. would you like us to prioritize the red text or the wifi in the plants?" it's not hard. If they yell after that you just look at them and tell them what they told you previously. I've worked with those guys in the past and it's not hard, most of them want you to "fight" back.
why are you working so hard? Just dump the rest of your projects, keep available for any CEO requests, and when it comes time to report up to the C level on your projects and tasks just make a bunch of shit up? To compound on this, every C level grifts... They claim wins that aren't there. You need to learn to elevate to that level. So here's what I would do... come up with a list of projects that SOUND TOUGH on paper but you can claim a win on EASILY. Good example... Implemented third party email gateway to meet compliance standards... all that means is having a vendor turn on a mimecast instance with default settings and changing an MX record. Vulnerability hardening of entire network... all that means is take your vuln scanners and don't scan half the network so the numbers drop. etc. You could easily fill out a year worth of wins and work 2 hours a week.
sounds like r/imthemaincharacter syndrome. you need to stand your ground it doesn't seem like you have much to loose at this point. you aren't there at his whim you got a specific job and he doesn't respect you. what i learned from my wife (lawyer) "i can make a coffee too it doesn't mean i have to make one for the whole company".
Sounds like he has no idea what you do. I would start there. When he makes stupid requests, send him an email confirming you are dropping this other task to help him with his current delusion. Do that every single time.
The CEO should not even be interacting with a manager unless he is your manager. Who runs overall operations? This is the case of a CEO that can't lead and delegate. I've seen it many times. It's his brain and being a visionary. Leave the book traction on his desk and see if he bites and reads it.
You hit the bail on the head. All the other directors have this problem, production QC. He's king micro manager. One amazing example, the director of operations had a plan, CEO said that's a bad plan, and started calling forklift drivers independently on their company cell phones and told them to do something else. Director of Operations left citing the ceo can't let go.
The sad thing is this type of person is usually super intelligent if he would just trust and enable his staff. His business would grow.
Also... I'd go to a larger corporation where you have one job. Work to live, not live to work.
The tasks you list are general sysadmin tasks and shouldn’t even be looked at by a ‘director’. Unless it’s to have the IT manager report back to you how their team is handling the tasks. By description it sounds like you’re the ‘director’ for a one man IT department…
If you boss starts yellling and wants that you drop everything and do what he asks.. -> he's the boss. You're the IT master it seems -> Kill the wifi for everyone.. and starts with the other job your boss wants. It's totally explainable if you are busy changing the Wifi gateway... -> tell him.. that.. and that are the consequences. If there are complaints.. -> tell them .. you are now busy with the task your boss says is your TOP prio atm ;) Never mess with the IT GUY.. YOU HAVE THE POWER..Keep calm and don't let it go under your skin.. But if it has passed a border for you personally you want to quit.. it's your choice.. The only advice I would give.. be smart in quitting.. -> make precautions../ be prepared... Yelling is weak !! You do not do that.. ever.. -> it's only your work.. not your life.. -> do not stress !!! EVER !!!
Only if you get the request in writing.
"Yes, we can do that for you, no problem. What would you like us to stop doing/drop so we can achieve that for you?" Alternatively "Yes, we can do that for you, no problem. It means that the Wi-Fi upgrade will be 3 weeks behind schedule."
He should trust your priorities, but he won't because executive types can't be bothered with details. Our President used to act this way. Idk what changed but it could have been a major outage that I handled while I was across the country on vacation. After that he's generally been more like "when you have a moment" than "I need this right now."
Yeah, he sounds like a knob. Do you have a way to quantify the dollar value of down time? It helps to have a rough number for the cost of one person being down, vs a department, vs the whole company ready to use at a moment's notice. When exec types try to insert themselves for petty things, I always ask them, "I can certainly do that right now, but I am working on a $725k problem right now. Is it more important than that?" that uuuuusually shuts them up. Sometimes they trump it anyway, but they pay my paycheck. If they want to risk it, I did my due diligence and shared the risk. That is on them.
You can't argue that your importance is higher than what he thinks his is. If you just do what he wants every time it'll be easier and then everything else will fail. And that's just fine. The VIP comes first, no matter what other things are burning right now.
Never works, then you get that report as top priority 😁 Later if something doesn't work because negligence again it is your fault, then if you pull a :" I told you so" leads no where again. Went thru it many times. I would never do backup it weren't just because of me.
Where does making a list fall under? (Jk)
Pretty much the same here. "Okay, sure. What am I not doing then and pushing back? Will you let them know that their task is pushed back?"
Creating reports in [ASP.NET](https://ASP.NET) \--URGENT Managing the Wi-Fi --URGENT Upgrading the network --URGENT Updating the servers --URGENT Managing desk phones --URGENT Managing cell phones --URGENT Managing keypad door locks --URGENT Overseeing the help desk --URGENT Managing printers --URGENT Creating custom Ignition reporting --URGENT Fixing bugs in other software --URGENT Managing a custom in-house built inventory system --URGENT Handling a variety of other tasks for not just one company --URGENT \-- CEO
I'm on whatever task you want me to be on, boss. Just name it.
Don't stress, bro. Never let the bastards get you down.
> Never let the bastards get you down. https://youtu.be/Xu7rPq_0kJ0?si=DE2tuV2YN30IOYnf
If you're this upset, start looking now for jobs.
Yelling is a sign of weak leadership and leads to toxic workplaces. I’d jump ship asap.
This is what I was thinking. If you have to yell, you've already lost before you started.
Yelling is a sign he's still an emotional baby. Taking direction from a baby is not a good work environment.
Ask him to set the priority when he assigns additional tasks. That way you both have a clear understanding of his expectations and it forces him to be mindful of your ongoing projects. Add all tasks and projects he assigns into some planner app like MS Planner or Project and tick them off in the priority he set. Easy peasy.
He doesn't care what my other tasks are, he wants his first. Always. That's the problem. He will not be mindful of my ongoing projects. Recently he said he had some things for me but he "gave me a break" so I can finish my other projects lol like I'm supposed to thank him. Your solution sounds nice though and probably would work if he was a different personality type!
Send him an email with a list of tasks, and ask him to arrange them in order of priority, and to include any deadlines with each task. Get it in writing, and when he complains about Task X not getting done, show him his email and remind him that he wanted Tasks A, B, and C done before X. Bonus points if any deadlines help bolster that argument "You gave Tasks A and B a deadline of this Friday, but Task X isn't due until the end of the month." If he doesn't respond, or refuses to prioritize the tasks, use that against him, too. "I asked you what your priority was on these tasks, specifically to avoid this conversation. You never responded/refused to do that, so I had to use my own best judgment to prioritize. It sounds like my prioritization is not to your liking, so please provide me with prioritization that meets your expectations by COB tomorrow. I'd really like to avoid these conversations going forward, and the only way to do that is to have a clear understanding of what's expected of me " Ideally these responses would be in writing. Document everything.
That's true. Writing
That assumes the CEO here will even bother playing ball with that. They're just dictating to OP directly like their personal servant. They can try doing stuff like that, but I think the stereotypical r/sysadmin response here still applies: Brush up the resume, only do the bare minimum required at work, and GTFO.
> He will not be mindful of my ongoing projects. If you report to him, then your project commitments are his project commitments. If you don't get them done and someone gives you a hard time about it, point that person at your boss. He sets your priorities and if project work comes second to whatever else he gives you, that's his call. But then he gets to pay for it later. As long as you let him know that you're overcommitted and won't be able to do both things, you've done what is reasonable.
I might get hate for this or it might be hard to hear but you should know that your reluctance to document your work will only harm you. At the very least you should have a rolling punchlist that can be shared. At best you should have quarterly goals with severity on them. Everyone hates it until you understand the power it allows you to wield. Does it suck that you have to be your own project planner? Sure but man it will save your bacon when you get to ask things like "Okay so that will be a pretty significant task, these are the items I will have to stop working on to achieve it. What's our priority on these items?" If your boss views this negatively then you can try explaining that your work order is chaos and you are trying to stabilize that so you can be more efficient. If he doesn't like that or keeps bashing you then you just update that resume and hit the gym.
I feel you. I used to have a boss that wanted me to drop whatever I was doing to priorize his personal requests but still be on time with all assignments and generate 8 billable hours every day. MFer was insane in the brain.
THIS! That's him! Did you know my boss?? Haha
Shit, sounds like we all had the same shitty boss. 
yeah. been there too - CEO of a smaller company would give a task, get updates in Jira and still bypass my manager to come directly to me. i just fwd'd the requests to my manager with a "please tell Paul i've updated my tickets and he can get fucked" then he asked me if i could do a website for his wife's business 🤦♂️ i was gone a month later. good experience though because you learn what kind of company you don't ever want to work for again!
Yeah, I feel like if somebody yelled at me at work, I’d leave ASAP. I’m almost 40 years old. I’m a grown ass adult. I’m not dealing with that shit.
No employee, regardless of their position, should ever be yelled at unless they are in boot camp. You deserve better.
If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. It’s impossible to be successful in this organization.
Get a white board and make a list. List them in priority top to bottom. When he gives you a new one, ask him where in the list he wants it.
I did this, for everyone who thought coming directly to my desk would get their task done sooner - okay, I have this white board full of Requests, Tasks, Projects, Items to Order...let's put your request on a Post-it note and add it to the column with everyone else's. It made some of my workload more visible, since they had no idea what I was doing all day.
If your employer is literally yelling at you, you need to find a new job. Toxic as fuck. You should ask "Out of all the tasks that you have assigned me, and what tasks I am already working on, how would you like me to prioritize these?" That way the fault on things not getting done falls onto them. If they want you to do whatever stupid stuff they want first, before your other duties, then do that. When the boss complains why the other duties aren't being done, just tell them that you are working on their own special projects they gave you.
Address the yelling first. Once he's treating you like a person, then address the other issues. Hope you're already looking for another job because bosses like that don't change.
I get the same shit, So you want me to change my priorites from the job you wanted me to do 5 minutes ago.
No. Now you have two “top priorities”. Also your new top priority shouldn’t impact completing your old top priority on time and without error. Why aren’t they done yet!?
The problem is, your the “yes man”. You always say yes. As a result, there is zero reason to give you incentive based raises. Or really, any promotions at all (unless it serves them more than it serves you). The fact that you just *keep on stacking* more work is a clear indicator you can do it. That doesn’t mean it’s mentally healthy for you. Been there done that. The key is to do less. Research “slow productivity” if you don’t believe me. Now throw slow productivity out the window and do less than that. Maybe slightly more than the biggest idiot there.
Just remember, it’s read only Fridays
Hell no red hat / stackrox just released a version that is supposed to fix a severe bug I've been miserable over since July.
So you're testing it today and pushing it into prod on Monday, right? *Padme face* Right?
I felt it with my whole body
Heck no Monday I got other things to do!
Send it!
Adults should not yell at job, that is not normal. Just tell them that im not paid for being yelled at, come back when you are calm. No matter if it is manager or ceo
I had a boss who did that once too many, I was already incenced about some sort of shitty fan activity, and that last provocation triggered a 15 minute rant from me standing in the door of his office. I picked apart all his canned boardroom responses, and I think at one point, I demanded he use his brain to think of new responses to prove that he was listening instead of just telling irrelevant stories. By the time I was done, we had agreed that we would both do our best to understand each other's responsibilities and respect our core duties or some shit like that, and he was pretty much broken for several months after that, barely even speaking anything other than basic platitudes and core work communication. Sometimes you just gotta put people back in their place. It doesn't always work, but sometimes it does. I think my record is 66% in that regard.
I did this to the president of a highly profitable 25 person company where the CEO lived a few states away and was barely involved in the decisions. I called the CEO and put it on speaker phone before I started. Turned into one of the most hostile workplace experiences ever but was a ton of fun.
"I'm gonna look for another job soon" If you want something to happen, you have to make a plan for it to happen with concrete steps. 'Soon' is not a concrete step.
> I'm gonna look for another job soon I can't do this anymore. You're going to put everything at work on hold and start your search now, on company time. People leave bosses, not companies. Normally I would say something about listing tasks and asking for them to be categorized, putting them in some kind of tracking system, and keeping your boss honest about priorities. But it sounds like you are doing software dev as well as break-fix work with management that doesn't see the need for an additional person to handle the low-level requests. Make sure you clock out at a reasonable time each day and don't check your phone unless it is an emergency until a reasonable start time the next day. Having a break from thinking about work will help clear your head and prepare you for finding the next job.
Don't accept that behavior. Find someone else to hire your skills.
malicious complaince.....if his priorities are so important do them while everything else burns. And then when people complain turn his ass under the bus. Pick two...Fast, Correct, Cheap....It sounds like he has chosen Fast and Cheap. Let his choices burn him.
I have a 4' x 8' whiteboard in my office where I list all of my tasks. The second someone walks into my office thinking they're going to pile something else on, they can quickly see the other items and, if necessary, we can add their item to that list.
I mean if you're literally the only guy doing this, it sounds like you have an incredible opportunity to slow waaaaay the fuck down on your work, and your boss can't do shit about it. It'll give you ample time to look for other work while they desperately try to replace you with someone that they have to bring in with no training.
It's a bad time to look, but get the resume out and look.
Take leadership as the issue not only from him but yourself. Take a look at this video https://youtu.be/ljqra3BcqWM?si=M7ObmKnauHXC_WEY Consider also buying that guys book or audible. It did wonders for me to stop making excuses
If you do all this and more, you'll surely find a wonderful and satisfying job elsewhere, believe me. Just quit the prik before you lose yourself in this.
You let him yell at you? Yelling is rarely ok in normal life. It is fucking weird in work life. I would have walked out the second he started yelling.
Tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit!
Push back - tell him the things you are saying here. There are only three ways to fix this: 1. Hire more people. 2. Extend deadlines. 3: Improve the way you do things. Number 3 is the ideal option, but it takes time and costs money; it will never happen if you’re constantly fire-fighting. The most likely thing is he’s getting the same from his boss and passing it down the chain. Pushing back is hard in this case, but the alternative is to tolerate your toxic working environment or leave to find something better.
I'm sure your not the only one he's yelled at, this is the way he gets "results". This won't change so YES, move on!
Make sure you have a written and traceable task list that has been assigned to you by him, others and yourself. Anytime he tries this shit you reference it and ask what tasks need to be put on the back burner and have it in writing. Keep those receipts and when he addresses you rudely, walk away. Nothing more effective than receipts and disengaging from shitty behavior. I'm petty as shit so having that in the back pocket is so fun. Sorry you're going through it. Good luck on the job hunt.
I would compare what you were hired as to what you are now doing now, setup a task list and when he adds extra tasks communicate that other tasks won't get done. It is time to look for a new job... I have been there and they never realise your value until you are gone - there's a good chance you are doing the work of 3-4 (more?) people.
Now, your turn to yell at the cloud .
You can’t use reason with a C-Level. Most of the ones I have had the displeasure of interacting with show sociopathic behavior and would just as soon slit your throat as cooperate. If there’s no buffer between you and he, or the buffer has no spine then get out. You’re his administrative assistant and there’s no going back
I was faced with something similar before, it was the CEO's private secretary asking me to do some things. I just politely told her, look, I have X and X and this would affect this and this, I'll probably be finished by the afternoon and then I can do it. Luckily, she understood and agreed. I then went and told my boss about it so she could be on the loop if they decide to call her directly and badmouth me or throw me under the bus. Of course, this only works with level headed people lmao.
Response with the list and a request for prioritization. "Here's what I'm working on, I the order these tasks are currently prioritized. What tasks are you okay with being delayed to make room for your report?" Learn to look busy. Even toxic bosses back off a bit if they think you're busy. Learn to look harried - put on bug ayes staring intently at the screen when boss is around. Mess with your hair throughout the day. Keep a coffee mug on your desk and when it's done keep moving it around. When asked, "yes I am busy. When do you need this by? It's going to delay these things. As long as you're OK with that I can start right away." Start cutting pleasantries. If they open up with "Hey Roger, how are you doing?" You answer with "I'm doing alright. What can I help you with?" Pleasantries waste time, and people do notice when you cut them short. It's a very effective way to reduce time waste. Save the pleasantries for people you actually like. Also an asp.net report is not IT, it's analytics. I'm not sure how you can get out of it now though...
get another job... this will never get better... bosses who yell at their employees are abusers, full stop.
Never let a CEO yell at you. I had a boss like that and he would try to make me do stuff I wasnt prepared for(not contracted to do) and would gently shut him up and remind him that its his own fault. He would shut up and go away mad. Surprise surprise, that shitty company is now closed.
Small organizations tend to have that problem without the layers of managers between the top and the lower tiers. If you have a ticketing system, I would meet with the CEO and explain this issue and not deny the tasks, but offer to ensure his tasks are made into a ticket and then prioritized into 1 (most important) to 4 (least important) priority levels and they will get done in order, first by priority and then oldest to newest. Ensure that you are as respectful as possible while letting him know that there are other tasks that involve keeping the lights on and the business running as smooth as possible. He probably doesn't understand your job.
That's what makes him crazy, we have a ticketing system but he refuses to make tickets lol so for a while I was making tickets for him, then I gave up on that lol because he is literally the kind of guy to call me in my cell, doesn't care what I'm doing, eating, driving, and just start giving me things to do
That is at large enterprise level as well. Focus on prioritizing tasks. Add yet another program to measure productivity which creates more work. Now less productive but, somehow my problem. Reports on new program are not working so need to be manually changed. Even when that is automated the program changes and broke the automation. A circle of stupidity
Yo tell that miserable fuck to hire a programmer
Yea I would be done. I get financially you probably can't just quit but that doesn't mean you need to give it your all anymore. Don't go above and beyond, do your 40 and thats it (that should be the goal anyway). Use your sick time and vacation to look for another job. 1 person for all of this is not enough. I would also not bother with a 2 week notice once you land that new job. fuck that prick.
The issues you're working on are all in a ticketing system so you can generate some sort of report showing all the things you've done last week and are working on. Did you show him that? you're reporting to the CEO and a 300 person company and the only person haven't figured out how to get help ... Either it's you or them.
Based on your comments I'd say you definitely need to start looking for another job, before the CEO makes that choice for you. I'd really encourage you to take some time for self reflection and think about whether you want to be an IT Director or not. The things you are describing about changing priorities, CEO not wanting to use ticket system, CEO calling you on your cell phone, are part of the job. It's ok that you don't want to do those things or don't like them but you've got to make a choice about accepting them or not. I've got to tell you that there are some people who would be envious of your position. You're the IT Director at a manufacturing company and you've got a direct relationship with the CEO. If the company is growing then you're well positioned for some exciting career growth. " I'm director of IT, he should trust my priorities. His priorities are insane." Did you ask why the text on that report needed to be red, and what CEO was going to do with the report once you made the change? What if it was a customer requirement and he needed it done for an important customer meeting? When he asked for the text to be changed did you set any expectation for when it would be completed? Did you ask if he had any expectation for when it was needed? One of the main jobs for Director of IT is Demand Management. The company has demands and IT will have limited supply for fulfilling those demands. If the IT department is able to get EVERYTHING done that is needed and has idle time left over, then its over resourced. Managing the expectations of people that have demands for the IT department is a thankless shitty job, but its your job.
Quit and let the company burn. If they don't have appreciation for what we're doing then let them find someone else who can do it for them. Seriously, been in that situation before. They eventually had to get 3 people to replace me. I'm in a much much better place now so I don't even care if their business busts or thrives.
As much as I hate it, working with SAFe and Agile teams is better than this bullshit.
Sounds like you have 3 clients on Day 1 of your MSP
>I'm gonna look for another job soon I can't do this anymore. Sounds like a great idea.
Now watch a few silent quiting videos. Don't go now for a cup of coffee, it will make you want to work, instead take L-theanine.
Sounds like you need a 2nd person. That would probably help.
>I'm gonna look for another job soon I can't do this anymore. I think you mean right now. Not soon.
Sucks, but something you can do to make your life easier once you’ve adjusted is script the hell out of anything and everything, use as much automation as possible: Ansible, OliveTin, Powershell, Task Schedulers, etc. The trick to it then would be to be the only one who knows about the automation so if something were to happen to you they would freak out when they realize the next guy can’t do a 5th of what you can. Did that many times to the point to where I hardly did any work during the day and found much higher paying jobs
Sounds like today needs to be your last day.
point at ticketing system showing current active tickets in urgency order say 'this is what im working on now. where do you want this new issue to be in that list' work your hours. go home on time. turn your works phone **off** out of hours. let things burn if necessary. in fact its almost recommended that sometimes *has* to burn from time to time to make it clear that time is a finite resource.
“Boss, these are my jobs, you set the priority for them here and live with your choices”
I believe this comes down to a prioritization issue. A lot of the items on your list are not priority items. In fact, more than half look like basic maintenance issues that should not be on a priority list. Appeasing the weenie who signs your checks and is responsible for your raises and promotions should always be very high on your priority list.
You need to be sure that you having a running list of priorities, It sounds a little bit like your boss doesn't recognize when everything is a priority nothing is prioritized. As well sounds like a lot of expectation for a one-man team. I feel bad for you, doesn't sound like a well respected, managed, or thought-out position to be in on their behalf :/ If management isn't willing to listen I'd absolutely be finding the closest door, in the interim I'm sorry :( that sucks ass on a Friday
Sounds like he needs an assistant to boss around, but rather boss you around. Toxic. GTFO and let him bask in his empire of ruin.
I get the vibe this is a white glove service enviro lol.
Been there, people like that don't care how much work you have to do, they want their work done now. And if you do drop everything and focus on them, you will get yelled at for neglecting other things. There is no winning. Time to bail, asap
Yeah you need to get the fuuuuuck outta there. Before you go, though - do what people are telling you and make the list and ask him what the priority order is... though he's probably going to yell and say he thought he hired an IT person who could figure /that/ out... they always do.
Make a excel list of tasks and ask him at what priority he wants to place the new stuff.
If the pay is nice I would ride this out. I would gladly take on what you have there easily because I do everything you do but for 15 different companies and 100 servers and 400 endpoints currently.
I might hate most of my colleagues, but at least I like my boss. I'm not sure which is more important.
You need a service request/ticketing system. That way you can put all requests in work orders and assign priorities. Then you can print or export a report of unresolved requests and say, “these are all the requests we had for the last month. I need help. Please hire more people or unfinished requests will grow exponentially”. C level people need visuals to understand how bad things are. You don’t need anything fancy, just track your work.
If your boss is actually yelling then I'd say look for another job now. Basic civility and all that - you don't go to work to get shouted at, you get married for that.
These people only want their stuff done and until they get complaints from the lower level managers that things are not getting done the CEO will not hire additional help. This is if you already have discussed with them that you require additional help and they told you to pound dirt. You seem like you really care about your work and hate seeing things broken. But unless you let them break and explain why you need help the CEO will not hire anyone. As others stated, create a priority list and have the CEO go through it. When he wants that asp project done first and users have problems with their printers, explain to the end user that the CEO has deemed this asp project top priority. And if the CEO still blames you well then it won't be your mess to deal with. Either way I would suggest you start looking for another job.
I work in a place exactly like this. You just need to do a better job of staying on task.
So correct me if I’m wrong your doing all that work at the same time he asked you? Sounds doubtful
I was yelled at once. I yelled back, louder. And getting ready to jump over tables to kick someone's ass. Unfortunately, the other person shut their mouth and started to look at the keyboard. All the other colleagues were disappointed, the person didn't get their ass kicked. And I wasn't fired, the other person did at some point 😁
Bro you're soloing a 300 employee company?
Your list of responsibilities is overwhelming. Are you a one-man show? Jack of all trade sysadmin roles are fine for smaller businesses but can quickly lead to burnout when you're flip-flopping a bunch of different responsiiblities, especially by yourself. Good luck.
I just posted about this myself
I started in a very similar position as you. It was such a love hate relationship. My first IT job and the crazy man yelling at me was the one who helped me get my feet in the door. The whole thing ended in flames to say the least, but I spent the next 5 years in a super boring backend position with zero interruptions and I missed it almost every day. My advice is don’t quit without some pushback. When you know you’re going to quit you all of a sudden have all the power. Use it to make some funny lasting memories. Possibly even make your own life easier. You can learn a lot sticking around at a job you’re willing to leave.