Apr 14

The same patterns in IT repeat themselves.

Not a technical thing.

But a human thing.

Wherever you go, there you are. As the saying goes.

Recently I had a discussion shared with me by the charity director with one of his staff about the system that's being developed.

Very keen on working from home she has argued that an online system would be more secure than an offline one.

Argued. Repeatedly.

Dan, poor lad, does not know enough about IT to argue it, other than to say, we had been through it all a couple of years ago, pros and cons, use case, constraints of budget and hardware and so on, and had settled on an offline solution being best fit.

The member of his staff arguing for this online system ( because she very badly wants to work at home ) has :

Zero experience in IT

Has never had an IT job

Has no IT training

And yet feels confident enough to venture forth an opinion about systems security.

Amazing.

Dan, again, poor lad that he is, is utterly shit at putting down boundaries and telling someone they don't know. It's one of his weaknesses.

In respect of professional technical matters I have no such weakness. 

After going through it all again, Dan is clearer as to why he made the choices he did and the pros and cons of online versus offline, so he can perhaps be a bit clearer to his member of staff.

However. I have told him that I don't think he's the person for that job. He can hardly tell his staff with 30 years less experience than him to listen to his wisdom. They will yell over him. So. If the staff member starts kicking up a fuss again, have them come talk to me. Where one or two of the following will happen.

1. I will spend some time to educate them at a high level as to the pros and cons of their particular requirements, and also in general go over the security challenges of online vs offline ( and why categorically online is not safer than offline ).

2. I will tell them to fuck off as they have zero experience, could not even tell me the first thing about what to look for in security and yet they feel they are entitled to offer a strong bit of advice on that topic.

Honestly. It should be more of 2. Because whilst 1. is constructive, the main issue is the arrogance and ignorance of someone to fucking strut around spewing bullshit on a topic they have no expertise in. That's the issue. Check your own fucking source of arrogant wankery. Then maybe we'll talk about educating.

Eh well.

The entitled arrogance of youth, and more generally, non IT people about IT issues. Seen it all before. Everyone who uses a keyboard thinks they are some kind of fucking computer expert.

Sigh.

With the greatest of respect*.

Go fuck yourself.

* ( may not actually include any respect at all )

Get out of my way. Let me do my job. And spare me the growing pains of watching you work through your own fucked up personality getting in the way of itself. I have neither the time nor the patience to educate you on How To Be A Reasonable Human before even getting to the work at hand. Go see a shrink. Or a teacher. Or your mom. I don't fucking care. But just don't expect me to babysit your whiny ass.

There you go. There's the broadside correct response.

Ha ha.

Not professional. Not constructive.

But sometimes, the best response to dickhead behaviour, is a firm kick up the ass.