Dealing with mishmash tech systems and moaning boss

[2011]

Hi

 

I work in a public sector organisation where I really like the work but we are having to deal with more and problems where I put a lot of it down to ineffective management, but we seem to be carrying the can for it. I stepped up in the organisation from a business analyst to a more technical role as that was more my background anyway.

 

We have a system of processing certain daily tasks that is ineffective and very very clunky. The process used to be done in different departments by different people and I spent a lot of time trying to merge it and make it manageable by our own dedicated team.

 

In my opinion this system was never set up correctly in the first place. There didn't seem to be any thought behind how it would be implemented, who would work on it and take ownership but now it seems to have just fallen into my own hands and become my responsibility.

 

We are dealing with legacy problems that are taking an age to iron out, yet our management are grumping and moaning about it, they don't seem to understand why we are still getting problems with it. I recently suggested we implement certain ways of doing things the way I used to do to minimise problems when I worked on one part of the system, and right now we are trialing it and it seems to be working better already, but, as I said, we still have problems arising from the old way of doing things. These will eventually fade as our new process kicks in, but management are still moaning they can't seem to understand that the problems won't suddenly disappear, even with the new way of doing things in place.

 

Frankly I'm getting sick of it, they have already admitted the old system was antiquated and clunky yet seems to refuse to implement the way other depts are doing it, through an auto computing system that minimises a lot of problems. They came up with some excuse why they could not use it, and had to stick with a manual clunky system, that frankly cannot cope now with the volume of work. It was ok before when the system was in its infancy but there is a lot more stuff coming through it now, which we are struggling to manually process.

 

The boss is a grumpy git, I can speak to them and have a chat but they just seem so quick to apportion blame or create a scene in front of everyone so you look as if you are at fault.

 

We also had something the other day where a system was down for 4 days, no one knew what the problems was, I could see where the certain part of the system was failing but not what was instigating the failure itself. I had people from different department asking when it was likely to be be back up, as well as searching management questions about the process.

 

Yet it was eventually traced to an external data source that we do not control, and basically I had no knowledge of, this was a system that we keep track of and can fix some of the techy stuff but not all of it, turns out this external data provider had applied a patch and hadn't told anyone. It was screwing up all our systems.

 

It's like this every day, there are so many different systems so many different people with different inputs and ideas and many times things get done, no one is told about and then it only comes to light when something goes wrong and it takes 5 days to trace and fix. To me it's a shambles. Many of the systems have been about for years, and many of the newer systems have been set up by contractors and bits of other systems from other depts with many different people having their own wee input on things but not leaving any audit trace.

 

However we seem to be taking the brunt of the problems. I could understand if we had set up the system from scratch and we controlled it, but many times we don't. We don't control most of the data that goes into them, many times it's a shambles too, and we haven't developed many of the legacy systems that are there. Nor is there any documentation of audit-ability of the systems when changes are made.

 

How to deal with management moaning they don't seem to be giving us the benefit of the doubt, well mainly my boss, the other ones seem ok and are trying to work to make it better.

[MsJayne]

You said you work in the public sector...say no more. I'd like a dollar for every time an incompetent butt-licker is promoted to a public service management role just because they've served the time rather than because they have the skills, talent, and ability required at management level. That's why your boss is moaning loudly, frequently, and visibly, because he/she knows the problem should have been tackled a long time ago and they're trying to deflect the blame away from their own incompetence.

Messy systems take a long time to correct, and if dealing with clowns who don't know what the words "information sharing" mean, (ie; the fools who applied a patch and failed to notify anyone), it can make for a lot of frustration.

You sound too intelligent for the public service, I would suggest looking for something in the private sector where intelligence and ability are appreciated and rewarded rather than perceived as a threat by petty bum-kissers who live in fear of being exposed and having their badge taken off them. Good luck.

[GemmaUK]

That's public sector for you I'm afraid!

 

I worked PS for one week and then handed my notice in (notice of just one more week as I had only been there such a short time.

My boss and systems were pretty much the same as your sound - my boss did one better though and claimed the last temp employee doing the job had stolen some files containing back up data! Lol!

Boss rejected my resignation and asked HR to convince me to stay but unfortunately for him I had too many complaints about him by the end of that one week so HR realised they couldn't convince me and he needed investigating instead.

 

The best option you've got probably is a transfer outta there to do something else in a different department. Transfers come easy in PS.

[2011]

You said you work in the public sector...say no more. I'd like a dollar for every time an incompetent butt-licker is promoted to a public service management role just because they've served the time rather than because they have the skills, talent, and ability required at management level. That's why your boss is moaning loudly, frequently, and visibly, because he/she knows the problem should have been tackled a long time ago and they're trying to deflect the blame away from their own incompetence.

Messy systems take a long time to correct, and if dealing with clowns who don't know what the words "information sharing" mean, (ie; the fools who applied a patch and failed to notify anyone), it can make for a lot of frustration.

You sound too intelligent for the public service, I would suggest looking for something in the private sector where intelligence and ability are appreciated and rewarded rather than perceived as a threat by petty bum-kissers who live in fear of being exposed and having their badge taken off them. Good luck.

 

You're so right, PS is full of them, they are great at managing blame that's about it. If they could use that focus on helping to improve technical flow of things then we might be getting somewhere! I do think there is a problem with management promising too much to too many people and then when they realise we are struggling to manage with all the demands they start going off the handle. I don't think they can accept that we are not superman.

 

Thanks for your input.

[2011]

That's public sector for you I'm afraid!

 

I worked PS for one week and then handed my notice in (notice of just one more week as I had only been there such a short time.

My boss and systems were pretty much the same as your sound - my boss did one better though and claimed the last temp employee doing the job had stolen some files containing back up data! Lol!

Boss rejected my resignation and asked HR to convince me to stay but unfortunately for him I had too many complaints about him by the end of that one week so HR realised they couldn't convince me and he needed investigating instead.

 

The best option you've got probably is a transfer outta there to do something else in a different department. Transfers come easy in PS.

 

I was thinking of some sort of transfer, but you see I actually do like the work, I'm learning a lot about a large new system they are implementing, and around the techy side of the business process, so I enjoy that and wouldn't want to move right now.

 

Quite a few of the people who worked in there moved to the actual company that provides this new business system, private sector, I don't know what the big attraction was if it was cash, more prospects or getting away from that boss, probably a bit of everything!

 

Thanks for input.

[GemmaUK]

I was thinking of some sort of transfer, but you see I actually do like the work, I'm learning a lot about a large new system they are implementing, and around the techy side of the business process, so I enjoy that and wouldn't want to move right now.

 

Quite a few of the people who worked in there moved to the actual company that provides this new business system, private sector, I don't know what the big attraction was if it was cash, more prospects or getting away from that boss, probably a bit of everything!

 

Thanks for input.

 

I can totally understand the draw if you are learning a lot of new techy stuff!

It's actually good to be there in the beginning/early stages of new systems also when you can see issues with the old ones. I've ended up helping run a few projects getting new systems into place and it's a lot of good experience to have.

 

That little bit at the end is interesting though - maybe stick it out where you are fr a while but keep your eyes open for jobs coming up at the other place - no harm in seeing what they might have coming up!