Is this worth fighting for?

Everyone has their own comfort zone of how much they'll put up with in order to avoid having to go out looking for a job. Jobs are not easy to come by these days, and there's a good chance that the next one you find will have a drawback that's just as bad as Lidia but not as obvious.

Your best move might just be to be patient and wait for the Lidia situation to come to a head and work itself out. She may lose the support of her friend in management if he gets tired of her screw-ups, she may grow up, she may experience an improvement in her personal life and start being nicer, she may learn to do her own job, or she may get terminated. It's also possible that you may be clever enough to figure out how to make this whole thing easier on yourself without waiting for a miracle. That's a really important job skill.

This highlights the fact that everyone should put their job in perspective. It is not your entire life. Do you devote plenty of time and energy to your family, your hobbies, your church or civic organizations, furthering your education, entertainment, exercise, etc.?

As I advise everyone, if you don't have a dog get one, and if you do, spend more time with him. Dogs are great for relieving stress, listening non-judgmentally, and putting life into perspective. There's a good reason that humans learned to love and live with dogs thousands of years before we learned to love and live with humans from different tribes.

In my opinion, from what you've said, this is worth fighting for. If "Lidia" is ever (she ought to be) challenged about system performance, who do you think she will blame for not resolving issues?

Question is, Do you think it's worth fighting for?

opportunity for advancment to me. Nothing more satisfying than a stupid enemy. If she's as bad as you say, find an ally outside of the IT department, provide them with a better service than she can. Your comparisons between her and your skill levels won't do a lot of good, theirs will.

Your turn of phrase, there. I guess I'm amused by certain manners of discussing the congenitally dumb.

Probably not worth the fight. Look at the bright side - public sector employment has good pay, decent benefits and better than average job security. Just gotta take the good with the bad. If the servers ultimately crash and you guys are plunged into a disaster recovery scenario, then it's on her - not you - and her head will be the one rolling for failing to properly secure the network and perform regular preventative maintenance on the system.

We just hired a couple of new people - a SQL DBA/programmer and a helpdesk guy. Against my recommendation - my boss told me to give them full admin rights beyond what was necessary for them to do their job. As a result, I have a DBA who thinks he's also the network admin in my absence (even if I'm there) and a helpdesk guy who isn't even qualified to go anywhere near the servers. My pleas to my boss to tighten the leash on these guys has fallen upon deaf ears. I don't mess with the SQL databases so there's no reason for him to mess with my servers and network configs. I had someone tell me recently our helpdesk guy is like a Golden Retriever - loyal but dumb. Ouch (but she's right).

I also work in the public sector and have a boss - while he's a real nice guy - isn't exactly qualified to be in charge of the IT department (no management background). He's a good project manager, but weak in leadership / managerial skills - and a yes man to everyone at or above his level which makes my job more difficult as he's making decisions based on his personal relationships at the office rather than sticking with an overall IT strategy - and ensuring that we're not stepping on each other's toes (there's no sense of "team" where I work).

If all else fails - buy every Dilbert book you can find and come to the realization that you're in a situation that we're all too familiar with.

It's very hard to find an IT manager who has a balance of good technical skills, people and mangerial skills. This also means being able to delegate work to the right people, and ensuring that the peope you hire are top notch. Such a manager is a rare breed - and I'm waiting for the right opportunity for me to come along so I can fulfill such a role whether it be where I am now or somewhere else.

Allthough your working for a dragon, you've also got to realise you stuck your nose where it didn't belong.

This:

"There was a problem on one of the servers last year were it would slow down at a certain point in the day. She was not able to find out what the problem was until two weeks later when I told administration that the problem was due to spyware, malware, keyloggers and fixed it myself. The reason I could find out was because someone from the IT department had the admin password and I was able to log in remotely and do a spyscan"

Would have got you fired in a lot of other places.

In any event, update your resume & move on.

I am still here.....

All jokes aside, wouldn't you guys think that having a Terminal services network down for one-two weeks is being a bit abusive??

Dafe, I do take your statement of "unauthorized access" into consideration. I must admit though that the thought of "unauthorized access" really didnt bother as much when you compare it to the fact that staff had to turn to the old paper and pencil for two weeks to then input that information into the Terminal services system again, and that included IT Dept....

I guess for me it is the "thought" that counts.."thought" meaning being being helpful even though your boss is a pain and wont give a thanks, and helping the agency get back on it's technical feet.

I would like to thank everyone who responded to this thread, you have been extremely helpful. I will provide you guys with updates as time goes on.

Many Thanks,

Carlitosway

I am a firm believer in least access. That said, in the real world it is not always possible to set those rights.

While I admire the fact that you were willing to put your neck on the line to get the Remote Access back up and running, you may have gone about it the wrong way.

When you were unsuccessful in getting the SysAdmin/NetAdmin/IT Manager to run spyware and malware removers on the server, you should have copied upper management with the correspondence. At that time, upper management may have given you the approval to do the scans.

If you're really wanting to stay here and try and make it work/get rid of her, here's what you do.

1) Do *everything* she says...the way she says it...and the way she allows. If she is making an obviously stupid decision, give her good alternatives that would resolve it right. If she insists you do it her way, then go ahead and follow her direction.
2) If she asks you to do something you don't have rights to do it, tell her you can't do the job she asked because of it..let her make the decision on what the solution is to the dilemma.

...and most importantly...

3) Document *everything*. Get emails, hand written letters, have instruction given in front of other co-workers, etc. That way if she gives you direction to do something stupid, you have proof that she was responsible for the bad move...not you.

Eventually, she'll hang herself when something blows up and you have proof she didn't resolve things the right way. Even if she is related to someone, she will eventually screw up bad enough that someone realizes she's gonna ruin the operation and at a minimum she'll get a different job with the company.

If you don't feel you can stick it out or that it's not worth it, get your resume out to anyone and everyone and talk to every perspective employer looking for someone with your skills.