Board 8 > How disrespectful is my job being right now?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I do IT.

I worked for a very large company as their literal only IT guy (outside the IT Director) for 2 years, at which point the CEO said he wanted more coverage and so they hired a Managed Service Provider.

As part of the deal, they sold me to the MSP, and I got a large raise and a company car from them, which was sweet. So now I work for the MSP, but my day to day job is still 100% for the original company I worked for.

This large company has been cutting costs like crazy, lately, shutting down locations and gutting departments.

About 2 weeks ago, my buddy who is the site director for one of the sites texted me and said I heard we lost *MSP Im owned by*??? He didnt have any more info other than he heard they got a cheaper contract from someone else, but didnt know any when/where/how.

Yesterday, I show up to work, and multiple people at different sites are texting me like who is this new IT company coming in, doing inventory?

So tl;dr, my job hired a replacement company for me, and started them before they even told me a single thing. Not one person from the MSP I work for or the company I WORK FOR has said anything to me about this.

Is this fucked up?

That's fucked down!

It's not fucked up that they did this, it's business
But it is fucked up that they did not inform you of this, yes

Nanis23 posted...

It's not fucked up that they did this, it's business

tomayto, tomahto

It's fucked all around

Honestly that's pretty standard practice for IT company swap overs. Old IT being involved in the transition is minimized and often aren't actually directly informed it's going to happen until the new IT has already gotten in and changed a bunch of passwords if it's expected the existing IT provider will be bitter-- I'm guessing it's probably seen as a security risk and if the old IT is too involved then they might be able to still access things they shouldn't be able to after the transition is complete.

(I personally think it's silly because no IT provider cares enough about sticking it to their old employer to be sued, but I'm guessing that's the theory).

Source: Worked for an MSP and currently run my own IT business and every single IT provider transition (over 10) I've been involved in has been that way. Sudden and with minimal interaction with the old IT.

Also I would say 2 years is not a particularly long time in the field of IT for the record.

I would just be happy you got a raise and be proactive with interacting with the MSP that owns you now (THAT is the weirdest part of this story to me by the way-- never seen that done) so they reassign you instead of just laying you off.

Lopen posted...

Honestly that's pretty standard practice for IT company swap overs. Old IT being involved in the transition is minimized and often aren't actually directly informed it's going to happen until the new IT has already gotten in and changed a bunch of passwords if it's expected the existing IT provider will be bitter-- I'm guessing it's probably seen as a security risk and if the old IT is too involved then they might be able to still access things they shouldn't be able to after the transition is complete.

(I personally think it's silly because no IT provider cares enough about sticking it to their old employer to be sued, but I'm guessing that's the theory).

Source: Worked for an MSP and currently run my own IT business and every single IT provider transition (over 10) I've been involved in has been that way. Sudden and with minimal interaction with the old IT.

In a normal MSP situation where theyre essentially faceless contractors, thats similar to my experience too. When I worked directly for them and we needed to subcontract out a project or program we would do basically the same thing.

Its just the fact that I literally worked for them that makes it seem so fucked up.

Even recently Ive had people assume I still worked for the original company, there are close to 1000 employees and theyre all on a first name basis with me. I still have my original office with my name and everything lol.

Lopen posted...

Also I would say 2 years is not a particularly long time in the field of IT for the record.

I would just be happy you got a raise and be proactive with interacting with the MSP that owns you now so they reassign you instead of just laying you off.

I did just under 4 years of it for the Air Force, too, Im basically a greybeard compared to a lot of the IT people I run into.

Oh I just realized I didnt say how long this situation has been going on, Ive been owned by this MSP but working at the same company for another 2 years, so its 4 years with all the same people.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

In a normal MSP situation where theyre essentially faceless contractors, thats similar to my experience too. When I worked directly for them and we needed to subcontract out a project or program we would do basically the same thing.

Its just the fact that I literally worked for them that makes it seem so fucked up.

Even recently Ive had people assume I still worked for the original company, there are close to 1000 employees and theyre all on a first name basis with me. I still have my original office with my name and everything lol.

Yeah but as an MSP I've replaced in house IT several times (I've helped replace someone who had worked there over 20 years once and they got the same treatment you did) and yeah it pretty much always happens this way.

It's kind of a double edged sword because the in house IT would have more reason to be communicated with due to a more personal link with the client, but they'd also have more reason to be bitter for the same reason I guess?

Again I'm just talking theory here-- I think it's silly too but I wouldn't consider it a personal slight in any case. Like as the MSP I've never made the decision to treat transitions like that (I would prefer to work with the existing IT to make the transition easier) it's always been the client saying to do it that way.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I did just under 4 years of it for the Air Force, too, Im basically a greybeard compared to a lot of the IT people I run into.

I'm not trying to belittle your experience or skills at all.

I'm just talking time with a single client 2 years isn't very long. In the government sector 8 year contracts are somewhat standard for example.

Yeah I feel you. I guess mostly Im upset my old boss (the IT Director) didnt give me a heads up. Back when the trade happened, he literally told me if you want to stay with us, Ill renegotiate the deal for you, but I told him since Id be doing the same exact job with him, that it didnt matter to me who signs my check.

We still work together every day, and he hasnt said shit about it. Im going to have to bring it up and its gonna suck.

Yeah

I'm just saying if you're on good terms with him don't take it personally. It's very common. I expect if I lose any of my clients it'll go down the same way, even having had a similar working relationship with some of them as you have had, since doing it 'nicely' seems to be the more rare way.

The only part that seems weird is the lack of communication but based on what Lopen is saying I guess it makes sense.

You literally weren't working for the original company anymore, you shouldn't expect to be treated like an employee, even if people assume you were one.

Once I contracted for a company sitting in their office every day among everyone else, then after 9 months I got hired as an employee and they made me do a drug test. It doesn't make sense, but it's process. It should be obvious how much more respected process is than people at a certain scale of company.

Also just to clarify a question that was never asked.

I only have 3 clients with the business I own despite my "over 10" figure and not having ever lost one directly. I make a good living but I'm not some huge IT empire.

That's because most of the transitions were done with my previous company and they didn't lose any clients I was involved with during my time there so yeah never been on the butt end of one. I've also helped transitions from one IT provider to the next being a "stopgap" IT but never actually directly doing IT for the client in question, just sort of contracted temporarily to help as a neutral party.

But I'm sure it'll happen someday.

Lopen posted...

Honestly that's pretty standard practice for IT company swap overs. Old IT being involved in the transition is minimized and often aren't actually directly informed it's going to happen until the new IT has already gotten in and changed a bunch of passwords if it's expected the existing IT provider will be bitter-- I'm guessing it's probably seen as a security risk and if the old IT is too involved then they might be able to still access things they shouldn't be able to after the transition is complete.

(I personally think it's silly because no IT provider cares enough about sticking it to their old employer to be sued, but I'm guessing that's the theory).

Source: Worked for an MSP and currently run my own IT business and every single IT provider transition (over 10) I've been involved in has been that way. Sudden and with minimal interaction with the old IT.

As an accountant that works with IT service providers this all sounds crazy to me. There's often so many little back end systems and connections that most people have no idea even exist except for the few people that maintain it. I don't understand how transitions like this could happen if there isn't a relatively transparent transfer of process knowledge and keys. Seems like half of things might get covered and the other half will be wheels that keep spinning until they fall off due to lack of oversight, which could take 1 day or 6 months depending on the process.

CoolCly posted...

As an accountant that works with IT service providers this all sounds crazy to me. There's often so many little back end systems and connections that most people have no idea even exist except for the few people that maintain it. I don't understand how transitions like this could happen if there isn't a relatively transparent transfer of process knowledge and keys. Seems like half of things might get covered and the other half will be wheels that keep spinning until they fall off due to lack of oversight, which could take 1 day or 6 months depending on the process.

So I mean here's how it is in my experience.

IT Professionals as general practice should be leaving those credentials and network documentation with someone from the client so direct interaction with the IT Professional generally isn't needed too much. If the client does not have access to credentials you can generally reverse engineer things from known information and analyzing the network to find the key things like switches, firewalls, servers, etc. Yes there is a risk of things being missed or forgotten. Generally in that case you'll reach out to the IT Professional AFTER the transition has begun and they've been locked out of some vital things to fill in gaps if needed (I generally haven't found it to be necessary) and often they're kept onboard for a few weeks to a month to sorta advise during the transition period (but they still aren't told it's happening in advance because people are paranoid).

Worst case scenario you do some password resets and factory defaults on problematic things or just redo some of the infrastructure from scratch since you're likely going to want to redo some things with respect to the network anyway.

It's mostly just that first step you're trying to minimize interactions though. Like as an accountant you're probably thinking it's more complicated than it is. I'm not saying IT is "easy" just that like, it's not the end of the world if you're locked out of some functions for a little bit as you're figuring out how it works cause you're generally inheriting a network that functions to begin with, and a GOOD IT provider will generally give the client access to credentials, network topography, etc.

Also keep in mind Tony said there is an "IT Director" that worked there in addition to him.

In that kind of situation it should be completely effortless to cut him and his company out of the loop entirely getting any info they need from the IT Director

CoolCly posted...

Seems like half of things might get covered and the other half will be wheels that keep spinning until they fall off due to lack of oversight, which could take 1 day or 6 months depending on the process.

This is every single transition in a role at corporate that I've seen, and I don't work in IT.

It's a problem for the person in the seat six months from now.