One Man Show

Anyone have any experience being the one guy for a medium sized business?

My supervisor is quitting and he was also their compliance officer, so that leaves just me to manage all Security and their entire infrastructure until they hire someone else. I'm a bit intimidated so I'm curious if anyone else has gone through this. I will definitely need to hire another guy to do what I do, so I wouldn't be opposed to hiring a fellow TE member.

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If I'm here when it happens, but that's actually not a bad idea.

Honestly, the money they'd lose in two days + the cost of repairs is almost the same price as what it would cost to upgrade our phone systems, so it really makes zero sense why you wouldn't want to invest in that.

Sounds good. Until they just say, "No." when you ask them to sign the paper. lol

By then you'll be ready to go anyhow.

I'm familiar with the scenario:
1) Head in the sand.
2) Hope for the best, prepare for the best.
3) Close your eyes until it goes away.
4) Blame the guy who told you to replace the system when the busted system dies.
5) Profit.

markulous wrote: »

Well I'm (un) officially done with this place. Now it sounds like the owner doesn't want to hire anyone because "last year we had more employees at this building with only one person". I tried explaining to him that we have more projects going on, a new domain that's federally audited, as well as hosted clients, data center migrations, etc. He just argued and said it's fine.

The conversation started when I told him how their 1980s phone system had a single point of failure (a 15 year old XP PC) and if it went out they'd be down for days and it'd cost them thousands of dollars. He started going off saying that all IT guys want is the "latest tech" and don't care about cost when I suggested we replace the phone system since there's no other way for redundancy on that old of equipment. Then said our investment of getting VOIP at our other sites was a waste as was shutting down our single core single hard drive servers and moving them to a datacenter (where they're on a RAID10).

It's frustrating dealing with someone so stubborn that won't listen to reason even when there are huge risks that impact his business.

This is funny and sad at the same time. It have already have been looking to get out awhile ago. I don't have the patience to deal with that type of nonsense. When the whole thing blow up in his face he will then understand what type you are talking about.

PJ_Sneakers wrote: »

Sounds good. Until they just say, "No." when you ask them to sign the paper. lol By then you'll be ready to go anyhow.

I'm familiar with the scenario:
1) Head in the sand.
2) Hope for the best, prepare for the best.
3) Close your eyes until it goes away.
4) Blame the guy who told you to replace the system when the busted system dies.
5) Profit.

Especially from a risk management point of view, it's difficult to comprehend that line of thinking. I guess some people can't think long-term.

Shouldn't take long at all once that nice little deprecated Windows XP system has a persistent connection to the open Internet.

Don't mind me just 'whistling past the graveyard'. You know strange things happen near graveyards at night and all.

- b/eads

Haha. My former coworker always joked around that he was going to be drinking some water above it and accidentally spill some.

Well interview I had last Monday got back and said they'd have to think about it because I was so gung-ho about security and it's a systems admin position (although there's some security related tasks, which is why I applied). But he conceded they liked me and that he knows that I'm not just taking it to bail in a few months. So I just gotta wait on that.

I have a phone interview today for a Junior Security Analyst. As long as the pay range is acceptable I think I'd have a pretty good shot at that kind of role.

markulous wrote: »

Well interview I had last Monday got back and said they'd have to think about it because I was so gung-ho about security and it's a systems admin position (although there's some security related tasks, which is why I applied). But he conceded they liked me and that he knows that I'm not just taking it to bail in a few months. So I just gotta wait on that.

I have a phone interview today for a Junior Security Analyst. As long as the pay range is acceptable I think I'd have a pretty good shot at that kind of role.

Man.... I'd love to read your memoirs of working in IT...

I guess I get kind of wordy.

Good luck man! I have been there, our positive dispositions can make it hard to see the obvious truth. Get out now.

Thanks! I got a 2nd interview for a security analyst next Monday. Hopefully one of these pan out. I'd put in my notice now if I knew that I'd have a job in a few weeks.

markulous wrote: »

Thanks! I got a 2nd interview for a security analyst next Monday. Hopefully one of these pan out. I'd put in my notice now if I knew that I'd have a job in a few weeks.

Sending you positive cyber vibes.

Thanks! Got another interview today too so hopefully I'm not job hunting much longer.

Good Luck. I've been following this thread closely as my Denver move date approaches.

I hope its not as bad as Miami. You got this!

That's quite a few interviews! I would say that's a good sign at the very least.

Thanks again guys.

I have a phone interview for yet another place tomorrow. It's more network security it seems like so I need to get started on my DLP/IDS project today or tomorrow so I can sell myself on that.

Cisco Inferno wrote: »

Good Luck. I've been following this thread closely as my Denver move date approaches.

I hope its not as bad as Miami. You got this!

There's always an opening here

They are still "hiring" (I use that loosely because they don't know what they need) here for another admin and if/when I leave they'll be at least two openings.

That's awesome that you're getting so many interviews. Imagine how many more you'll get when you start pass the HR filters for CEH in a few days

Agreed! I hope that helps.

I'm pretty confident I'll pass.

I had a manager tell me to setup a VPN account for the company that services our phone system and then give them access to that old XP box that is joined to our domain. They'd be able to access this box at anytime and obviously it has network access. He wanted to do it so they don't have to come out to charge us more money. I suggested to him that they don't have to come out and that they can still work remotely, I can host (or anyone here really) a GoTo meeting and RDP into the box and voila they are in within minutes (that's how it's been done for the past however many years). I can even do it from home if it's off hours. Then he said do it or you're fired.

I can think of another solution to compromise but cmon man...Hopefully I know next week on a job.

Time to bounce.

Sounds like a horrid place. Sending multiple good cyber vibes to you.

Thanks. The cyber vibes are working I think with these interviews.

"Do it or you're fired."

Well, no more two week notice. **** that place haha. If I were you, I wouldn't even tell them I quit, I'd just stop showing up on day one at the new job.

If I could afford it and didn't have a family I would do it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, my wife is in school so I have the only income. They kinda have me by the balls until I find something else.

I have been in toxic environments, it never ends well and adds too much stress. You can either fight against your boss, or find a few allies with co-workers that better understand the situation. After all a manager can shut one person down, but cannot continually shut down five or six people saying reasonable things. If it is just you pushing for changes as you can tell you are not going to get anywhere.

In the past when I dealt with managers that would constantly threaten to fire me for not "going with the program." Found themselves out of the company before I did.

Sorry to hear Mark. Honestly after cancelling my interview and following up 3 times to confirm they received the message/all is good I never received any form of response. Couldn't have gotten more confirmation I made the right choice and this just reinforces that. Best of luck in your search bud! Maybe hit up VMWare again? I am still trying to get another interview since I was forced to miss the previous interview with my current job's internet circuit going down at 4AM.

Yeah, you definitely did right by passing on this. This place wouldn't be as bad if I had a good IT manager to shield me from all of the poo and I had more people to assist me, but I'd still be leaving within a year from my start date.

I can go back to VMware, my former boss asked me that a few months ago. Maybe if absolutely nothing else pans out I can, but the problem there was how pigeon holed I was with what type of technology I get to work with and it became boring. It wouldn't help me advance my career much into Infosec. Plus the commute was almost an hour each way.

markulous wrote: »

If I could afford it and didn't have a family I would do it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, my wife is in school so I have the only income. They kinda have me by the balls until I find something else.

Oh I didn't mean do it now, I meant to wait until you have something else lined up. Then on your first day at your new job, you just don't show up at this **** hole. Or, even better, use up all your vacation/sick time the first week or two at the new job, and let them keep paying you until it runs out, and then just never show up again. Either way, I think no warning that you're quitting once you have something else lined up is the way to go given the circumstances

Man, I would feel pretty guilty. I know this place sucks and all, but they would be so screwed if I left. No one would be able to access anything. I suppose my last day I could just give domain admin access to one person and just leave a note or something but I'd still feel pretty bad.

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