[tex]

Argh (apologies for spelling in advance - its late and I'm tired)

I primarily work with one other guy. He was hired on to handle a lot of the day-to-day and inhouse stuff. I don't mean to sound condescending, but I am light years ahead of this guy. He got into IT maybe a year and a half ago, I've been doing it legitametly since I was 18, and working heavily with computers before that. Yet he still won't let me touch SHIT that he is "in charge" of. It isn't an issue of him not trusting me - he always comes to me when he is out of self-suffecient options. Example: we have a linux mail filter box. He knows little to nothing on *nix. I am a pro show compared to everyone at the company except one. He tries to change some stuff on it, and then calls me and wakes me up (now). Help help help.
I work an average of 200 hours a month. He does 240 at least. "Nothing going on" is the response I get everytime I ask him if needs anything. Asked yesterday. As of now, he has put in 16 hours 2 days in a row. When "nothing" is going on. And everything has been shit I can easily take care of. There is even crap involving driving where I am over 45mins closer. Other stupidities involve withholding contact info (we're small and don't have good centralized db) because he is "used to dealing with them;" won't let me touch VM hosts (again, even though I've been working with VMware since before he started doing IT), meaning when I need to set up a virtual host for this, that or the other, I have to go thru him; etc etc etc

Had to vent - this is getting annoying as shit. Its akward cause I sit on my ass at the office half the day and then get home and have to bust balls cleaning up peoples' messes. And my complaints are lent only half an ear (the guy is one of the owner's nephews. Plus I'm the first hire from "outside the circle." Everyone else there is related or has been working together for at least 10 years.)

Dammit. However, the job does rock besides that. Yay for 5:00 being drinking time. At the office. On company money.

SUMMARY: This guy doesn't want anyone infringing on his "territory" and also I believe he loves having a crapton of hours. Annoying and slightly interfering with my job.

[mistawiskas]

It's a teritorial thing. A self imposed limit on his life. Give him enough rope and he'll get all tangled up in it. Sit back and watch him squirm, try not to take him personal and you may get alot of free entertainment value out of
his character defect.

[couturedharlot]

ah you work for an inbred company as well. my place is like that, only it's a machine shop. my dumbass boss gets all the work and the 10 hr days and works saturdays, but i run out of work consistently everyday.

your situation sucks dude. i'm sorry. perhaps start looking for a new job where you'd have a bigger/more prestigious role?

[mistawiskas]

Yeah, i work for one of those. The difference being, I do all the hours and they make all the bux.

[namelessentity]

Tell him you're off the clock and he should have asked you when you asked if he needed help.
I usually just turn off my cell phone when I get home because my co-workers call me for stupid shit.

[MSP]

You'll find siloing, or knowledge hoarding, in the IT world all the time. People have discovered that if you're the only person that knows how to do a particular thing you'll be less likely to end up downsized, outsourced, etc. It's frustrating to be sure, but with this being a rather inbred situation there's not much you can directly do to combat it. That said, I would suggest doing three things:

1) Keep a positive attitude. Do what you can, as much as you can, and be friendly and professional.
2) Communicate your concerns to the boss. Keep it polite and professional, but tell him you feel you have more to offer but feel road blocked.
3) If #1 and #2 don't yield results within a month or so, start giving it back to him. Withhold information, professionally but stubbornly insist on fixing problems yourself rather than giving him the information to do so. Cultivate relationships with customers and withhold contact info or knowledge. And stop taking calls after hours! Unless you get pager pay or are on salary, make the guy sweat and fix that shit on his own.

Truthfully if #1 or #2 don't help I'd start looking for something else. #3 will ultimately just end up getting the little bastard to complain to his family about you, and blood is thicker than thermal paste. Not to mention working at a job you aren't happy with is no good.

[tex]

eh its really not that bad. We get along really well, I haven't figured out why he is doing yet though (distrust, power-hungry, scared of failure, overtime slut, etc). I was just pissed about it last night because I offered to migrate the fucking machine and he insisted on it. I wouldn't really give a shit but everyone is tight knit so I kind of have to wait it out before I can do much aboot it.

The rest of the job is badass. That is the one and only complaint I can make so far (the driving sucks some, but I get paid for milage, so meh.)

Just found out today they're paying for me to go do CCNA classes and I'll get ~$1k bonus for finishing it.

Oh and I can't turn my phone off. 24/7 on-call. Booyah.

And I'm not planning on moving jobs until I at least finish college, if not longer. My pay is about topped out here, but the experience is nuts. Last month my boss and I migrated a domain and half of an exchange setup for the largest package-sorting-automation-software company in the world. They run the shit at a lot of the airports and big warehouses. Something like 400 mailboxes. The week before that I setup a VoiP installation all by my lonesome. This week I setup our new client's phone systems, network, pcs, servers, everything. Its a nanotech company, so next week I get to setup the workstations for their CNC machines and spectrum analyzers, etc. Within the next month I'm going to start training for something else. One of our clients is a huge online recruiting company, and we somehow ended up being the software build masters for them. We have 2 guys who know how to do it now, so they're going to start teaching me so I can fill in.
Like I said, the experience is fucking insane. I've learned more in the 3 months I've been here than I have at all my jobs combined. I'm going to be a fucking rockstar when I finally get around to graduating and leave.

[MSP]

He's probably scared of you, frankly.

[mistawiskas]

I get alot of that shit. There's always someone out to proove something. I just don't have anything left to proove to myself or anyone else. I just let them, and when they expect me to fix thier screwups, I just shrug. If the boss insists I fix screwups, it's going to cost them double. I just don't have enough time left to be a cleanup guy anymore.

[integra00]

he knows you know more than him and hes trying to protect his job.

[Undertaker989]

I laugh at people who try to keep secrets to themselves to make them look better. It is not like I can't figure out how to do it on my own. Any human with a fucking pulse can read manuals, set goals, pick software, and learn how to do it "the way" that the specific software vendor does it. Thats all IT is. Its not beyond anyone with patience.

[tex]

Originally Posted by Undertaker989

I laugh at people who try to keep secrets to themselves to make them look better. It is not like I can't figure out how to do it on my own. Any human with a fucking pulse can read manuals, set goals, pick software, and learn how to do it "the way" that the specific software vendor does it. Thats all IT is. Its not beyond anyone with patience.

I'll disagree with that, but it isn't the issue; its more like passwords, phone numbers and access info that I need.

[Undertaker989]

withholding numbers, passwords, and contact information is a more blatant and pathetic form of self promotion. Its one of my gripes with my job, but at the end of the day, bullshit like that isn't what gets to me. I laugh at that stuff.

Now, the stress of setting multiple hard goals outside of my job and achieving them....THAT is what gets to me .

[mistawiskas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDDynVQMKD8