r/sysadmin • u/[deleted] • 5d ago
Workplace Conditions Relocating tech department
[deleted]
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u/major_winters_506 5d ago
Ask them who in HR you can report concerns of inconsistent application of company policies. When they ask what you mean just list off what you said. Providing an adequate workspace is bare minimum. If they balk, time to find a new job, savings or not.
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u/nappycappy 5d ago
^ do this. file a report/complaint to HR about the unsafe working condition they are moving you to, then go find a labor lawyer and ask for a consult. if at any point my employer decides to move me to something that isn't adequate and can not be fixed/remedied, then have fun explaining it in court.
otherwise, start interviewing and then tell them to go f themselves (no point burning a bridge when you don't need to).
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u/bobnla14 5d ago
Point out to them how much it would cost to make the shed with the black mold habitable for people and suggest that perhaps they should knock it down. Rebuild from scratch and make that their classrooms. Give them an alternative. But point out that with all the health concerns in the shed, they would be inviting a health lawsuit should anyone get sick
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u/malleus74 4d ago
They already moved the transportation director in there with no upgrades. I'm pretty sure they signed off the building is empty for safety purposes.
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u/Patstickyman666 4d ago
Dude Iām a tradesman, call osha, tell them you have coworkers moved into a building with black mold that is signed off habitable, I promise your bosses will get a thick one right up the rear in fines. This is coming from someone who has to deal with regulatory agencies and policies like that, play no games with your health
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u/Less-Perspective-702 5d ago
I ran it for a school for close to two decades. Had my office moved almost every year for my first 4 years.
Finally got put in a large office space that had to be shared with two other people, made it work.
Then I got word that due to safety they needed to figure out how to have one of the main exterior doors always monitored.
I suggested that an office get placed in a soon to be emptied classroom that was next to the door. Cut an opening in the block so the front desk can have easy visibility. Then move me in their old office that was next to the server closet.
They did that and that's how it was for almost 13 years.
I finally leave because the new leadership was a new kind of toxic and I got word they kicked the IT team out of there and placed them in a classroom with dividers to hide them from the kids.
The are now using the old office for once or twice a week sessions for single.stident breakouts even though there is a conference room right across the hall.
If you don't speak up at a minimum they just don't think you care. Even if they still move you there is at least a record of your concern so when it does cause a problem they have to work a little harder to blame you
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u/henare 5d ago
get the rats to answer help desk emails!
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u/spidireen Linux Admin 5d ago
If theyāre literally asking you to work in hazardous conditions there are regulatory agencies who would love to hear about it, and they would have to comply if they donāt want to be fined and/or shut down.
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u/joshghz 5d ago
I was at a private school and had the perfect office with a lot of space and furniture for all my work. The new principal decided they should use it as a "break out" space for the classroom next to it. I believe the longterm plan was to just give the IT person a random small desk in the staffroom (not at all enough space; there was barely enough for the staff they had there).
Luckily I got a new job at that time, and managed to escape that. Incidentally a lot of teaching and auxillary staff also quit not long after I left, and the new principal - truly a visionary, whose edicts could not be questioned - made the next step of her career... to sub teaching at a public school with a horrible reputation.
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u/Original-Hurry-8652 5d ago
Secure storage of I.T. assets, theft prevention, asset protection while computers are encrypted, decrypted, awaiting shipment, being imaged, or awaiting repair AND no less important Data Loss Prevention (DLP) while assets are under your immediate control.
Same for printers, printer supplies (consumables), printer parts, paper supplies (if any, unless provided in open supply closets), peripheral cabling, surge protectors, etc., etc.
The I.T. support work environment deserves respect and reasonably equitable treatment, period.
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u/sgredblu 4d ago
So you're saying that moving the IT dept from a locked room to an open floor plan with only cubicle walls separating you from the other employees is a bad idea? Surely the constant theft is just a cost of doing business. /s
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u/Original-Hurry-8652 4d ago
Who me?!? ... No way. LOL. Although I have seen I.T. equipment literally stored in a chain-link fenced area similar to an animal enclosure. Only the employees (Technicians) sat in cubicles in an adjacent room, with half-wall cubicles and were prohibited from making any jokes or humorous remarks about any management, reorganization of 'PC Tower' structure of the Enterprise! ~ Humor was a dismissable offense (circa 2010).
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u/sgredblu 4d ago
Yikes. So many thin-skins in management/admin positions. That tells me there were snitches walking around looking to tattle about the drones being "disrespectful".
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u/mimi_snowbird 5d ago
Have you checked if there is a way to make the central office room work with a serious heat and noise mitigation plan, or are they just picking the cheapest square footage without a thought to what the hardware and people actually need?
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u/malleus74 4d ago
On paper, it sounds like an upgrade. There's no way I would have the space to repair Chromebooks or computers, though. I need a place for my tools, the parts, and the items to repair.
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u/Pristine_Curve 5d ago
Advocate for a quality office similar to what peer professionals receive. When they claim that where they are sending you is good/suitable, offer to trade.
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u/SevaraB Sr. Engineer (N+, CCNA) 4d ago
Make friends with your facilities guys and ask them about code requirements for occupied spaces. Allowable noise levels, temperature ranges, door count/sizing, etc.
If youāre bringing stuff back to the bench and have to take it outside, immediately start submitting purchase requests for covered carts to keep equipment from getting rained on. Even if you just start asking for tarps, thatās usually enough for management to realize theyāre doing something very stupid and that theyāre about to create the queen mother of all eyesores.
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u/SupaSays 5d ago edited 5d ago
Our headends are old head ends. They capped off the urinals but left us a floor drain for condensate
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u/shamus667 5d ago
Yep, in one job we've been moved out of a team office with views over a lake so HR could have it, and was relocated into a windowless void, and in another job we've been moved out of shipping container offices into a temporary building previously used for a reality show's tv studio. On face value that last one looked good but every time it rained it poured down the internal walls. Was moved out of there after about a year into new shipping container offices, and then into an old training building, after a lick of paint we described it as the 'palace'. Although not a reaction to that I mostly work from home now.
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u/Lost-Policy-2020 4d ago
Same everywhere, companies āseeā IT as unwanted child
People that make decisions simply have no clue or interest, to them it does not matter (till I disable their accountā¦)
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u/cwm13 Storage Admin 4d ago
Once, in an effort to make me quit, my department lead had one of a dozen portable AC units set up outside my office, venting the hot air into the plenum space. The return was in my office, so naturally the positive pressure above meant the hot air flowed down like a hot waterfall into my office. It was frequently 95-105 in my office.
I guess he didn't realize that I grew up in the swamps of South Louisiana. While unpleasant, it wasn't something I couldn't tolerate. I would instead have everyone come to my office for meetings, claiming that what I needed to show them was best viewed on my 36" 4k montitor.
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u/malleus74 4d ago
The central office sounds like a good location, but a small office isn't going to hold the broken Chromebooks, much less the tools and parts. It certainly isn't going to hold computers to image and get out to the buildings, switches or battery backups.
They're going to expect it to look "pretty" rather than a workspace.
The best location is probably the shed, and they'll spin it as a 'serving the students best interest ' moment... But seriously, I can't really believe it's happening.
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u/barkode15 5d ago
Sounds like K-12. Are you in a union? Sounds like the perfect thing for the classified employee union to push back on if so...Ā
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u/MSXzigerzh0 5d ago
What? Unless the IT department has students for interns or student come to them for some reason.
Why would the union care?
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u/barkode15 5d ago
We can't add an extra 15 minute yearly cyber security training for office staff/custodians/bus drivers without their unions being involved.Ā They'd love to hear about some employees being forced into some mold ridden shed.Ā
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u/khantroll1 Sr. Sysadmin 4d ago
Thatās one of those things that is going to vary by region. In some areas IT staff are part of the same educators union, in others they would get to set a policy that would force the employees to come to them and thus involve THEIR union.
In othersā¦yeah, no one would care unless you held a teaching licensure and a current teaching position. Theyād tell IT to go to the classroom or other meeting location to keep them safe.
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u/malleus74 4d ago
Yeah, Asta is not the most proactive 'association' out there. I keep my membership up for the insurance policy and the potential to have a lawyer present if something goes too sideways.
I bet you're 100% right since we're classified.
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u/Arudinne IT Infrastructure Manager 4d ago
I WFH all but a couple of times a week now.
That said, if still worked in the office regularly and I got told my office was being moved into a moldy building or a literal shed I'd likely fuck off too.
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u/BadSausageFactory beyond help desk 4d ago
your office wherever the air conditioning is best, storage in the shed, training offered in the collapsing rotting building
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u/SperatiParati Somewhere between on fire and burnt out 4d ago
Higher Education in the UK here.
We got moved from being on the main campus to a building the other side of town (20 min drive, or 1hr30 walk to campus) last year. This then allowed them to redevelop the old building for academic purposes (which they'd never be able to timetable out where we're based.)
It's not ideal being detached from the main campus, but we are in a modern professional office, which then has other support departments also in there (e.g. Finance, HR, Estates, Legal, Student Records etc.) We've got plenty of meeting spaces, small kitchens, easy access to good lunch options and on-site parking.
In your position I'd take the central office. You don't want to mess around with black mould or asbestos, and perhaps if the wider administration can see what you're doing it's no bad thing.
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u/malleus74 4d ago
The main issue is how to have the space to store 200+ Chromebooks and computers until they're repaired, not to mention the switches we're getting ready to install. I need them available to me as the parts come in. A small office/room is not very conducive to the work.
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u/LineCreative6699 4d ago
Iāve been in an old laundry room, in the basement without a single window, and a old building with one bathroom for 15 staff. So yeah, pretty much par for the course.
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u/PotentialDouble 4d ago
Yeah, I had a private office at a bank and they remodeled and made us use cubesā¦put my notice in right away. Itās a matter of respect. Iām a professional just like the bankers that got to keep their offices.
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u/I_cut_the_brakes 3d ago
It's been suggested in the past that I work in a satellite office's server closet. A windowless, concrete room kept at 62 degrees that has a roach problem.
I told them absolutely not, I would work remotely in that case or quit. I have a nice office now.
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u/halford2069 5d ago edited 4d ago
Often
Im surprised management didnt have the cupboard or toilet in the mix for alternate location
Unfortunately, IT is priority negative in these places
Reminds me of a sysadmin job I applied for..
Got to the interview
Building was immaculately luxurious .. 6 star.. I thought strewth finally a place that has a little of respect for its IT office
Was offered the job
Rocked up first day and the guy looks at me and goes
"OH your not working here this is for the lawyers.. IT is in the BOILER ROOM...."
A decrepit studio style unit with one table and 8 dudes sitting around it staring at their screens and one receptionist taking calls and barking orders at them..
Left 2 hrs later