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Hi All,

Want to vent a little here and get some opinions and suggestions from you SpiceHeads.

So I have been working at my current company for about a year and a half now.

It is an IT team of 3 with myself, IT manager and a consultant who helped build the current infrastructure.

My issue is that we now have several big projects (O365, HW Refresh, DR/Colo) and the consultant co-worker for some reason always seems to bring more issues,concerns than actual solutions. There is always the very lazy attitude of stringing things out, complaining about too many things going on in IT and always trying to back stab his peers at times so he can look better.

A lot of these projects I’ve spent the time researching and writing down project plans and am ready to execute but the co-worker is keeping from progressing. My manager knows this but can’t do much since the consultant is close with the CEO.

It’s just frustrating to sit around and wait for others who aren’t on the same page as you.

Do I sit back and let the consultant come around? Do I take the lead and say this is how we should do it?

14 Spice ups
2

Gosh I don’t miss these things at all now that I’m solo IT. But to answer your question, you’ve got a couple options:

  1. Stay quiet and deal with it, go home discouraged everyday until you get burned out
  2. Communicate and make your motives and ideas clear. See what happens. And let me be clear here as well. You need to be proactive and provide solutions, don’t rag on your coworker, if he isn’t up to snuff, I would hope your employee sees that and acts appropriately.

If you are concerned with him taking the credit, just document everything you do.

I feel like if it’s still not getting any better, after all of this, you will know what to do.

2 Spice ups
3

Valid points. I’ve been doing what I can such as the dirty work working on tickets, helping users and also create project plans,diagrams. I just want to get things done as does the IT manager. It’s just tough when have to rely on someone who thinks they can do whatever because they are close with the owner.

4

Your IT manager is on the same page, and that’s a good thing.

  1. You have projects coming up, so take as much ownership of them as you can.
  2. Give him something and give him a deadline. If he doesn’t hit his milestones, he doesn’t get tasks.
  3. Without tasks, now he is just someone that gives answers when you ask questions.
  4. And make sure you and your manager document everything. If he is really slandering you and your department, have a paper trail to back up why his role has been reduced.
3 Spice ups
5

Offer to take him out to lunch. Ask him point-blank, off the record. You’d be surprised at what you might hear. If he has vested a lot of time in designing what you have now, moving away from it might be a bit more than he’s willing to take, or some people find it really hard moving to new technologies. Occasionally, the execs here will joke to me about moving everything ‘to the Cloud’ to see my reaction. They’re always reminded there is none when my response is, “If that’s what you want…” But I do twinge a little bit inside. Can’t help it. I was a kid when ‘Big Iron’ was what any serious computing was done by. That turned into the ‘Server-PC’ model, which to me is still the best way to do things… so once again moving to a ‘mainframe’ mentality seems a bit odd, but that’s above my pay grade. They ask, I do. Especially if that’s where mainstream support will be heading.

2 Spice ups
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Execs love terms like the “Cloud” cause most times they have no idea and only know/repeat what they hear in boardrooms or in adverts.

Moving to the “cloud” still requires services being managed.

Next time they’d say that, I’d have a prepared business case to hand over…, then ask for a salary increase.

3 Spice ups
7

R.A.C.I

everyone loves a good framework…
it can help make sure projects stay on track and that the correct people are consulted at the correct time.

Responsible
Accountable
Consult
Inform

So for each project determine which member of the team falls into which category.

So for the O365 project you might say

IT Manager is Accountable for the projects overall success.
You are Responsible for the actual implementation of the solution.
and then make the consultant Informative only.
this means he is kept in the loop to some extent.
but dosn’t need to know the nitty gritty and his input is not sought.

1 Spice up
8

Based on having been in a similar situation with someone similar to your co-worker, these all sound like excuses and they are panicking because either a: it’s too much work for them to deal with or b: they don’t have the skills to carry out whats required.

Take the lead and use it as your opportunity to shine :slight_smile:

1 Spice up
9

Work with your manager to take control and going forward ease the consultant out of positions that hold up others work.

2 Spice ups
10

Get out in front of this and don’t look back. If the consultant is not contributing then it is time for a change. Take the lead!

2 Spice ups
11

It’s also a willingness or not to learn new technologies. It’s good that legacy knowledge is there but with Cloud and Security dominating IT currently his lack or lack of interest in doing either is shocking.

12

I like this idea! LOL

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I already have been given the green light to go ahead in many projects in the past and current on going ones. There some items in which legacy knowledge by that consultant is needed as he designed/built the original network and knows of certain pain points that I might not be aware of.

14

I have no worries on that score, and the Execs have bugged me about it for years. I educated them on what it really means a couple of years back, when they started having it pitched to them over the phone, by local companies and in trade magazines. I’ve embraced it. We’re just not ‘mobile’ enough for it to make a lot of sense, since our field employees are very tech-averse, and stubborn as mules! :wink: