just curious about how you guys handle office politics when logic and data completely fail. I once had a manager who refused to cancel a failing $50k software contract just because he personally picked the vendor. showing him spreadsheets of our lost productivity just made him angry, and he kept blaming the team for “not adapting to the learning curve.” I eventually had to manipulate the situation and convince him that cancelling the tool would make him look like a “bold leader” who protects the team’s agility. I basically had to stroke his ego just to get a logical business decision made. It worked, but honestly it felt exhausting. what’s your best/worst story of dealing with irrational corporate logic? did you find a psychological trick to bypass their ego, or did you just give up and quit?
I was not notified about a pentest(Penetration test, where your company pays white hat hackers to try and breach it’s security and write a report on it), and as the only person in charge of that site during my shift, when I saw the alarms go off I tried to reach out to all my superiors multiple times, reached out to the “on call” and got no answer from either. I ended up pushing the big red button, on their words I caused the company to lose a fuckton of money.
I refused to be the scapegoat or sign the written warning, going as far as threatening legal action so they backed off. Ultimately ended up quitting because of the harassment bringing my already shaky mental health to a point where I was a danger to myself.
No fairytale ending, I think they burned me on the cybersecurity circles and I ended up overeducated and unemployable, and my sad little heart didn’t and still doesn’t have the fortitude to fight back. Plus, it’s been over a decade, all I knew is outdated and my certs lapsed ages ago. It is not a fight I could put myself through.
Know that, in that situation, you absolutely did the right thing.
I wonder if they were looking to fire you and hung you out to dry.
Only time I’ve ever been written up in my career, I told the CEO – very politely – that “cybersecurity is the boards responsibility, whether they want it to be or not.” He did not like hearing that.
If there’s a problem, they can count on me to tell them about it. Always in writing. If they don’t want to act, that’s on them.
“If you leave now you’ll be fired.” -so many dead bosses in the WTC.