Are most companies like that or am I just asking too much? (feeling depressed)

[Ratatapa]

Ok so feeling really depressed right now and I have no idea what to do. As you may know i'm far from the best IT Admin, but trying my best. I left 4 months ago a company that i liked the work, liked my clients (to some extent) But hated the owner aka my boss. He was a selfish dick and etc.

Made some interviews and found this company that raised my salary from 46k to 55k per year (yay canada), and gave me medical issurances. After a 2h interview all seemed well (too well i guess). So started this job (Alone in IT) in febuary and all went well, but starting in March stuff started to go less well. The people in this company are great, friendly having a blast working with them.

The issue is the management (Owner, semi owner and accounting) they are cheap. They wanted someone with initiative which I feel I have but each time i bring projects, it gets shot down because it costs money or too much money.

Exemple they want a way to share files with sales rep on the road that works well with ipad. Found them sync.com a good cheap solution, but it feels pricey because it cost 5$ per month per user.

Their architecture are 3 old servers (1 of them that is support is Out of life since 2015) and they don'T wanna change any of them because it's cheaper to renew the warranty (Ok i can buy that because the servers specs are OK, good CPU good ram etc).

PCs are an issue, they are all Windows 7 64bits 4GB of Ram with a 2010 Dual Core Processor, which makes the PC SLOW AS HELL. Everyone complains that PC are slows, but 'PC works we won'T change it'.

Most of all the offices has some dumb home 4-5 port switch (PC, Printer and Phone). (Cheaper then buying real switches and recabling to have independant ports).

Trying my best to fix those issues but with so much fighting back from the management hurts me so much, I don'T know who to talk about it, but i'm really annoyed right now.

Now i'm sure most of you would ask, "Why don't you leave?" Simple, my house is for sell, i have a new car to pay and my GF is pregnant so i need money and since my house is for sell, i need to have a job for a few months to be able to get financed for the new house.

Now my question is, Am i really stuck with a dumb company, or this is normal for most company to be cheap like that?

Thanks and sorry for the ranting, it helps my friday

[Melena]

Oh dear god yes. And it's not just companies, government agencies can be frugal as shit as well. When I took a promotion to leave the Sheriff's office to go to Health Care Services, it was a huge culture shock. The vast majority of the employee's were on HP Compaq DC7700 computers (stuff that was purchased in 08, 09) and still being used in 2015. They were in the middle of finally decommissioning their old SQL server that was running Server 2003 and was also acting as a print server and data server. The previous director was the same mindset as your boss, if it works, we still use it.

What you are going to need to do is show your bosses how using this old outdated equipment is actually costing them money. Keep a log of the complaints from users, show them how it takes several minutes for their computers to just boot, which is affecting company productivity. Then outline a plan to do a staggered replacement of all equipment. Don't try to do 30 computers all at once. Find the age of all the equipment and break it down over 3-4 years and outline a 5 year replacement plan and show them how they will save money in the long run having good solid equipment for employee's to use.

Servers are a different beast, but let them know the sort of security risks they will be running by using outdated equipment that can't run newer server OS's and how using equipment that is out of life can open them up to potentially larger costs, not just from a security standpoint, but part replacement point, as there will come a time where parts will just not be available if something fails, and now that warranty they spent money on is useless.

[Zetanio]

It's entirely normal.

I think it's rare that people find an ideal work situation.

Management will usually fall on the side of being cheap, especially in smaller companies, when it comes to technology. My advice is to be direct with them about the impact of their cost-cutting on performance and productivity. Let them know that you don't feel valued as an employee. Show them what they can do and how the money would be spent. If they are still being fucking tight about it, suck it up, phone it in until you can upgrade jobs again.

[Kirin]

Knowing nothing of corporate culture in Canada, so this is just off my own experience.

Yes, it is normal for most companies to be cheap like that. But there is also a pretty bold line, regarding the equipment you're given, in being able to perform that job and performing that job well.

Being in PR/Marketing, either with a large company or with smaller local ones, I'm always pitching sponsorships of local community events and ad buys in magazines. Even if I back it up with previous ROI figures proving it's a smart investment i'll get shot down 30-40% of the time. Could be that the current partners don't want to commit the resources right now. Could be that the timing to commit those resources (start of quarter, large amount of billables havn't been paid for last month yet, etc) just wasn't right.

You're still new to the job, so I wouldn't go kicking boats over quite yet. But if there is a subtle way you can keep letting them know some of these upgrades or "best practices" changes could noticeably benefit the company's proficiency hopefully eventually that will force them to slowly make these changes.

That $5/user is just dumb. I don't think i've ever worked for a company that stingy.

[dasva]

It's quite common for management to not really know things that well and just see the bottom line. Argue in terms of bottom


That said how the hell are those computers slow as hell? Don't know what that company does but that's leaps and bounds ahead of alot of office use computers lol.

[Ratatapa]

Guess I was lucky that in my old job, the cleints never complained much about budget.

'oh this guy says we need a new PC? Let's get a new PC'

[BerenTebogo]

You work in a shit field where the most important qualification for your employment is to tolerate being treated like shit.

[tenkiki]

You work in a shit field where the most important qualification for your employment is to tolerate being treated like shit.

This is me right now, just waiting to either get fired or left completely to my own devices as I do the bare minimum in keeping my department happy. Boss is too cheap to invest in anything, so I'm just enjoying the free gym access, having my own office since my coworker quit, and decent cafeteria.

[Anoat]

I can't tell you how many times I've seen my company's IT guy have the following conversation with the boss. Numbers are just made up for this example.
"I can get you an all new XXX for $1000 and it's guaranteed to last 5 years, or I can repair this 10 year old XXX for $400 and it might break in a month."
"Repair it."

[BaneTheBrawler]

Should phrase it as "might break every month"


Its more accurate and gets across that bad equipment is a long term cost

[TsingTao]

This is normal for small companies. You always hope to find people that understand the value of investing in better technology but some people are just flat out cheap and won't listen. The best you can do is make recommendations for improvement and list the down side/risks associated with not making that improvement. You may not have much hope if $5/month is too expensive to get data to a remote salesperson, but all you can do is try until you find something better.

I find that terror is a good motivator. People are fine with being cheap until you show them what that can really mean for their business. Document what the company currently has in place for backup and DR plans and use it to your advantage. Show management what they have now, and what that actually means. What actually happens if a server blows up? How fast will your extended warranty get it running? What happens to the data on that box? What happens when a client PC has a failure? They need to know the risks associated with being cheap, and what it will cost them in the event of various issues (hardware failures for PCs, servers, actual disasters) and have signed off on whatever cheap ass solution you are allowed to implement. Present alternatives with costs, show them what that mitigates for downtime or potential lost data, let them decide what they want to do. Most cheapskates don't think past the initial cost of any given thing. Show them what a failure really costs and you may get some traction on making improvements.

If no one wants to spend any money at least you'll have covered your ass.

[Deejay]

I'm lucky in that our owner is relatively young and a pretty decent human being. I work support and 90% of my job is setting up new software or integrating new shit to work with our old. It's pretty dope.

He actually had the opposite problem where he'd allow the marketing team to sign shit contracts with random companies who sold them some integration that couldn't or wouldn't work with our current systems.

[Ragns]

You work in a shit field where the most important qualification for your employment is to tolerate being treated like shit.

This is me for the past 12 years. I switched company 5 times yet it's still the same shit but with a different salary.

An ex-coworker once told me that he never kept a job for more than 3 years because it's at this point that you start to get overwhelmed by all the shit.

[Guitarman]

Entirely normal.

I'm a Business Consultant for a gigantic multi-national company, my ENTIRE career is built around going business to business, pitching ideas and suggesting improvements, and I get shot down 80-90% of the time. I've made full-blown powerpoints outlining step by step, dollar by dollar how a solution costing $60k will save them over ONE MILLION. In the first YEAR. And they still don't go for it. Companies just can't see beyond what's in front of them. This is a major reason so many businesses go under.

Your problem is you're still passionate about your job. You need to learn to work the American way; go in, do a really half-assed job, and go home.

[6souls]

This is me for the past 12 years. I switched company 5 times yet it's still the same shit but with a different salary.

An ex-coworker once told me that he never kept a job for more than 3 years because it's at this point that you start to get overwhelmed by all the shit.

[psychodwarf]

It's the same at my company. Huge budgets every year, but only minimal investment in IT infrastructure. Not the best model for a large financial company IMO. Hell, we JUST replaced Robohelp X5 (circa 2005) as our content management system. Good, except they decided to replace it with Robohelp 9 which they sat on for 3+ years, and will lose vendor support soon. Every time the topic of a newer version comes up magically the budget doesn't have enough to cover those costs. Meanwhile we're stuck working with an out of date piece of software that doesn't even run correctly in our standard browsers.

[Kalmado]

Entirely normal.

I'm a Business Consultant for a gigantic multi-national company, my ENTIRE career is built around going business to business, pitching ideas and suggesting improvements, and I get shot down 80-90% of the time. I've made full-blown powerpoints outlining step by step, dollar by dollar how a solution costing $60k will save them over ONE MILLION. In the first YEAR. And they still don't go for it. Companies just can't see beyond what's in front of them. This is a major reason so many businesses go under.

Your problem is you're still passionate about your job. You need to learn to work the American way; go in, do a really half-assed job, and go home.

So you're Don Cheadle from House of Lies?! (Great show if anyone hasn't watched it)

Your last sentence is what I've struggled with my entire work life. I care so much and have never been in a position to make any changes so I get annoyed/angry/depressed and then mentally check out of previous jobs. It's unfortunate but it's rare that giving 100% will net anything positive for a "normal" worker.

[Rizil]

Haha, oh man, story of my life.

My office uses a database system for our clientele dating back to 1980. Shit is older than I am. Our paperwork still gets printed out in dot-matrix printers. Have to buy all my own tools(to which I've invested well over $1000 in my own tools and supplies) and the only obligation my company has is paying for gas. (For work I travel to customers homes doing repairs for gym equipment. Very rich customers around NYC/NJ/CT/PA. Talking million dollar mansions.)

I haven't gotten a review or a raise in 5 years, all because my company doesn't want to pay for shit. Hell, we moved warehouses many years ago, before I started working there, because the rent was cheaper, only to find out the warehouse was a flood zone. Any time we get heavy rain we would have to wade through the water to get to our office. Hell just a few weeks ago my car got flooded because of the rain. And when Sandy hit, it was up to our waist, and it destroyed our entire fleet, costing the company hundreds of thousands in destroyed cars.

TL;DR, yep, its normal, it sucks.

[Guitarman]

So you're Don Cheadle from House of Lies?! (Great show if anyone hasn't watched it)

Your last sentence is what I've struggled with my entire work life. I care so much and have never been in a position to make any changes so I get annoyed/angry/depressed and then mentally check out of previous jobs. It's unfortunate but it's rare that giving 100% will net anything positive for a "normal" worker.

It's what I struggle with as well. As cavalier as I sound and wish I were, I still care, a lot. I've always been recognized as exceptional in every job I've had. Yet, there's a point when the bullshit weighs down on you. Everyone breaks eventually.

[Hellfury]

This is about on par for the course in my experience I fear.
Unless you land a gig in a high tier company that needs to show flashy stuff and always be updated for PR purposes, that's pretty much how it goes.