I enjoyed this, mostly because I refuse to play the corporate-speak games. I have grown weary of the overuse of diluted buzzwords, undefined acronyms, and email posturing to signal importance. As a sysadmin, I don't care about how important you SAY your application is. If your team didn't pay for the corresponding SLA, too bad. If your team didn't follow the lead time policy for changes to production hosts, too bad. If your team doesn't know who else to reach out to, that doesn't make me your "yellow pages".
This is just trying to shove planning/work that isn't mine down my throat with corporate action words. I've taken to using a "blunt-ish" approach. It may not be the best for my career, but at least I don't feel like a passive drone being railroaded.
Example:
THEM: We really need this config changed on our prod servers for our app deployment to be successful. We have raised CHG1234 for this to be done this afternoon. Please do the needful on priority.
ME: Production changes require a 2 week lead time, you need to resubmit this change in accordance with this policy. <link-to-policy>
THEM: How can we escalate? We cannot wait 2 weeks.
ME: ...
I just don't respond any further. I give them the exact reason for the "no" and don't engage with the rest of their badgering. EVERYTHING else they will respond with is an attempt to manipulate me into violating policy for their benefit, with no credit for me saving the day, yet all of the risk if I don't.
> I just don't respond any further. I give them the exact reason for the "no" and don't engage with the rest of their badgering. EVERYTHING else they will respond with is an attempt to manipulate me into violating policy for their benefit, with no credit for me saving the day, yet all of the risk if I don't.
I don't think this is really any better. Going unresponsive doesn't wind up improving anything. Not to say that you should cave, but a "if there are any questions or issues with the policy, please take it up with <manager>" let's the other person know that you're disengaging. Otherwise they're in a situation along the lines of "I asked how we could escalate, but I haven't heard back. I don't know if they haven't read my message yet or just aren't responding for some reason"
If you're in this situation, there's a disconnect between policy and process that needs to be resolved. Let the management demonstrate their "leadership" skills.
