City of San Francisco jails Network Administrator

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:23:40 EST

Before you accuse me of writing a bizarre headline, such as "Man Bites Dog" I assure you everything you are about to read is 100% accurate. While this might read like a mini story in the Dilbert comic strip. Remember the adage truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has got to make sense. Pieces of the story are just beginning to come out and it sure looks like a classic case of ego overriding common sense in management.

While as I create this entry, Terry Childs is still in jail, and the IDG publishing group (PCWorld, InfoWorld, NetworkWorld, etc) has got the inside scoop over the IT industry favorite newspaper, the San Jose Mercury news. It appears that while nobody is wearing a halo. In this mess, it's starting to look like a classic case of why some people say "why would you want to go to California? All it has is fruits and nuts."

I beg to differ with the popular yet snarky comment so often heard. This sounds like nut jobs in management positions. And as a COF (Certified Old Fart) I can tell you I've run into nut jobs in management positions, and curiously, many on government payrolls all over the United States and other countries.

From day one. This story did not pass the smell test. The claim that a network administrator was in jail because he wouldn't hand over passwords in the city of San Francisco was going to go down in flames unless he reveal the secrets. The city prosecutor claiming millions of dollars of disaster and damage. Yet as the CCIE sits in jail, San Francisco is just Humming right along. Yes, my fellow geeks you read that correctly. Terry Childs is a CCIE. For the people in normal world, this stands for Cisco Certified Internetworking Engineer. It's as high up as you can go in the Cisco foodchain, EOS (End of Story). To be a CCIE means you don't have a life outside of Cisco. You don't sleep much, and vacations are something other people get.

I've never met a CCIE that wasn't brilliant. And curiously, not one of them has ever done the bidding of a cranky bureaucrat, either. I've studied enough psychology to understand that the brain has a finite capacity. And top-level IT people spend 100% of their higher brain functions on doing their jobs.

So it turns out Terry Childs designed the layout for the fiber optics that runs the city of San Francisco. If this means nothing to you, think of the movie, Mad Max - Thunder Dome. Specifically the crazy and cranky character under the city, going by the name Master Blaster. The CCIE didn't want anyone messing with Cisco routers that keep the backbone of the city of San Francisco moving. So he deleted password recovery options on the routers running the backbones. Things are fine until the city of San Francisco gets its first CSO (Chief Security Officer).

Now, here I'm speculating, and I'll bet I'm speculating, accurately. The new CSO Wants to Make It Clear That There's a New Sheriff in Town. And the situation quickly deteriorated to where Terry Childs is in jail.

In this sad story, there are several takeaways.

1.If you manage a super performer that just doesn't get some aspects of the job that you know are important, pair them up with an assistant. If you think you don't have the budget for another head, where are you going to find the budget for the three to five+ heads you will need to replace your super performer?

2. The City of San Francisco has been very lucky. Super performers who feel wronged can create Super Creative Revenge. Case in point, I have intimate knowledge of a certain Sergeant on Fort Lewis, who was "killed". No, not literally. However, the computer system that does payroll was told he was dead. In most cases, we don't pay dead people. Oh, his manual (paper) backup records were missing too. The end result was about three months with no pay. The learning here is don't let your ego get multiplied by your need to be right. It will come back on you.

Correctly or incorrectly, I've gotta hand it to Terry Childs, CCIE for having the courage to go to jail rather than risk watching the city of San Francisco really meltdown, because someone less talented and trained messed with the backbone that carries its digital nervous system. Maybe I should open a Terry Childs Legal Defense Fund on PayPal.

Tcat Houser and Gudrun Funk are in the process of creating Project Management Success book with Goshen. Do you think we should send a draft copy to the city of San Francisco?

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City of San Francisco jails Network Administrator