I work for an ISP. A business customer wants to have multiple static public IP addresses so they can connect another firewall to the Internet. I don't understand how TCP/IP works, or how NAT routing works, so I told him it's too complicated.

Straight up we have everything SaaS'd up to the gills. We don't have an on-prem budget. Remote-first, so barebones dead-simple network in our offices. What are some projects I can make up that appear to "make an impact" to justify my bloated salary?

Thanks!

Title says it all

Our backups start at 1:55 AM every Sunday.

The most recent one failed half way, and automatically rescheduled the backup for 1 hour.

When it reattempted, the backup already existed since the folders are labeled by timestamp, so it deleted the entire backup directory as well as the working directory.

I am super worried how C suite is going to react when they hear all their data is gone. Can someone help us get our data back?

My CIO / CTO got on board with the idea of rolling out 'infrastructure as code' so we have a team of cloud engineers now. They are a bunch of elitist dudes who think they are worth every dollar they are paid just because they ask chatgpt for some terraform templates.

We had a sudden unplanned infrastructure request for a virtual machine and some things like blob storage, azure sql, and a keyvault. By the time they set up a 'repository' and a 'pipeline' to do this work I had it done already by clicking everything with my mouse in the Azure portal. What a con.

Then they said 'ITS NOT JUST ABOUT SPEED ITS ABOUT CONSISTENCY, we need those templates for our auditors!!!'

so i clicked the export to terraform button in azure and saved the terraform templates to sharepoint. I said, "done, what else do you guys do differently than me just clicking my mouse?' and now they all hate me.

I realised no one really cares, cares to care, or know much about procedures, policies and what they should be doing - I'm talking of IT management, some executives and of course many users. People are not working like a team, people are just focused with their immediate deliverables or not botherd at all

I try to communicate - i get few, late or no responses I ask for approvals or 2nd thoughts on purchases before we buy something - no responses, or late responses

It didn't use to be like this with the previous management - 90% of decisions and approvals were timely, well thought out, considerate etc. Hence i get pissed off because i know it was better and can/should get better. To me its just pure laziness.

Now im with a team(IT management, Finance) that takes their sweet time. Some IT members have been here before but i know they only worked because previous IT management was on their neck, now they relaxed because the current management is not that serious, and it makes life difficult for me

Im saying this because i have decided not to wait for opinions or approvals too much, i will push what i know is right based on experience until it gets to that point where someone needs to pick it up..I will implement what i feel is good for my peace of mind sake, work-life balance sake, learning/experience sake etc. Its so frustrating giving recommendations for failing hardware, upgrades etc and they get ignored for weeks, months only for them to come to me when shit has hit the fan in panic mode. Hardware distributions must be approved by my IT superiors but they take waaaay too long e.g to approve sending a laptop to user, i will just send/replace it and document reasons. I want to get work done, get users go about their job and i most certainly dont want to be worked under unnecessary pressure because someone was sitting on making a decision for 14 days and all of sudden they want something done in 2 hours.

Its frustrating because a good number of my actions are preluded by an approval, a purchase a signature -and i get stuck for days, weeks, months on end without getting that. I feel let down by my IT superiors.

For example i developed a system for 3 months(with their knowledge and approval), everything tested out and working great and now i need some help and approval with making the system live on the web and the IT team has just been pushing it for later for 10 months now. I have a working and better product to replace an old 15yr old something archaic system and that is not seeing the light of day.

I will start prioritising not working under pressure and my well being

We've been cautious because we wanted to see how the landscape of competitors shakes out. Last time I looked there were a bunch. Have things changed much? Is there a clear winner?

So, I've been hired as an IT Manager at this small-ish company, but things have gotten weird fast. They told me the “IT team” was a bit “understaffed,” but that was an understatement. Turns out, it’s one guy who's been here for 22 years. He’s this IT kingpin who’s set up his own version of the Hunger Games. No ticketing system. You just pray he hears your cries and then hope for the best. People are afraid to ask him for help because they don’t know when he’ll actually respond or, you know, explode.

The thing is, that one guy... is me.

Yeah, I think? Maybe? I was hired as the IT manager, but sometimes it’s like I’m the lone IT ranger. This guy (me?) has somehow kept this place running like it’s still 1998, and I swear we’re using a Windows 7 ISO from some pirate bay link that would make antivirus software spontaneously combust. It's like I'm managing a kingdom… and I'm the only peasant?

I get this weird feeling that I’m also the guy who the new "CTO" (myself?) hired to whip this place into shape. Like, one minute I’m thinking about bringing in a whole IT team to help poor old IT Guy (aka me?), and the next, I’m slapping a sign on my own door telling people to stop interrupting me because I’m busy hacking something together with a nonexistent budget.

So now I’ve got two problems: IT-Guy-me wants a massive overhaul to save me from the CTO-me's wrath, while CTO-me thinks IT-Guy-me has been coasting on chaos for decades. I swear I’m gonna rage at myself any day now. I’d march right into my own office, demand access to the systems, and maybe bring HR along to help break it to myself gently that we’re getting some new sysadmins—only, I’m worried I might go on “sick leave” to avoid it.

Any advice? Should I fire myself? Or maybe just ask for a second office so we don’t have to sit in the same chair at work?

I started as "the tech guy" at this small business of 20 people over 22 years ago. Its now grown to over 500 people spread across 5 sites.

I am the ONLY tech guy. We dont even have a help desk. Ive setup a ticketing system, but getting people to use it has never happened, I even have signs on my door about it! As you can imagine with it being ONLY ME with 500 users is a bit of a mess.

Our budget is sufficient for an office of about 30 people, but we have 500! Ive had to hack things together for years, We still run Win7 from an iso I downloaded from a torrent.

Ive long since given up on printers and the company now gives people money to go to buy their own usb printers, at least its one less thing to worry about.

I dont know how much longer I can do this. They hired a new "CTO", the owners nephew, who just graduated with a computer science degree, and I tried to explain it to him but he just keeps telling me my budget is cut for next year.

What do i do?