A Tight Ship
In Which A Login Is Requested
Author’s note: I started this Substack as a forcing function to make me practice writing in different styles. In keeping with the spirit of the challenge, I present my first attempt at comedic / satirical writing. It turns out it’s a lot more difficult than my usual prose! I have a newfound respect for the writers of ‘Yes, Minister’, whose style is the inspiration for the below.
A TIGHT SHIP
INT. IT DEPARTMENT OFFICE
A large office with a city skyline view. We are high up, looking down on the city outside. The IT MANAGER sits behind a large desk. He is immaculately suited. He does not look like a man who has ever fixed a printer. He is typing furiously. He does not look up as the door opens.
ANGRY MANAGER: Are you the IT team leader?
IT MANAGER: (continuing to type for some time) Among other things. I wear a lot of hats. To what do I owe the pleasure?
ANGRY MANAGER: Good. I need to talk to you. I’ve been waiting over a month for a login for my new joiner. I’ve had to put him on paid leave because he can’t log in, so he can’t work.
IT MANAGER: (setting aside his work with the patience of a man who has heard everything and been impressed by none of it) I see. Well, it’s most irregular. But I suppose leaders must be willing to jump into the trenches now and again. What is your ticket number?
ANGRY MANAGER: Why on earth do I need a ticket number? It takes thirty seconds to provision an account. I’d do it myself, but your team won’t give me admin permissions.
IT MANAGER: (mildly) Ah, I see. Well never fear, you can raise an admin privileges request ticket through the regular HR portal.
ANGRY MANAGER: No. (composing himself) No. I need the login. Today.
IT MANAGER: Then I’ll need the ticket number. The security audit framework is quite unambiguous on this point. I’m sure you appreciate that an organisation of this complexity cannot have its access controls administered on the basis of whoever happens to walk through my door.
ANGRY MANAGER: (grabs phone, scrolls) Fine. BOL8912.
IT MANAGER: (types, unhurried) Mm. Yes. I can see the difficulty…
He pauses, in apparent contemplation.
ANGRY MANAGER: …. which is?
IT MANAGER: Your ticket has not yet reached the top of the queue.
ANGRY MANAGER: Right, so make it a priority and we can get it sorted.
IT MANAGER: Unfortunately we don’t have discretion on queue order. Central HR were concerned that giving the IT team discretion over ticket sequencing created conditions for discriminatory favouritism. The training on this is quite thorough, I must say. I just finished my annual recertification a few weeks ago.
ANGRY MANAGER: So you don’t have any way of making a ticket a priority?
IT MANAGER: Tickets are actioned as soon as possible by an extremely diligent and hardworking team who are doing their very best coping with an exceptional volume of requests.
ANGRY MANAGER: So things just happen in whatever order they happen to come in? What if it’s a business critical issue?
IT MANAGER: Well we are working on a framework with HR to ensure that IT team members receive relevant training to ensure that tickets are prioritised in a non-discriminatory way. Alas the COO’s efficiency work stream deprioritised non-essential work until average queue resolution time is halved. One can’t have the team disappearing down nice-to-have rabbit holes while the queue lengthens. I’m sure you understand.
ANGRY MANAGER: (more astonished than angry) So you have deprioritised critical work to do non-critical work faster?
IT MANAGER: (serenely) Scope management is rarely straightforward. Leadership is often the regrettable burden of being willing to face difficult tradeoffs.
The ANGRY MANAGER takes a breath.
ANGRY MANAGER: Look, I’ve submitted this ticket at least once or twice a week. I can understand if some of them are stuck in a queue, but the tickets I submitted a month ago can’t still be pending.
IT MANAGER: Ah! That would explain it entirely. They’ll be in the deduplication process. There is a bit of a backlog, I’m afraid.
ANGRY MANAGER: Deduplication process?
IT MANAGER: The finance audit team identified that closing multiple tickets per resolution was producing unduly flattering productivity metrics. Deduplication was introduced to ensure the integrity of our reporting. You’ll appreciate that accurate internal productivity data is the foundation of sound resource allocation. And of course, if teams insist on generating additional work by submitting multiple requests for the same issue… well, one can see why that slows things down.
ANGRY MANAGER: So every ticket I’ve ever raised for this man is sitting in a pile somewhere, waiting to be checked by untrained staff, and only THEN will they be added to a queue of literally every other task in the business, executed in whatever order they happened to come in?
IT MANAGER: The deduplication workload does sit with new joiners, yes. One must have a mechanism to bring new resources into the team if we are to be efficient in the long run. It is always gratifying when one is able to find a single mechanism to address two difficulties simultaneously.
ANGRY MANAGER: But that means a critical process is being left to untrained staff…?
IT MANAGER: Staff in training, which is quite different. But we have foreseen the difficulties you are hinting at and they are well in hand. There’s a dedicated IT internal ticket queue so new joiners can escalate difficulties with the deduplication process to relevant team leaders. It’s quite elegantly designed actually.
ANGRY MANAGER: (flatly) So my tickets are sat in a queue to be reviewed to go into a different queue, but are currently delayed because there’s a queue for tickets about the queue, which is backlogged?
IT MANAGER: Consistency of process is how an organisation of this complexity holds together.
The ANGRY MANAGER stares with the expression of a man standing at the edge of a cliff.
ANGRY MANAGER: Look. Just tell me what I need to do to get this man a login. He’s going to quit if we never give him any work.
IT MANAGER: (leaning back, steepling his fingers) You know that could be a good idea. If he were to quit we could re-onboard him under a new employee ID. That would be a clean entry with no deduplication exposure, so his log in request falls straight into the main queue.
ANGRY MANAGER: You’re suggesting we drive this man to sufficient despair that he quits, and then we re-hire him?
IT MANAGER: I do apologise. I’ve just remembered. Internal standards now prohibit rehire for six months following original engagement. The policy was introduced after certain managers used the mechanism to circumvent the pay banding freeze. One admires the ingenuity, frankly, though obviously not within the spirit of the…
The IT MANAGER’s phone rings. He answers without ceremony.
IT MANAGER: (into phone) Yes. Of course. One moment. (types for four seconds) Done. You should see the permission email come through in the next few seconds.
He hangs up
ANGRY MANAGER: What was that? You didn’t ask them for a ticket number.
IT MANAGER: That was the efficiency workstream’s priority line. Members of the workstream have direct access to an unticketed process. It was, in fact, a recommendation of the workstream itself. There’s a certain coherence to it, if you think it through.
ANGRY MANAGER: (dangerously quiet) I see. So after all that about ‘consistency of process’, some people don’t have to file tickets?
IT MANAGER: Well of course. Any critical business function has access to the same channel.
ANGRY MANAGER: Finally. I am already a critical function.
IT MANAGER: Excellent! Which one?
ANGRY MANAGER: Chemical safety.
IT MANAGER: (with the air of a man delivering unfortunate news about a planning application) Ah. Unfortunately chemical safety isn’t on the critical functions register, I’m afraid.
ANGRY MANAGER: Not critical? My job is to ensure that our plants do not explode and disperse radioactive material across the home counties! What could be more critical than ‘stopping our facilities from exploding’?
IT MANAGER: Critical functions are defined as those functions necessary for business continuity. For example: internal strategy and financial planning functions, executive leadership, all directors at band two and above, HR, obviously, the inclusion team, finance audit function, the green initiative productivity tracking team, of course …
The door bursts open. A JUNIOR EMPLOYEE, urgent, but business-like.
JUNIOR EMPLOYEE: Sorry to interrupt, sir. Our comms monitoring team have just raised a critical ticket in the competitor review queue. It looks like one of our competitor’s chemical plants has exploded. The news is already calling it another Chernobyl
The room goes still. The IT MANAGER turns slowly to his screen. A long moment of what might be genuine horror.
IT MANAGER: (quietly) Good God.
He turns to the ANGRY MANAGER. A beat of real solemnity. Then:
IT MANAGER: Still. (with the pride of a man reflecting on a job well done) It could never happen here at least. We run a tight ship.