I'm 28 and work as a sysadmin for a mid-sized manufacturing company in Europe with roughly 300 endpoints across several sites. I enjoy automation and have built PowerShell and Python tools for backups, audits, hardware inventory, and system health checks. Unfortunately, my IT manager insists on extremely manual processes and rejects most modern alternatives.
Our asset records are kept in labeled freezer bags containing printed invoices and Office license keys instead of an asset database. Every device gets a manual DHCP reservation, and a proposal to use 802.1X with RADIUS was dismissed because he believes an intruder would not be able to figure out our subnets. Before I automated our mail-archive process, staff manually moved folders between accounts using a desktop mail client.
Now we're decommissioning a branch file server. Rather than using tools such as Robocopy, DFS, or Group Policy, the plan is to use a desktop backup utility, recreate every SMB share manually, and have me remotely update shortcuts on more than 40 user computers. I also built an automated WMI inventory system, but I'm still expected to walk through the warehouse and update an old Excel sheet by hand.
Backups are made daily onto LTO tapes labeled by weekday, which my manager takes home for disaster recovery. That part is understandable in principle, but until I automated it, we also had to manually inventory and erase every tape at every site.
The most frustrating part is that junior staff are being taught these practices as if they represent normal enterprise IT. Three technicians or developers have quit in the past ten months, and I'm increasingly disengaged while applying for other jobs.
Has anyone dealt with a manager this resistant to change? Is it worth documenting the business and security risks, presenting a cost-benefit case to senior management, or should I simply move on?
5 Answers
Some of his caution may come from fear of being blamed when a change fails, not just ignorance. Try proposing one small pilot at a time, explain the rollback plan, and connect it to reliability or reduced workload rather than calling the current method foolish. That said, manual DHCP reservations and physical asset checks are not automatically wrong in every environment; the bigger issue is refusing to evaluate alternatives and ignoring obvious network-security and operational risks.
Don’t frame this as “old technology versus new technology.” Put together a short risk and cost assessment. Show the hours spent changing dozens of machines manually, maintaining spreadsheets, and handling backups, then explain the security, recovery, compliance, and key-person risks. Taking company backup media home may also create serious data-protection and physical-security problems, especially if it isn’t encrypted and formally controlled. Present it without ridicule, and escalate through the proper management, security, legal, or audit channels if necessary.
Make sure your name is not attached to decisions you warned about. Keep professional records of the risks you identified, the alternatives you proposed, the decisions made, and who approved them. Don’t sabotage anything or secretly deploy changes that could cause an outage. Continue learning, collect certifications or project experience where possible, and leave on good terms once you have a better offer. A workplace that treats automation and security as threats is likely to keep damaging your career and morale.
If you have to stay for now, automate the repetitive work in a controlled and documented way. A script can update shortcuts, collect inventory, or handle file copies far more reliably than doing the same task 40 times. Keep the approved process and your documentation intact, test everything, and don’t make unauthorized changes to production systems. You can satisfy the visible checklist while reducing the actual effort behind it, but be careful not to create an undocumented system only you understand.
The practical answer is probably to keep looking for another job. Early in your career, you need an environment where you can learn and build relevant experience. If management refuses to change after reasonable proposals, you’re unlikely to fix the whole culture from underneath.
That’s where I’m leaning. He still has many years before retirement, so waiting him out doesn’t seem realistic.
Senior management may ignore technical details, so translate everything into downtime, production loss, breach exposure, recovery time, staffing cost, and regulatory liability.