The big fix
Credit to Author: Sharky| Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2018 03:00:00 -0800
Pilot fish at a federal agency gets a visit from a power user who can’t get access to the data he needs — and he’s not at all happy.
“We used a very effective security product that could narrow down access to a specific user or dataset,” says fish. “But you had to be careful to install any new rules in the right place, because once a rule was found it was applied, even if one with more relaxed access followed.
“As soon as I checked, I could see that I had misplaced the rule I had created for him.
“Now, normally if I made a mistake I’d admit to it and apologize. This particular day this fellow, an otherwise nice guy, was at it like a dog with a bone, demanding How did it happen? Who did this? over and over.
“For whatever reason, that rubbed me the wrong way. So I said, ‘Let’s fix the problem now, we can fix the blame later.’
“That got him all self-righteous and indignant, but it distracted him enough to drop the subject and let me correct the problem.
“A week later, I set up a security ID with limited security authority, so he could manage his own datasets without having to consult me. He was happy, and I had no further problems with him after that.”
Give Sharky access to your true tale of IT life. I’ll file off the identifying marks if you send it to me at sharky@computerworld.com. You can also comment on today’s tale at Sharky’s Google+ community, and read thousands of great old tales in the Sharkives.
Get Sharky’s outtakes from the IT Theater of the Absurd delivered directly to your Inbox. Subscribe now to the Daily Shark Newsletter.