Let's continue the tech bitching, shall we?
On my way to work today I get a text from a coworker stating that Volvo IT, who hosts a server for one of our clients, sent a threatening email that said their security audit of the server (which we do not manage) came back with a bunch of problems and they were threatening to shut the server down (and basically terminate our client's use of our software) if we didn't do EVERYTHING TODAY.
So I get to work and am immediately pulled into a meeting with 8 people, where they dump a 1300 line spreadsheet on me.
This spreadsheet was generated by a pen tester, and then crossed referenced with a government website about known software exploits and vulnerabilities. I.e, whoever ran this and presented it to us knows nothing about what we do or any of the facts on the ground.
Over half of the references were to Adobe Flash Player exploits, which we don't use and didn't deploy.
Once we removed that, their objections were basically to every piece of supporting software we installed on the server AND the version of our database software.
So I had to call an emergency 2 hour meeting with every person in my team to go over the line items that applied to us (and the spreadsheet crashed on me in the middle of it as I was making edits to cut down on the sheer amount of nonsense in there) and then create an action plan to show their IT we were doing something so they don't shut down our client.
Forget the fact that the last time ANYTHING security related was mentioned was over a year ago. I filled out their questionnaire then and that was the last I heard about it until today.
The Volvo reps, sensing my growing fury, quickly admitted that they dropped the ball on notifying or coordinating with us but asked us to do the most we could in the shortest time possible so they could demonstrate to their IT security heads that there was a plan in place.
So here I am, scrambling to update software packages. It's gone smoother than I anticipated, but the big lingering bugaboo is the database software: the absolute highest version we can target falls two years short of what they want to see.
We told them "we can update the server to the latest version we support next week but that is the earliest we can do it, we're not doing this today, over tonight or over the holiday."
Meanwhile, my actual client does between $50k and $100k worth of business or more a day. They would be absolutely crippled if their server (which Volvo manages and makes them use) were shut down.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
I'm so fucking pissed at the two Volvo IT reps I deal with. They should have told us this was coming weeks or even months ago. Half the problems listed in this spreadsheet are directly on them but they're both either too busy or this business is such a bastard child on their network that they don't care. Volvo IT has routinely been a problem for us: requiring us to manage our own passwords on a server we don't control; taking weeks to address VPN accounts they require us to have to connect to this server. Not cleaning up half the fucking garbage on this server that bloated this list to the point their own IT heads were like "Fuck this server, it's a flaming train wreck and we don't want it on our network in this state."
So goddamn frustrating not only to be the person all this communication is directed at, not only be the person that has to organize my entire business to help address this problem but ALSO BE THE GUY WHO HAS TO DO ALL THE FUCKING WORK ON IT.
Meanwhile all my other customers, who are used to prompt service and replies from me, are freaking out about their own little problems and messaging me directly on Discord while I'm juggling this meeting and all the technical nonsense that goes along with it.
Makes you fucking yearn for the days of physical labor. If I could get paid what I do now to dig a ditch, you bet your ass I'd be digging that ditch instead of handling all this shit.