derektank a day ago

IT doesn't always hear the grumbles, hidden away as they frequently are behind a ticketing system; the help desk technicians who do hear the grumbles aren't always informed of the "why" behind certain policies, and don't have the time or inclination to go look them up if they're even documented; and it's a very unsatisfying answer even if one receives a detailed explanation.

Information loss is an inherent property of large organizations.

  • decasia 18 hours ago

    > Information loss is an inherent property of large organizations.

    That's such an interesting axiom, I'm curious if you would want to say more about it? It feels right intuitively - complexity doesn't travel easily across contexts and reaching a common understanding is harder the more people you're talking to.

    • resonious 12 hours ago

      On a more micro level, I find it very hard to write good documentation. I always forget something that once pointed out seems obvious. Or worse, the reader is missing some important context that many other readers are already privy to. Not to mention, some people don't even seek out docs before acting.

      I imagine this gets amplified in a large org. The docs are lacking, people might not read them anyway, and you get an explosion of people who don't understand very much but still have a job to do.

the8472 a day ago

In small orgs that might happen, in large orgs it's some game of telephone where the insurance requirements are forwarded to the security team which makes the policies which are enforced by several layers of compliance which come down on the local IT department.

The underlying purpose of the rules and agency to apply the spirt rather than the letter gets lost early in the chain and trying to unwind it can be tedious.

bigbuppo 20 hours ago

If you've read this thread, it would appear that most people here on HN aren't actually involved with policy compliance work dictated from above. Have you ever seen a Show HN dealing with boring business decisions? No. We do, however, get https://daale.club/

  • Aeolun 20 hours ago

    I think the problem is any time we are involved with policy compliance work it’s because we get a list with inane requirements on, and nobody to challenge in regard to it.

maccard a day ago

In a lot of cases the it people are just following the rules and don’t know this.