March 25, 2002
I’ve had some really weird things happening over the past week that I’d like to get your reaction on. This is somewhat long, but I would really like your opinions on how to handle this situation.
First some background:
I am a web developer at a school district. I’ve been doing this job for about a year and a half, but officially I’ve been the “Webmaster” here for a year, since we hired another PC tech to replace my old position.
I share an office with this tech (we will call him D), and our LAN admin (we will call him R). We all work for the same administrator (we will call him S), who is the director in charge of technology and hardware purchases for our building.
R started out working here as a PC tech, then got moved into LAN manager. He is 50 yrs old, and has a lot of experience, and is considered by most everyone to be doing an excellent job here. When I was the tech that worked with R, we got along well and complimented each other pretty well. People here really came to depend on our tech support, and think that we did a great job, which we did. Then last year, I became the web developer for our school district. I was no longer working along side R doing tech support. That is now D’s job. That is when things started to change for me.
I first noticed that R removed my total and unrestricted access to our network and placed my login ID in the same category as the general office staff here. Ok, no problem. I’m not really a tech anymore so I don’t really need unrestricted access to the entire network anymore. I can understand that, but many times in our building, people still look to me for tech support and I will help them if I can and it doesn’t take up much time.
Shortly after that I start noticing that R is no longer filling me in on anything that is happening to the PC’s in our building. I find this weird since I’m still in the same office as R and D, and I’m still a technical person doing web development, but accept it anyways again, because I no longer officially do tech work there.
Next I notice that R is starting to treat me different. While we used to work together, we would chat and talk all the time, but now he doesn’t say anything to me unless it related directly to my work as Webmaster, or if I initiate a conversation with him. I start feeling like I’m getting the cold shoulder from him and as far as I can tell, I’ve done nothing to get him mad at me. I don’t think my behavior since I became webmaster has changed, and I know I haven’t done anything to piss R off. I’m on the Internet a lot more at work researching, collaborating, and testing. I just can’t help but notice this change in attitude on R’s part toward me. Again, up to this point, I’ve just brushed it off as me being in a different position now.
Anyways, onward to the root of the problem:
We have always been able to check our web-based e-mail accounts here at work, but last Wednesday, I suddenly can’t get to Hotmail from both my work pc’s. The error is rather ambiguous, but I find that at any other PC in our building, I can get to it just fine. Nobody else in the building is having this problem except me at my 2 pc’s. The next day I ask R about it, he says he has never heard of that error and doesn’t know what is going on. The next day, (Friday) it is still happening, but the error had changed and by the nature of this new message, I knew it was our internet filtering software (CyberPatrol) that was the cause. and this internet filtering system is one in which R is in charge of. So I ask him about the error and if he knew what it was all about. He said (with a little smirk on his face), “I guess you will have to check with S.” No explanation. No nothing. Rather than confront him about it then, I just make a comment about how everyone here would not like having it filtered out (since most everyone here uses Hotmail or Yahoo mail all the time here too.).
It seems to me I just caught R in a lie. He runs the darn filtering software and is the only one who runs it as far as I know, so he SHOULD know why this is only affecting my 2 pc’s and nobody else’s. S and I have always had a pretty good working relationship and I believe that he would let me know up front if he had any issues with me and my performance. I know that I check my Hotmail 3 to 4 times per day from work, but it doesn’t affect my ability to do my job. Also, I’m pretty sure that if there was a policy change about our reading personal e-mail through Hotmail or any other web-based e-mail service here that it would apply to everyone, not just me. I’m feeling like R is just out to get me and he’s doing everything he can to make my work life difficult, and I don’t know why. Like I said before, I don’t think I’ve done anything to him to piss him off.
So far I have not approached S or R about this, other than mentioning to R that I’m getting this message. I know it’s our CyberPatrol software that is causing this problem, and I know that nobody else is having this problem except me. Should I just ask R why he’s blocked me from using Hotmail? Should I go over R’s head and bring it up to S? S has mentioned on occasion this past week that he wasn’t sure where to draw the line on use of web-based e-mail use. But I don’t think he would institute a new policy like this without making an announcement to everyone and applying it to everyone.
I don’t know what to do to address this situation. I appreciate any insight you all may have. Thank you for suffering through all this.