An Information Security Place

Most people probably would read the title of this blog post and think, “another idiot hit ‘Reply All’” and pissed a bunch of people off and Michael thinks it is funny”.  Well, you would right on two and three quarters of those points because the person who hit Reply All is not an idiot.  In fact, though it was accidental, it actually served a great purpose and hopefully taught someone a lesson.  So after that cryptic intro, here’s the story:

A client of mine (I have his permission to write this, even though I am not mentioning his name or his company’s name) is looking for a specific security product to cure a compliance pain they are currently having.  We work with a few companies that sell the type of product he is looking for, but we recommended the one of those that we think has the best answer for the problem our client is trying to solve.  Since that company came back with some fairly high prices, the client asked us to contact some of the competing vendors and setup some meetings.

Well, one of those competing companies we contacted immediately decided to sic their inside sales person on our client.  This inside sales guy was calling our client at least 3-4 times a day (if not more) and was sending multiple meeting requests and emails, even after we asked him to back off.  He then started calling from other numbers when the client started screening his calls.  It got to the point where our client was getting pretty upset and was asking us to make some further demands that the guy back off.  The client seriously had no desire to be mean to the inside sales person, and we certainly did not want to cause bad relations between our company and the vendor, but the customer obviously comes first.

So after a few days of this going on, our client decided to forward one of the vendor’s emails to our sales person.  Our client was nearing the end of his rope, so the email was frustrated in tone.  It pointed out that the inside sales person was making his company seem cheap and desperate, and it was written with some fairly strong language.  But of course, as you have probably guessed by now, the client accidentally hit reply all when he was trying to forward, causing the vendor to receive a copy of the email.  Our client says that he received cancellation notices for the multiple meeting requests that he had received from the vendor within about 5 minutes after his email went out, and he has yet to hear back from that inside sales person.

So, while all of this is funny and falls right in there with a lot of these types of stories, it really serves a purpose beyond the “be careful with email” lesson.  Though our client swears it was accidental, the “accident” actually served the purpose of which I spoke in the introduction paragraph (it got the client some peace), and it hopefully taught that inside sales person a few lessons, which are these: persistence does not mean annoyance, listen to your clients and partners, and, for goodness’ sake, BE SELF AWARE.  Think about what you are doing.  And if you ARE self aware and you are being forced to make all these calls by your management, you might want to ask yourself why they are making you do this.  Is your company about to tank?  Do you need to start looking for a job?  Are you going to give yourself a bad reputation in the industry by making these calls and pissing people off?  Think about what you are doing and how you can do it better.

And another lesson: if you persist in pissing off my client, I have no qualms in calling in some favors from some friends of mine named Vito and Santino.

Vet

My pastor writes a blog on our church website that I follow, and today’s message was very good.  Here’s an excerpt:

Life is a long series of “moving-up-a-level” experiences. We move from kindergarten to first grade, or from middle school to high school, or from engineer to project manager, or from club member to club president, or from team member to team captain, or from salesman to sales manager, or from second string to first string, or from busser to waiter. 

In this “moving up” process we spend a lot of time and energy desiring to move up and wanting more responsibility and more money and more control and more recognition—and we spend very little time and energy considering the struggles that are coming with that new level. At new levels there are new challenges.

 

This really struck me.  Almost everyone thinks about the next level and what it would mean for them.  Like Pastor Dave says, it means more money, more control, more power, more fame maybe.  But if we would just stop to see what bad things that new level involves, we might not be so eager to make that climb.

Now, Pastor Dave is in no way saying we shouldn’t strive for the next level.  Look at this quote:

There is nothing wrong with desiring a new level in life—just be sure you are prepared for the new devils at those new levels.

Obviously this is written from a Christian perspective, so you will have to apply the term "devil" to whatever your belief system happens to be.    "Devils" can be a term that can be used for any issue that arises when you move on to new challenges, no matter if you are Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, or whatever.  But the message still applies.  Moving up brings new challenges.  Those can be exciting, but you might want to make sure you are prepared for those challenges before you start the climb (or even start looking for the ladder).

From a personal perspective, I can say that I made the climb early in my career.  I started in IT during the golden age of the 90’s.  If you had a CNE or a even a MCSE, you could pretty much write your own ticket.  Everyone needed a network admin, network engineer, webmaster, etc.  Everyone was growing, and they needed more people to grow with them.  So I sought and got promotions very quickly.  I learned a lot from those experiences, and I don’t regret any of it.  However, I know now through hindsight that I was not prepared for some of those jumps.  I struggled through a lot of those new jobs and levels.  I happen to learn better through doing, so it was good for me.  But not everyone learns that way.

So basically, use caution when seeking that next level.  Be patient and honest with yourself.  Sometimes delayed gratification is better.  Always seek to better yourself, but make sure you are doing it in a smart way.

Vet