Being Forced to Say Goodbye

Well... shit. My company just sold my department to another company. The phrase they use in the office is "a Microsoft shop". We're talking Windows, Teams, Azure and O365.
The transition is going to be shit. After the transition is over, it will be shit.
I might just operate my workflow entirely out of WSL2 out of spite.
- Teams is its own plane of hell. Sorry to hear.
  
  https://youtu.be/dbb-XSvX4pg
- I feel simultaneously good and bad that the least modern team at my company is the Windows admin team. I hope they were embarrassed as shit when they were asked how that automated process I help them create 9 months ago was going and they said, "Uh, we'll be rolling it out this quarter." They're constantly at least 2 steps behind our Linux admins.
- I work at a "Microsoft Shop" in a division that was a previously acquired software developer that used an entirely linux based dev stack.
  That stack is still all linux and we basically have to do all our work in WSL. It's a pain.

Hoard a copy of your work. Even if your new overlords are gutting and replacing it, ot might be useful elsewhere one day.
Source: Similar situation once upon a time. I am currently using on a daily basis what was once replaced in a different company.
- Please be careful when copying anything that could be considered your employer's intellectual property (almost certainly anything you built as an employee falls into this category) off of that employer's systems.
  And definitely be even more careful about using one employer's IP for a new employer (neither company would be pleased to discover this).
  
  I am careful, but not concerned. The new company's IT doesn't give a damn about anything that I set up or implemented. Their reactions when I was describing my work and job role before the buyout was essentially, "Aww, the cute little sysadmin was making scripts and using Linux, isn't that sweet."
  As far as they're concerned, all the old hardware and software are e-waste and are being scrapped. They are ripping out everything, literally. From our phone system, to our physical devices, to our firewalls, network switches, Active Directory, and file server.
  They are replacing every single part of our infrastructure. Everything I built is useless in their eyes.
  
  But it's also difficult to prove you didn't make it similarly 2 times. Just do some name changing, reordering and some slight changes and you should be golden.
  
  Depends on where you work and what their policies are. My work does have many strict policies on following licenses, protecting sensitive data, etc
  My solution was to MIT license and open source everything I write. It follows all policies while still giving me the flexibility to fork/share the code with any other institutions that want to run something similar.
  It also had the added benefit of forcing me to properly manage secrets, gitignores, etc
  
  True. In my particular case it's not an issue (because of a long and boring story I can'tbe arsed getting into), but shielding oneself as well as the employer from legal liability is important.
  
  Sadly, this means all my Linux and FOSS implementations I've worked on
  
  Please be careful when copying anything that could be considered your employer’s intellectual property
  Very unlikely $NEW_EMPLOYER will run all your ideas past $OLD_EMPLOYER to see if it's their code...
- Already backed up securely and anonymously :)
- Yeah. I retired a year ago, every now & then I say to myself "I'm sure I had a script for that..." bit then I can't find it of course, which makes me sad.
  Oh & I used to sign in to GitHub with a username & password, then GitHub said I needed to change my password, and emailed me a link to my old work address, which I can no longer access.
  So I'm going to have to fork my own stuff!

This won’t be the last time, I’m afraid. At the end of the day, software developers build sandcastles.
If you want to build something that will outlast your company, make sure you also have a hobby or craft outside of computing.

At least you learned a lot along your journey, while getting paid for it. So it's not entirely a waste of time.

I know it’s dumb to feel sad about computers and software getting shutdown, but it feels sucky to see all my hours of hard work getting trashed without a second thought.
Sadly, something we all have to get used to. Everything we do is ephemeral and the next guy will likely have better/different ideas on how to do things.
Basically everything I've ever built has been torn down or somehow bastardized eventually.
- The next guy will likely have better/different ideas on how to do things. The extra fucked up part comes when the "new guys" purge all the people and systems that were already working and proven end up just circling around to more or less the old things. While of course acting like it was all their "ideas" after spending more money than was ever needed. The workers get fucked and the undervalued knowledge is lost (and the new workers also get fucked by being underpaid and overworked themselves). So fucking done with how much the wasteful executives giving themselves bonuses and keep cutting more and more corners.
  
  Check your formatting

That sucks. I know what it’s like to feel like the only voice of reason when your company is shooting itself in the foot.
I see from other comments you’re already looking for a new job, which is a very good idea. From your description of this buyout, it seems very likely that you’re about 6 months to a year out from the layoff stage of the private equity playbook.
At the end of the day you’ll always have the experience you gained from building all that stuff. Perhaps you’ll get a chance to build it back even better somewhere else!

My job title is "Linux System Administrator". I'd quit if they tried to make me drop Linux.
- I tried to push back, but they are a much larger company and they made it clear that I would be playing by their rules, not mine.
  I was thinking of quitting immediately, but at least in my region of the country, the IT market is really rough right now, so I can't afford to be out of work for months.
  I won't last long here though. They are half owned by a private equity firm, so they run everything based on the bottom line. Their IT team is understaffed, underpaid, and they are always looking for excuses to lay folks off or fire them. Their turnover rate is pretty high, burnout is rife.
  
  Start job hunting now. By the sound of it they are one of those PE firms that zombie walk every acquisition into mediocrity.
  
  I know it's rough. Trying to find a job that pays well and isn't deep into proprietary stuff like SQL Server, C# and alike. Sadly this scenario is overwhelmingly the case, and until the crowdfunded and open source scenario get strong (they still aren't) there isn't too much of an option.
  
  Everything based on the bottom line
  Using azure.
  Pick one! I know why they’re a full Microsoft organisation, you’re already using office and exchange, so 365 makes sense, then teams makes sense, then may as well have some sharepoint storage, power platform is snazzy, and then oops we’re full azure hosted. I get why, it’s very convenient, has some good ecosystem integration benefits for the user and all the rest, but it certainly isn’t cheap.
  Anyway, I’m sorry they’re kicking Linux and trashing years of hard work. That really sucks. Sadly new job time I think. But that’s easier said than done these days. Best of luck!
- I think I'm a cloud engineer, so I can't use the same reasoning as you; but when I started at my company, I was given the option of either a Linux laptop with root or a Mac laptop. Obviously I selected Linux, but about a year later they started retiring all Linux laptops. The reason for this, I was told, is because the IT department didn't know how to manage Linux laptops but they were familiar with Jamf. They did let us keep root on them, though.
  I still miss using that laptop for work. The good news is, since they never implemented mandatory RTO policies, the company moved to a much smaller office. In doing so, they needed to reduce inventory, so they gave away the old laptops (sans drives) to their employees. I now own the same laptop (or a very similar one)!
  
  My work laptop is a Thinkpad running Debian with the Plasma DE, I love it so much. Everything is snappy and clean, set up and tuned perfectly to my preferences.
  It's getting wiped in a few days. I requested to keep it as a personal device if I wiped it, they denied that request. I even offered to buy it back from the company, but still no.
  At least I get to keep it instead of using their bulky, crappy HPs, but replacing my sleek Debian system with Windows 11 feels so wrong.
  
  In doing so, they needed to reduce inventory, so they gave away the old laptops (sans drives) to their employees. I now own the same laptop (or a very similar one)!
  Yeah, IT fleet upgrades are a great way to snag some decent hardware for dirt cheap. My Plex server is running on an old HP EliteDesk that came from a cubicle. The hardware itself is often practically new, because corporate drones rarely do anything intensive enough to actually push the hardware. Just give it a quick spray with some canned air, and pop a new drive in.

That's unfortunate. Both for throwing out all of your work and replacing it with an objectively inferior solution with poor track record of long-term sustainability.

Better start looking for a new job. That company might not be in business for too long, judging from the choices that they're making. Especially, if they work in the IT space.
- For sure, already reaching out to recruiters and applying to some job postings.

Start your own company :-)

I don't think feeling sad in this situation is dumb at all
I'm with you in your pain Linux brother/sister... I'll drink a pint in your name tonight
- Thank you, I might join in spirit heh 👊

Your feelings are valid, that blows.
- Thank you 👊

Weres crowd strike windows shitting the bed when u need it

Quit?

That's a damn shame, I'm sorry! I hope you got to back up a few of your personal things, and if you didn't at least you have a bunch of knowledge to take onto your next project

That's not dumb. It's devastating. I'm not a linux user due to multiple of reasons and I'm sad about it. I'd be very sad if I was able to make it to the other side and then get taken back
- Thank you 👊

At the end of the day, they are just digital things. You had some great learning experiences with them. Now it's time to put those skills to use, and learn what's next that makes you happy.

Shutdown: noun
Shut down: verb
You can't straddle the lane.
- Harsh but fair, edited lol.
- shutdown: command

I get it. I've just been through a merger and the new head software delivery has plans on rewriting everything in their tech stack. He is in for an absolute fucking ride when he realises that such a rewrite will not take a year but 5 to 10 and will incapacitate our department for the entire time. In a rapidly evolving market. It is 3 decades of continuous and rapid feature expansions he's trying to unroll.
It's not FOSS though, so I'm not as invested in it, I'm just here to see him either fail utterly or get kicked due to his cognitive dissonance that'll cost our department in the tens or hundreds of millions.
- Oof, that's rough. My spouse is a software engineer and has been through a similar thing recently.
  
  Based om all the replies in this post it seems like it happens quite a lot. Or it all just happens now for some reason...

I always feel like the features I’ve worked on become my coworkers or like pets. When a specific feature breaks often, I’ll think “damnit Frank! One of these days I’m going to patch that edge case once and for all!”
Then I patch Frank and he quiets down so I can focus on the next thing leadership wants.
You get to know these things and you put care into designing them (if you didn’t put care into them, you’d likely be a hack of an IT person). It’s always hard to see them go.
Sorry for your loss.
- Thank you 🫶

Back in the 1990s I developed an app over the course of 6 years, first 3 in C/DOS then we ported that to C++/Borland/Win95 and continued developing it for another 3 years. I was the only coder, we had a dedicated tester / documentation specialist and the algorithms lead who was more of an idea guy than any hands-on code work.
We got bought out. Buyers "needed it in native Win32 because of the depth of the talent pool." Whatever, I'm here to help if they want it during porting. Buyers estimated 2 developers could port it in about 2-3 months. Yeah, o.k. Never asked for help, but at 6 months in they had expanded the dev team to 6 guys and were still struggling and looking to hire more. Ultimately they reduced scope a little and called it "ready to use" in Win32 after about 15 months. Glad they got it "maintainable" by switching to that Win32 dev environment with such a deep talent pool to hire from, they easily spent more man hours on the port than we spent developing it in the first place.

This is why I stopped giving a shit at work and not spending all the extra effort. It all just gets killed by some manager that doesn’t know what the hell they are talking about.

Man it does stink. Get some of them up on GitHub or Gitlab if you can.

it sucks that they teach us our code will live forever, so watch out for introducing bugs....
then the companies go under, designs change and you waste your life leaving behind nothing.
- Yeah, it's rough. I am trying to look on the bright side, that I learned a lot that will help my career going forward, and what I did implement worked very well and helped make a few people's lives easier.

I feel for you. Here's hoping the new system is clean.

That's very unfortunate but hopefully you developed skills that will help you in your future career.
- For sure, I've learned a ton in the last year. Hopefully I can land a Linux focused job this year and get away from Windows support once and for all.

Thank you for your service 🫡

It's natural to feel sad seeing your work undone. Start searching for a new gig and do the best you can to not have an emotional response to the stuff you dislike; that'll only make you exhausted and burned out.
I'm sorry your job got worse. Try to find where you can be happy again.
- Thank you 🤜🤛

You put lots of time and effort in. Now it will be discarded due to decisions of others.
Sad and/or disappointed feelings are normal.
Take care of yourself.
- I think we (as an industry) need to be honest to ourselves and admit that pretty much everything we're building is temporary. And not in a philosophical sense. 90% of the code I wrote in my about 10 years of professional work is probably gone by now - sometimes replaced by myself. In another ten years, chances are not a single line of code will have survived.
  
  But there are different types of temporary. Temporary because the code got updated/upgraded or new and better software got implemented feels fine. It feels like your work was part of the never ending march of technical progress. Temporary because it gets ripped out if favor of a different, inferior suite hits hard.
  If my code gets superseded by someone else's complete rewrite that is better, then I'm all for it. If my code gets thrown out because we're switching to a different, inferior system that is completely incompatible with my work, then that just hits like a ton of bricks.
  
  Everything is temporary, except for that 25 year old system that's keeping everything running and can't be replaced because nobody knows how or why it works just that if you touch it everything falls over.
- Thanks 🤜🤛

it feels sucky to see all my hours of hard work getting trashed without a second thought.
I'm an electronic security installer. You know how many times I've done stuff like install a complete 40+ camera CCTV system at a new store under construction only to be back at the same store a year later ripping it all out when it goes out of business? I know what that feels like.
Worst is when you come around for a regular store equipment refresh and recognize something you installed at that store ten years ago and start feeling real old...
Good luck wherever life takes you now.
- Sorry to hear that, sounds rough too! Thanks for the well wishes, I'm talking with a few different recruiters right now and applying to some positions.
  Still have my job currently, but hopefully I can make the jump soon to a Linux environment.
- I was assigned the installation of a whole industrial line for food packaging, multiple millions worth, on and off I spent like 8 months abroad forcing badly designed machines into working (I was the top tech and I resigned after this job), even ended up in the hospital, likely due to stress. Few months after I left, I go out drinking with a former colleague who had been on site with me, he says: "Well, I'm happy to inform you that, the customer hasn't called us for months! Means everything's working, great job!" and shook my hand.
  The following morning, another former colleague sends me the screenshot of a mail from the customer saying that the business opportunities didn't work out and they're decommissioning the line. Literal blood, sweat and tears, completely wasted.
- Many years ago I did post mix installs. Because we were subcontract, it was not unusual to install a system for one company, then replace it under the banner of another company, and then rip that out and install another system on behalf of the first company again.
  I can think of at least 3 different venues in our CBD that I swapped like that.
  What it did was make me real good at ensuring anything I installed was easy to follow and work with afterwards... Cause it was probably going to be me again lol

It's not dumb to feel sad about it. Enshittification is sad, especially when you see it from the inside.

I’m sorry, friend.
If any of those deployments included code you or your team wrote, I highly encourage archiving it in VCS somewhere, even if only internally.
Also do a formal write up of all the deployments and why each tech choice was made.
Your hard won knowledge and skills should be preserved somewhere.
- Got everything saved already. They are wiping my Linux laptop Wednesday and putting Windows 11 on it. Looking forward to my sleek and fast Thinkpad to get much slower and clunkier. 😮‍💨
  
  Oh buddy they’re wiping your laptop that sucks. Figured you were talking like servers and stuff (which is still bad.) if it’s company issued you don’t have a choice, but do they allow personal hardware to be connected? If so I’d just go buy my own thinkpad.

Yo, that's not being dumb. That's a legitimate complaint. The OS you use is a tool you use to effectively do your job. A welder would equally be upset if their boss swapped out their welder for an inferior one they are less familiar with.

- Yeah, I had some cool Ansible integrations, Docker containers running internal infrastructure monitoring, OSTicket FOSS ticketing system, Open Project for project management, Tailscale for secure remote access, etc.
  Oh well, I got a bunch of great experience building it, and I can still use that stuff on my own infrastructure at home.
  
  !selfhosted@lemmy.world and find yourself so many projects at home you'll never find time for anything but computers again :)
  
  And at your next job, at an employer who sees the value of FOSS and a nerd with strong Linux-fu!

It's not dumb to see something you've worked and put your heart on being gutted to make room for some bullshit.
- 🤜🤛

Absolutely feel you, kinda similar situation at work atm. What frustrates me the most is that none of the IT personnel understands my frustration because most are not in that kind of IT community and don't share the ideas behind all that. Just here to earn a dollar, whatever system we're working on. No intrinsic desire to make the world better or at least more secure, none of that. Just robots and bureaucrats.
- Yeah, the corporate style has already taken over. None of the new IT guys are mean or nasty, but they just don't care about FOSS. It doesn't even register with them.
  Talking about all my integrations is just met with blank stares and, "Linux huh? I remember learning a bit about that 10 years ago in tech school."
  It's just not even on their radar.
  
  that's actually really sad, IT of all people don't care about FOSS?
- My current work is going through this
  They dropped an open system we used but the team managing the new one is so bureaucratic and disconnected from the people actually doing work it’s ridiculous.
  They reject every proposal/change unless it’s 100% perfect. I had a project delayed by four weeks because I didn’t end single line docstrings with periods. They didn’t review the substance of the pr, they just commented on the docstrings and stopped as if the rest had no merit. It was two weeks between review cycles, so it took three cycles to actually fix what could have been one.
  That whole team is just clearly a make work program. They nitpick and bike shed on every issue. But they aggressively document all the make work they do so they look super busy and important to the execs.
  I just want to get work done, but instead it’s a Sisyphean effort.

foss forever, brother
- Absolutely 👊

Now be prepared for windows nagging you to update everyday
- but corporate policy is to let IT handle updates
  but Windows doesn’t like being ignored so it bypasses group policy and auto-updates

You're welcome to join me.

Libre software is for control of our own computing. We do not own other people's computers.