Politics vs. What's Right - long, sorry

Happy Friday everyone....

I've gone from a fast paced environment (small company), to an extremely fast paced environment (dot-com) , to my current employer (large company) that is so bogged down in politics that nothing is done 'right'.   Even the tapes aren't switched for the backups on a regular basis - it's so bad that the operators will pop a tape out and push it right back in, and there's no protection on the backup files.  In other words, backups may or may not work. 

I am not the one responsible for the db I am referring to above.  The person who is claims that there's nothing much he can do other than complain to his boss, who complains to someone else (in another state) and suppossedly "comes down" on the operators.  This has been going on for months and months.  So as we were talking, he says to me, What would you do?  Play the game, try to slowly change the system, or buck it?  Well, since he's been taking the route of slow change, I said BUCK IT.  I gave him three alternatives and even suggested either 1. quantifying the loss of one day's worth of data, or even being down for 10 minutes, or 2. flying out there and meeting the operators/their manager face to face and explain what the impact is, or do both.  He said #2 would be viewed as going around his boss (well, don't do it without talking to your boss first, you clown).  I also said, What's your #1 priority?  He said, Keep my job.  I said, yes, but a dba's job is to always be able to recover, dude, you know that!

There's a lot more than this situation above that is stuck in a political game.  Most notably, funds for the project I am suppossed to work on - coincidentally, we have no hardware. 

I may be blowing off steam here, and if that's what you think I am sorry.  However I'd be interested in what angle you would take.  I am NOT a politician - I am very candid and frank.  I am no buttkisser.  This is gonna be difficult and I honestly don't know if I want to stick around for this.  How many of you have been in this type of situation?

Thanks

Lisa Koivu
Oracle DataBORED Administrator
954-935-4117

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