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Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

At most of the companies I've worked, low-grade managers love to hoard secrets. It makes them feel powerful. Someone gets promoted from Lower Level Manager Grade 4 to Lower Level Manager Grade 5 and they feel all "Oooh! Look at the new things I know!"

My mother-in-law is like this with knowing what various relatives are doing. Being the gatekeeper of knowledge gives her imagined power. I guess it's just part of the human condition.

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Why limit it to low-grade managers?

I know sysadmins and programmers who behave exactly they same way. They could give you permission or a script to do the thing you need to do but they'd rather have you come to them and ask them to do it. Gives them a sense of purpose, I guess.

Being such a person that fixes lots of stuff for other people nothing I do is secret but learning to do it seems too hard for most. What I do is try to delegate if I find people that do want to learn.

If someone shows me they are good at something they are going to have to expect being sent trickier problems.

Sometimes it might seem like I keep things a secret. I am probably just having a bad day.

That has an awful lot to do with what "the thing" is. I'm sure there are a few people out there doing it just to feel more important, but often there's a good reason for denying someone access - either it's just a terrible idea to begin with or they don't know you well enough to trust you without someone else (i.e. their boss) specifically requesting it.

I could be off base here about your experience, but I know that some people made the same comments about me when I pushed back on sharing dangerous credentials with inexperienced coworkers. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

It may depend on what the script is for or the system being used. Segregation of duties is a risk mitigation principle of ISO 27001 to reduce fraud, waste, and error.

i feel for sysadmins it's more a case of: we gave developers permissions and they made a mess of the system because they just copy / paste whatever drivel they saw from SO / an LLM, so unfortunately we have to limit your permissions.

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