Rate Glimpses of Real Life

Thoughts and emotions are weird. Sometimes something happens that really sticks more than it should. I sort of get why people can fly off the handle, even if I really believe adults ought to be able to rein those reactions in some.

This requires some setup...

A couple weeks ago at work, I noticed an email from someone at Adobe. It mentioned being a third attempt at contact and, sure enough, I had brushed off the previous two as likely-spam. When I got to looking closer, however, it appeared legit. Valid email. Email headers that all checked out. I've certainly never been asked by Adobe previously to confirm software assurance, but the license agreement(s) allow for it. A Teams meeting followed to discuss the process and scanning tools were provided. Of course, I've scanned those for possible viruses, checked what I could see of them, and reviewed the output. They all seem to genuinely be fairly simple - scanning computers for file name keyword matches to Adobe program names and compiling a spreadsheet of paths to those files. It's a little odd to be asked to go through the process, but I've seen no security risks.

The main tool scans over Active Directory and takes a while, but seems fine. The Macs on our network, while attached to the directory, don't interface as well, so we get a tool that has to be run locally. Given that several of our Mac uses work remote at least part time, I draft an email asking them to run the tool and provide the results. While writing, I admit to myself if it were more generic, it would sound like spam, but options are somewhat limited.

This goes about as expected until someone on our web team questions back. At this point, I'm fine with being questioned - it proves this is a reasonably savvy user who recognizes an email asking them to run something should raise some red flags.

Then, when I explain, he argues further and tells others (not even me directly) that he outright won't comply.

This is where I experienced, for the first time in I don't even know how long, a flash of utter rage - the starting of a flush, pressure building behind my eyes. That was intense, if brief.

And since then, the situation's been on my mind. 

I can say I feel insulted at the continued insinuation that I've fallen for some scam. Admittedly, I'm never 100% convinced myself, but I do believe I've been fully cautious and diligent in pursuing the matter. Heck, the Mac tool is even more transparent than the PC one, as you can see exactly what is being executed.

I'm also offended by the resistance itself. I usually describe my job as "enabling other employees to do their jobs." If I need to do some update or software install, I try to work around them as much as possible. I have a lot of experience at my place of employment and I know a lot of things, yet for most questions that come to me, I defer to someone else as the final word (ie. "I can tell you exactly what the system is doing, but whether that is how it should be is something a department manager needs to address"). But this is an IT issue. That's sort of the one thing that is mine.

So yeah, even a day later, I'm a little sore about it and still have a few options open to me as I see it.

1. Totally ignore the issue. Even without an official from-the-scanning-tool csv file, I can report that his computer has a full Creative Cloud Suite license, which is accurate.
2. Get on his computer at some point and run the tool myself.
3. Press the issue by directing him to turn the computer over for the time it takes to run the tool myself.

The latter actually sounds a little gratifying. I think spite is a thing that actually has a lot of potential to motivate me. But my morality says making things more unpleasant for anyone is bad and it's not likely to make me feel better long-term.