Under Fire Decision Making…

Early in my career I was the entire IT department for a midsize public relations and Motorsports marketing enterprise. We did work for some of the most famous folks and brand names in several Motorsports industries. But on this particular day in May 2000, something else was racing around and causing havoc never seen on a racetrack. The “ILOVEYOU” worm! The day started normal enough but in the blink of an eye became a hailstorm of IT calls to my desk. Luckily for me, many of the computer users on this day were not in the office since they were out doing what public relations people do. The few in the office however were hammered with the worm. Losing files, infecting others including clients, family, friends, media outlets, you name it, the mess was both entering and exiting our network and it had to be stopped or at the very least slowed down. I had to do something drastic. We went dark… I pulled the internet plug and I did it without asking permission. Now the fun began, while simultaneously being chastised for not communicating my outage schedule or anything for that matter, I began my mission to eradicate all traces of the worm while also inoculating workstations, MANUALLY! This was far from optimal but it was the best that could be done with the available resources (me). For the next couple of days I scrubbed EVERY file on every computer the company owned and a few it didn’t. I was exhausted and very weary of what I needed to do next. I returned to the small closet where our broadband connection entered the building. I literally trembled as I collected the business end of the Ethernet cable I had unplugged days before while contemplating how bad it could be if I had missed someone’s workstation. “Click” indicator lights now flickering confirming the cable is now properly seated in its port. For a moment I stood in silence listening for my name to be called. Nothing, silence, no one was looking for me. Was the network even up? After scouting several offices and cubicles for connectivity status I was told that we were in fact up and it was working great! Sadly, most of our clients were not out of the woods just yet and for a few it was several more days before they had online functionality at all. While my decision was very unpopular at the time it did allow us to be back up and running days before others, many of whom had substantially more IT resources at their disposal.

Regardless of the outcome, on rare occasions, making a quick decision may be the only decision you have. If you’re right, you’re a hero. If you’re wrong, you learn something valuable that may pay dividends in the future. No decision and you are neither the hero nor educated.