Re: Question on ACS and working with the IFS....

On Fri, Feb 5, 2021 at 11:46 AM Rob Berendt <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Remember that the only use for adopted authority when working with IFS is so that you can get access to another user profile to perform a swap profile.
Then, once you swap profile, you no longer are running under your current profile. All your ownership, audit journal entries, security authorization, etc now are for this swapped profile.

Sure, that may well be what the situation *is*, but Andrew's
description of what the situation *should be* is not unreasonable at
all. From a purely logical standpoint, it makes sense and seems like
it ought to be technically feasible.

I know that sometimes implementation details are convoluted and less
flexible than anyone would like them to be. From the outside looking
in, it seems like something ought to be feasible, but from the inside,
it might not be. As someone who receives such requests from other
people and is tasked with implementing them if I can, I totally get
this.

I also know that IBM has limited resources. (Even if those resources
aren't necessarily "small", they are finite, and there are lots of
priorities vying for them.) So I am willing to cut IBM some slack in
terms of not getting things to work the way we would like. But what I
don't have any patience for is IBM's shitty way of talking to people.

They really should just say: "Hey, we understand what you are asking
for. It's a completely reasonable-sounding request. But unfortunately,
[the underlying architecture/design decisions made early
on/interactions with other parts of the system that we really can't
change/our shortage of resources/etc.] make it impractical for us to
work on at this time."

Yeah, it still ultimately amounts to "we can't/won't change it, so you
just have to deal", but they could deliver it in a way that respects
the asker's time and intelligence, and gives the impression that they
listen, understand, and give a damn.

Instead, all too often we get "too bad, so sad". Or the subtle
implication that we are stupid for not understanding how the system
works, or entitled for being unhappy with the status quo.

At IBM prices, that is not the kind of treatment we should be tolerating.

John Y.