The Quiet, Necessary Insurrection
The blue circle spins. It has been spinning for exactly 14 minutes. I am staring at the corporate VPN login screen, a digital gatekeeper that seems to believe its primary purpose is to keep me from doing the very job I was hired to do. Across the office, Sarah from Marketing is tapping her phone screen with a rhythmic intensity that suggests she isn’t checking her social feed. She’s uploading the final 44 high-resolution campaign assets to a personal Google Drive because the official company server decided to go on a strike 4 hours ago. It is a quiet, polite, and totally necessary insurrection. We call it Shadow IT when we want to sound like security consultants, but in the heat of a deadline, we just call it ‘finishing the work.’
I lost an argument about this 24 days ago. He talked about ‘protocol’; I talked about ‘gravity’ and ‘human nature.’ I am winning the reality because my private Slack group-the one IT doesn’t know exists-is humming with more productivity than our official Microsoft Teams channel has seen in 64 weeks.
It’s like watching a dam leak and having the person in charge tell you that water isn’t actually wet. Shadow IT isn’t a security breach waiting to happen; it is a map of your organization’s biggest failures. They are choosing the path of least resistance, which is also the path of most output.
Shadow Clockmaking: The Intentional Deviation
‘The manual was written by people who don’t have to listen to the clock skip a beat in the middle of a humid July. I use this because it works. If I followed the rules, this clock would be back on my bench in 24 months. If I use this, I won’t see it again for 34 years.’
– Anna D., Clock Restorer
Anna D. is a practitioner of Shadow Clockmaking. She understands that official guidelines are often written for a sterilized version of reality. Most employees live in the real world, navigating the friction of 14 different password resets. When we ignore the individual for the institution, we create a vacuum, and humans will always fill it with whatever tool is within reach.
Loyalty to Sound, Not Standard
The precision reminds me of high-end luthiery. A master violin maker understands that the ‘official’ way to sand spruce might not coax out the best tone. This respect for intended design, but ultimate loyalty to performance, is visible in the craftsmanship at
Di Matteo Violins. If performance requires deviation, they deviate.
If you are a leader, do not call security. Go sit with the person using the unapproved tool. They are handing you the blueprints for a better organization, and all they’re asking in return is that you stop making it so hard for them to do their jobs.
Prioritizing the Rushing River
Security of Oversight
Risk of Progress
We prioritize the ‘security’ of the stagnant pond over the ‘danger’ of the rushing river. But rivers move things. Ponds just grow algae. The risk of a team that can’t communicate is harder to quantify on a spreadsheet, so we pretend it doesn’t exist.
“The experts weren’t the ones who had to climb the stairs of the clock tower to fix it when it failed. I was. So now, I trust my own hands. I trust what I see on the bench.”
Fueling the Fire, Not Extinguishing It
Shadow IT lives in the gap where the 24-year-old interns know more about collaborative software than the 54-year-old CIOs. It is a refusal to accept “that’s just how it’s done.” The corporate contract is broken when our personal lives are better equipped than our professional ones.
The True Genius of Shadow IT
The genius is in the spirit of the person who refuses to give up: “I am getting this client their files, regardless of the VPN.” That is the energy you should be fueling.
The man in the sharp suit wasn’t trying to be difficult; he was scared of the holes in the bucket, failing to notice the bucket was empty because no one wanted to use it. If you see Shadow IT, don’t send a memo. Ask what the unofficial tool does better. You might find they’ve done 444 hours of market research for you for free.
The Blue Circle Stops Spinning
In the end, the blue circle on my screen finally stops spinning. It times out. Connection lost. I look over at Sarah. She catches my eye and gives me a small, conspiratorial nod. She’s already sent the files. The client is happy. The work is done. The ‘shadow’ has won again, and the world is better for it.
Work Completed
Client Happy
Fire Fueled
It is a messy way to run a company, perhaps. But it is a very human way to solve a problem. I’ll spend my remaining time thinking about grandfather clocks and the way a little bit of unofficial grease can keep the world turning when the official oil fails.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll bring in my own space heater. It’s 14 degrees in here, and I’m tired of being cold in the name of a ‘smart’ building that clearly didn’t graduate from the school of common sense.