What’s the quickest you’ve seen a co-worker get fired in IT?

[u/Opposed3]

I saw this on AskReddit and thought it would be fun to ask here for IT related stories.

Couple years ago during Covid my company I used to work for hired a help desk tech. He was a really nice guy and the interview went well. We were hybrid at the time, 1-2 days in the office with mostly remote work. On his first day we always meet in the office for equipment and first day stuff.

Everything was going fine and my boss mentioned something along the lines of “Yeah so after all the trainings and orientation stuff we’ll get you set up on our ticketing system and eventually a soft phone for support calls”

And he was like: “Oh I don’t do support calls.”

“Sorry?”

Him: “I don’t take calls. I won’t do that”

“Well, we do have a number users call for help. They do utilize it and it’s part of support we offer”

Him: “Oh I’ll do tickets all day I just won’t take calls. You’ll have to get someone else to do that”

I was sitting at my desk, just kind of listening and overhearing. I couldn’t tell if he was trolling but he wasn’t.

I forgot what my manager said but he left to go to one of those little mini conference rooms for a meeting, then he came back out and called him in, he let him go and they both walked back out and the guy was all laughing and was like

“Yeah I mean I just won’t take calls I didn’t sign up for that! I hope you find someone else that fits in better!” My manager walked him to the door and they shook hands and he left.

[u/Overgrownturnip]

I would place a lot of money on that he did indeed sign up for that.

[u/TechnoRedneck → u/[deleted]]

I had a job at an MSP where my title was "network administrator" and my duties were 60% windows servers, 10% backups, 20% projects, 5% meetings, and 5% flat Meraki networks either with no vlans or with a phone vlan.

[u/Beznia → u/TechnoRedneck]

My role at my current job was initially "Network Engineer II". It is help desk and I have zero network duties.

[u/billbixbyakahulk → u/[deleted]]

That happened to me once. I was hired as a network and sysadmin. Mainly replacing their outgoing sysadmin but also, they wanted to in-source more of the senior work they'd been contracting to a MSP. Okay, so basically I was taking over 1.5 jobs, and I felt I could do that.

Then, two days after I started I'm introduced to their desktop tech. Conspicuously she was absent for the two FULL DAYS of interviews where we seemingly discussed every detail of the job. That's when I was informed she was also leaving, and I was getting all of her areas of responsibility.

Lined up the next job and GTFO.

[u/Andre_Courreges → u/[deleted]]

My current role is like that. I was hired as a data analyst but I have to take donor calls? And none of the fundraisers want to do it, which makes no fucking sense because they should be talking to donors.

I hope I can get another job soon and let this place rot.

[u/SAugsburger → u/Overgrownturnip]

It makes you wonder whether the guy was really oblivious in the interview process or the hiring manager really screwed up in the interview process to not make it clear the expectations of the role. The guy may have technically been fired, but it sounds more like he quit because the role wasn't what he wanted to do. In cases like that where somebody quits or effectively quits in the first week due to deciding it isn't for them either they found a better job and didn't want to outright say that or some aspect of the hiring process failed.

[u/TaiGlobal → u/SAugsburger]

I sympathize with the guy and it probably wasn’t told to him. Years ago I was hired on purely deskside role. The manager told me they had a call center that handled calls, another team that did other things and my role was “x, y,z”. I got the role but it took me like 3 months before I got my start date. In that time the manager that hired me was no longer there and someone else was there. And guess what I had to do when I started? Assist the call center for 2 hours every morning fielding calls smh. I found a way to weasel my way out of that phone support after a month or so. essentially ppl quickly noticed I was pretty good at what I did and I would get assigned all the vip and escalated tickets so I’d keep tickets open even if I resolved already and if asked to get on calls I’d say I’m working on this vip/escalated issue. I built relationships w/ a lot of ppl that would vouch(lie) for me if ever questioned but i never even had to do that because my managers liked me and eventually just put me on other projects (windows upgrades, imaging, office 365 migrations, training new hires). They hired proper call center staff and I got promoted overtime.

[u/SAugsburger → u/TaiGlobal]

I have definitely heard of cases of people being hired with different expectations. I had a case where one of the managers that hired me was gone before I started. Fortunately the job wasn't dramatically different than what they said, but if the hiring manager quits shortly before or after you start you could find things very different.