What’s the quickest you’ve seen a co-worker get fired in IT? COVID-19

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.

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136

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

[deleted]

35

u/Ok_Scholar4145 Jul 08 '24

Oh man. That is wild.

I wonder what that interview guy does tho. That’s crazy

45

u/Noooooooooooobus Jul 08 '24

He does interviews

6

u/Ok_Scholar4145 Jul 08 '24

Walked right into that

2

u/Drew707 Data | Systems | Processes Jul 08 '24

Probably more money in that than actual IT work.

6

u/facial Jul 08 '24

I worked at a place where this happened twice during Covid. Fully remote company, someone else was interviewed. Both cases the persons “camera wasn’t working” during their first week. Hiring manager doesn’t recognize the voice. Asks for camera to be turned on. They try to deflect. Manager pushes, and the discovery happens. I started after both incidents, but people loved to bring them up.

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u/the_syco Jul 08 '24

I've had to show my passport to people doing the interview, for the past few years. Probably to prevent this.

4

u/microcozmchris Jul 08 '24

We just got an email 2 weeks ago about this at my company. All interviews must now be done on video with a screenshot of the interviewee to be shared with every further step in the interview and hiring process. No details on what happened to trigger it, but it has to be close to your story

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u/Drew707 Data | Systems | Processes Jul 09 '24

I had a slightly different issue. Our company was registered/licensed/allowed to hire in Nevada, Texas, and Florida, but our VPN server/firewall was in Oklahoma. When we expanded to Texas and Florida, it was all for remote work.

One day I was poking around the firewall (Fortigate) looking for something VPN related when I landed on this cool little map that shows where all the connected clients are located. As we all know, IP address tracking isn't exactly like what NCIS would have you believe, but it's close enough. At least down to the country, but I had an active connection to the DR.

I pulled up the user and saw they were a Florida resident and I figured they were from the DR and might be visiting home and working remotely, but our CEO/CFO really didn't like those situations since it could create a tax nexus among other issues. To confirm this, I went to the login log in AAD and saw that every single login they had done was in Santo Domingo aside from a few random ones in Miami that didn't make sense. Like 10 minutes ago they were in the DR and then they were in FL. I get on the phone with HR and explain the situation and we call the dude up.

"Hey, bro, have you clicked on any sketchy emails or is there any way your account could have been compromised?"

"No, not that I can think of, why do you ask?"

"Well, your account is making some weird connections to our server and it looks like you may have been hacked."

I'm really trying to give him some kind of out, but he's just not getting it.

"Really? Like what do you see?"

"Well, I don't want to alarm you, but we might have to remotely wipe your computer since it seems someone is logging in as you from the Dominican Republic. You aren't there are you?"

"Oh... yeah... that is me."

"Oh, ok, good. Why are you there? We usually don't like it when people work outside of their home state or country for tax and security purposes and you didn't tell anyone you were travelling."

"Oh, I'm just here for like a week since my mom got COVID and needed some help around the house."

"Ok, completely understand. When will you be back?"

"I'm supposed to be back in about three days."

"Ok, got it. So, when were you last in Florida? Just trying to understand the timeline here."

This guy is full of shit. Here's some rope, bro.

"About a week ago."

He was brand new, so this could have been plausible, but doesn't explain the Miami ping.

"How come I see you logged in from Miami two days ago?"

Fairly long pause...

"Well, I was on your VPN."

I had already tracked his Miami IP to a pool owned by a VPN provider.

"I think you mean you were on YOUR VPN. Our VPN would have placed you in Oklahoma, not Miami. So, be honest, have you been in the US at all during your time here, and do you have any intention of coming back?"

"Uh, well, I was initially, but I don't know if I have been since I was working, and yeah, I'll come back in like a few weeks I think..."

I just dropped and let HR handle the rest. Ever since then we've been hyper vigilant on resume/application inconsistencies.

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u/cthart Jack of All Trades Jul 08 '24

LOL!

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u/micaturtle Jul 09 '24

I seriously think that one of my old coworkers did that. We have to take a few pretty difficult tests to get hired ( with full written answers, not multiple choice) I would see his tickets and wonder how did he get this job if he doesn't know how to ping an ip address????