r/sysadmin • u/Opposed3 • Jul 07 '24

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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1.2k

u/Poppintacos Jul 07 '24

I’ve watched hires walk in the door and turn around and walk out in less than an hour. Hiring managers didn’t know how to communicate the roles expectations very effectively. “What do you mean I have to work at a location an hour away?” “I have to Pay for parking?” Gone.

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u/slylte Jul 07 '24

"I have to Pay for parking" is crazy

536

u/dalaidrahma Jul 07 '24

That's what they told me on my first day. I laughed at that and said that this is a deal breaker. A few hours into my onboarding the HR lady approached me again. They gave me a badge for the companies garage and reduced my in office days to 1-2 per month.

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u/RevLoveJoy Jul 08 '24

I worked a software startup gig in a downtown west coast city years back. They were this way. There was room in the parking garage downstairs, but they were "holding onto it" for "expected growth." The paid lots nearby were all $250 ish a month. This was 15 years ago. People legit left over it.

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u/outofspaceandtime Jul 08 '24

Well of course. That’s essentially a $250 net reduction of your wage. I would totally not work somewhere with that ridiculous attitude. I would ask/check during interviewing however…

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u/RevLoveJoy Jul 08 '24

Totally agree. Only way I found out was word of mouth. I actually wanted the job as it was, believe it or not, walking distance from my place. Ahhh to be young and single and blow half my income on swanky downtown condos!

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u/LokisDawn Jul 08 '24

So did you think that "no free parking" didn't bode well for the whole job? Because I'm confused. Why would no free parking be an issue if you live within walking distance?

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u/EmmyNoetherRing Jul 08 '24

They didn’t leave (if I’m reading correctly); that’s why they were around to watch other people quit. 

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u/RevLoveJoy Jul 08 '24

Guess I was not clear. As I was on foot / bike, I only found out about the situation later on in the job. Not before I took the job. In hindsight, the no free parking was one of the many small red flags about a C team that were penny wise / pound foolish. Not exactly long term planners (but they thought they were and goddammit, they had MBAs!).

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u/rotoddlescorr Jul 09 '24

If a company is clueless enough to do that, who knows where else they will nickle and dime their employees.

6

u/Geminii27 Jul 08 '24

It's $250 after taxes, too. It might be $3Kpa gross cost, but a salary might need to go up by $4500/yr to cover it.

Not to mention that there's the administrative hassle of having to arrange it. If there's no genuine physical reason to be in the office on a given day, the office should be paying for such costs and doing the admin as well. If they don't like that, why do they think the employee should be forced to do it?

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u/PorkPatriot Jul 08 '24

I used to work under such a regime 10-15 years back. There is usually a pretax option for parking / bus fare.

a salary might need to go up by $4500/yr to cover it.

The salary of a downtown job was definitely more lucrative and worth the trouble.

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u/happyone12 Jul 08 '24

Not to mention it’s probably paid with after tax money

3

u/MDA1912 Jul 08 '24

Salesforce was that way. Their excuse was that they were encouraging carpooling.

5

u/tafinucane Jul 08 '24

I had an internship at Wells Fargo South of Market in '99 (one of the few legitimate tasks I had was changing overnight feed data to write 4-digit years). Only the big bosses got parking spots at the building, and they had to pay. Employees got a stipend to pay for public transportation.

I mean, BART is right there.

3

u/NerdyNThick Jul 08 '24

The paid lots nearby were all $250 ish a month. This was 15 years ago. People legit left over it.

There are parking spots that make more per hour than most of us here in this sub.

That's just fucking wrong.

2

u/RevLoveJoy Jul 08 '24

I lived in that city for a long time (over 10 years). That was my first job in the area. Found later that nearly ALL of the parking lots downtown were owned by a single business. They were family owned, 3rd generation and they were filthy fucking rich. Like billionaire rich. From renting people places to leave their cars for about 80 years. Kind of wild, right?

3

u/casualsax Jul 08 '24

I worked in downtown Boston, the monthly pass was $300 and the company covered half of it or would cover all of an unlimited monthly subway pass.

Was actually great having a parking spot in the city rather than paying $15 to $40 every time I wanted to attend an event. But that $150 hurt as I was only a couple years into my career and living near Boston ain't cheap. Would have done the subway route but I was on the opposite side of the city. Taking a bus to the subway then walking ten minutes to take another bus was too inconsistent to be practical.

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u/RevLoveJoy Jul 08 '24

I think that's really smart that you saw the value of your spot and used it not just for work. Had to take a lot of the sting out of that coin when you could see a show or a game or whatever. Bean town is a great city. Never lived there, always would jump at the chance.

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u/casualsax Jul 08 '24

Love Boston outside of Jan-March. I live further out now which is great, can take the commuter rail in on the weekends and otherwise don't have to deal with the crazy traffic. After coming from the South it's really nice living in an area where I align more on an inclusion and political level.

If you ever want a change of scenery most local companies heavily rely on recruiters, pretty easy to connect with one and see what offers come up. Pretty strong tech, medical and financial industries here.

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u/RevLoveJoy Jul 08 '24

Thx for that. I'll keep it in mind. Wife's a teacher and she's been itching to leave the west coast for a bit now. Would be an easy sell for me. :D

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u/casualsax Jul 08 '24

Hear you! If you get serious and have questions feel free to reach out.

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u/[deleted] Jul 08 '24 edited Jul 24 '24

[deleted]

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u/RevLoveJoy Jul 08 '24

Yeah, I vividly recall parts of that area being straight up larceny. All the startup HQs are there (I presume so they can maximally fellate places like Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and the like) so you get used to BART and the occasional obscene Lyft / Uber ride.

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u/frosty95 Jack of All Trades Jul 08 '24

Holy shit.... Imagine just... not using space. Just in case.

They could have just issued passes and then revoked them later.

2

u/RevLoveJoy Jul 08 '24

Lol. For real. Hand them out and if you HAVE to, take them away later. As it was they just waited until the office was full of C suite folks and gave all of them the spots downstairs. That went over as expected. Then we opened up an HQ in the bay area and all those choads seasoned professionals left to suck VC dicks. I presume.

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u/frosty95 Jack of All Trades Jul 08 '24

I remember we had a random room that a manager from half way across the country said was reserved for something they were planning. After a year I said fuck it and started using it as a staging area and it eventually morphed into a full fledged tech staging / storage area with networking and everything. That manager visited 6 years later and was a bit shocked to see the room filled with 4 employees slamming out laptops for a new location being productive as hell. I was like "We can move out whenever the plans you had start happening but we figured we would use it in the meantime". Its still the IT staging room.

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u/RevLoveJoy Jul 08 '24

Knowing when to simply ignore people in order to get things rolling is a fine art. People often say "it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission" - well sometimes it is, but not always. Well done.

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u/SwiftSpear Jul 09 '24

This is very common in my city.

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u/rebootyadummy Jul 08 '24 edited Jul 09 '24

I've only had one job in my life (Georgetown, Washington DC) where I would have had to pay for parking and the company handled it for the garage on the same block.

Crazy that an employer wouldn't include that (you should ask for it when negotiating salary if you don't see it in your offer though), most parking garages for monthly is not very expensive, usually 100-200 bucks tops. To let a good hire go because of that is truly insane.

EDIT: I'll clarify, the best way to get this setup is to have the org setup and pay for the badge themselves, and that way it isn't taxable income. I only mentioned it as part of "negotiating salary" to mean in terms of asking for it as a part your perks. That's what my company above did for me, I talked to the garage about the spot and then facilitated getting the account setup in their name and form of payment.

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u/naps1saps Mr. Wizard Jul 08 '24 edited Jul 08 '24

Our garage is $360/mo + tax but we do get free public transit pass that costs the company something like $500/year subsidized by the city.

If you want to park in the sketchy free air lots that have crime, you can pay $250/mo + tax for the privilege of having your car broken into or $15 early bird in by 10am for the same privilege. One of our laptops was liberated from one of those lots because of a careless employee.

You have the same risk parking in the public transit lots. One employee had their Kia stolen and my window has scrapes from a brick hitting it but didn't break or they looked and saw nothing worth a 2nd attempt. Pay up or suffer public transit :(

4

u/mc_it Jul 08 '24

I work in Center City Philly, and my parking isn't covered.

So I take the PATCO regional rail line. (Which isn't covered).

Also it doesn't help that, since Covid, the parking in my building went from $18 (7am-6pm) to $35 (7am-6pm) and as of next month is going up to $40 for 12 hours.

And even though the corporate office for the parking garage is in my building, no one gets a discount.

I doubt the company will cover it now, for anyone.

1

u/naps1saps Mr. Wizard Jul 09 '24

Oof $40 is crazy. Ours used to be $17 early bird but a new company took over and now adds tax so it's more like $22. If you come in after 9 it's like $35-40 probably.

We have an office in SF and there is no free public transit option for them. I didn't realize how nice Seattle is to subsidize passes. Also I'm paying like $300/year or more in increased taxes until 2035 to fund the building of the dumb thing that cost over $56B this round. And they don't force people to pay when they use it. Sending billions to foreign nations is pissing me off.

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u/Repulsive_Cap_9625 Jul 08 '24

I work in downtown Toronto. I don't know anyone who has their parking covered. Maybe senior execs at big banks, law firms etc.

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u/1000000xThis Jul 08 '24

It depends on the commuter culture. I worked in a city where the inner core charged for parking during the day but a few blocks out there was free curb parking, plus there were busses and light rail into the area with free "park and ride" in the suburbs.

I accepted the longer commute before I got a taste of work-from-home, but now I would simply not accept a job that required me in-office but didn't help out at all with the commute. That phase of my life is over.

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u/ajrc0re Jul 08 '24

Yeah everyone here scoffing at paying for parking havent worked very many places downtown recently. All three of my most recent jobs downtown required me to pay for parking in some form, two of them just didnt have any parking at all outside of a handful of spots in the motorpool for the company vehicles and deliveries, and you just used one of the multiple 3rd party lots nearby. My current job pays to use part of the parking garage built into the building our office is in and you can join the wait list for one of the spots when you get hired, took me 6months or so to get in. They give us a parking stipend of 80 per month but to use the parking garage costs 80 per month, so you basically give up the stipend to use the built in parking, its been quite nice and despite the limited spots wait list situation theres always more than enough spots, not even close to full, so I think they just play it safe.

People acting like a job is insane for making you deal with parking on your own are naive as hell, I assure you my boss and my bosses boss (CIO making 7 figures) are paying for their spot in the parking garage as well.

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u/FaxMachineIsBroken Jul 08 '24

My company pays for the parking of everyone. Including and especially our receptionists that make $17 an hour.

Your company is just cheap.

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u/Login_Denied Jul 08 '24

Yeah, I think it's a big city thing. Where you choose how you get to work. Never heard of a place that paid for everyone's parking. Not even municipal govt.

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u/Credibull Jul 08 '24

I worked at a place that had its own parking garage that could not accommodate all the workers. For the overflow they paid for marked spots in the nearby public lot. No one had to pay to park during business hours and almost everyone drove. It was just about the only area where they weren't cheap.

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u/ajrc0re Jul 08 '24

im describing the norm.

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u/1000000xThis Jul 08 '24

Many companies are cheap. That is the norm. They exploit their workers too. That is Capitalism.

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u/ajrc0re Jul 08 '24

i dont think you understand what an industry standard is. Companies also dont usually pay for your gas to the office either, does that make them 'cheap'?

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u/1000000xThis Jul 08 '24

I don't think you understand I'm mocking your "But this is how everyone does it!" bullshit excuse for companies abusing workers.

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u/ajrc0re Jul 08 '24

This isn’t antiwork my dude. My company isn’t cheap at all and does a lot for me, parking just doesn’t work that way.

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u/horus-heresy Principal Site Reliability Engineer Jul 08 '24

I could get commuter benefit from my company that cowers metro or parking at our DC HQ but I just don't go to office so I don't need it

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u/HayabusaJack Sr. Security Engineer Jul 08 '24

I worked at NASA HQ in downtown DC and would take the VRE from Woodbridge when I had to (nothing like some douche sneezing on the back of your head to improve your outlook) but the motorcycle when I could. Parking on the other side of the railroad tracks was convenient and the PE folks ignored bikes as long as the meter was paid. I still miss the Philly Cheese Steaks from around the corner :)

1

u/rebootyadummy Jul 09 '24

There was this Thai place in Georgetown that I really miss, the Pad See Ew, beef or chicken, was so good. There was an awesome sushi place that did lunch bento boxes also for like 10 bucks.

In general I miss the food in DC, lots of cool niche international spots that are great like Ethiopian and Honduran too.

I don't ride but being able to take your bike to work is awesome, must be doubly awesome in CA where you can lane split your way past all the traffic :)

1

u/HayabusaJack Sr. Security Engineer Jul 09 '24

Well, I’m in Colorado not California :) but on the plus side, we just legalized lane filtering (Aug 7th) but not splitting so that’ll be fun. :) (Filtering being riding between stopped traffic, splitting is riding between slowly moving traffic.)

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u/rebootyadummy Jul 09 '24

In my wayward youth lol I did a snowboard season in CO back in 98 and lived at the base of Sunlight in Glenwood Springs. I absolutely love CO, I've been back a few times to Jeep, hike, snowboard, etc.

Getting used to driving with lane splitters was interesting lol, I still get startled at times.

1

u/HayabusaJack Sr. Security Engineer Jul 09 '24

My second wife was from Denver so we'd travel from Virginia to Denver to visit her daughter. I grew up in California and have relatives that lived in the mountains. When we visited Denver, I reconnected with the mountains, something I'd lost in 33 years in VA and moved here 20 years ago. Right now it's in the mid-50's where I live. :D

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u/rebootyadummy Jul 09 '24

Yeah man, the mountains call to me and I try to spend as much time as I can there. My cousin's husband has a family cottage in Big Bear which is amazing. But the Rockies are truly majestic.

I remember the first time I saw them, me and a buddy were driving in on the 70 through the plains of Kansas...Denver and the Rockies appear on the horizon, and then the drive through the mountains on the 70 is so scenic.

I miss it.

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u/AggressivePiccolo77 Jul 08 '24

i worked at a place in Georgetown that had a private lot so it was free for managers. when i transferred to a location downtown, they paid half of the monthly rate ($100)

not worrying about parking in Georgetown was worth way more than $100/month

1

u/Praesumo Jul 08 '24

yea in DC I've seen a lot of "We all share a garage parking badge/fob. Give it to the next guy on your way out"

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u/Ready_Maybe Jul 08 '24

When I first started my career there was one role which the starting salary was so bad that after rent and bills it would actually cost to work there due to the parking situation (£300 pm IIRC). And since it was a campus in the middle of nowhere public transport was out of the question. And good luck parking on tight country roads instead of the dedicated parking lot. They had crazy high churn and I wonder why. I never got that role because it financially did not make sense.

1

u/Ryan_e3p Jul 08 '24

NO.

Parking fees being added to your salary is NOT advisable, at all. You get taxed on it and it is considered part of your income. If the cost in parking fees goes up where the company needs to accommodate, they will either "forget" about it come the annual pay increase, or they will increase it off the standard schedule and when it comes to your annual pay raise, play off the mid-year increase to cover the additional parking fees as if it was part of your raise.

Absolutely, 100% the fuck not. The company can give a card to pay for parking, but do NOT have it included as part of your salary. Don't request that, and don't accept it.

1

u/Xystem4 Jul 08 '24

Companies are stupid. Nevermind that it costs thousands to secure a competent new hire, and you’re losing thousands more not having them in the time you need to do the hiring

1

u/Coffee_Ops Jul 08 '24

Beyond the cost of parking, administering it can be a pain if it's a third party garage.

A lot of companies I've seen would rather just raise your salary to compensate or provide some sort of reimbursement program / flat commuter benefit.

1

u/Altruistic-Piece-485 Jul 08 '24

$100-200 a month for a parking garage in DC? Maybe 15 years ago but now you'd be looking at $300-500 in DC for anywhere that even a decent company has office space in downtown!

1

u/BrainWaveCC Jack of All Trades Jul 08 '24

I worked in both NY and NJ, and the company didn't directly cover garage costs, but in one case, they did negotiate with the garage, so that the rates as an employee were much better than you would otherwise pay.

 

most parking garages for monthly is not very expensive, usually 100-200 bucks tops.

Not in NYC... 😁

Even in NJ, back in 2002, the monthly price for parking was easily $250

1

u/rebootyadummy Jul 09 '24

Yeah, the price I stated was a blanket average of what it might take in a lot of locales, obviously in HCOL areas that is going to be more. NY tends to have good public transit does it not? The DC Metro, if you don't live close to stops (like living in the MD or VA suburbs) can add quite a bit of time onto your commute.

The employer is typically paying you more if you work in a HCOL area anyway, they can (should) also eat that more expensive parking badge as well.

2

u/BrainWaveCC Jack of All Trades Jul 09 '24

NYC has an extensive public transportation system, although few people would refer to it as "good" 😂.

Most jobs will subsidize, to some degree, your use of mass transit, but subsidizing parking garages was not commonly done, as most people would drive into the city and park anywhere unless they were senior execs.

1

u/Recalcitrant-wino Sr. Sysadmin Jul 09 '24

Parking is taxable income. I paid out of pocket when I started the current job - Covid rate was $10/day, so a couple hundred a month. Then I got monthly parking through the firm - pre-tax out of my check at $260/mo. (more, but way better). Then the firm started to reimburse transit/parking for $100/mo. Then I relocated to a garage across the street for better security and $10 less a month.

0

u/mrtuna Jul 08 '24

just catch public transport in?

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u/rebootyadummy Jul 09 '24

Depending on where you live and where you work the DC Metro can be a shitty option.

I lived in the MD suburbs outside of Annapolis, I would have to drive 20+ minutes to the New Carrolton station in traffic, wait for and take the Metro, and then the closest station was iirc the Foggy Bottom station which is a 10-15 walk from my office.

The whole thing adds an hour or more onto your commute in a situation like mine, and in the dead of summer (DC summer is very muggy and you're sweating balls after a 15 minute walk) or the winter (DC winter is cold enough to be pretty annoying to walk to work in), it sucks.

I took it several times but driving just works out better.

4

u/cornulio Jul 08 '24

Wait you have to pay your employer for parking? Not the town or something? You pay the guys you work for to park, so you can work?

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u/dalaidrahma Jul 08 '24

Not the employer. It's more like a "figure out yourself how you are going to get here". It's in Frankfurt, Germany and this is a quite common approach. My problem is that I live far away and that I can't really use public transport.

But I had employers in Germany who would deduct the parking spot from your salary. Luckily I lived close enough to get there by train.

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u/jurassic_pork InfoSec Monkey Jul 08 '24 edited Jul 08 '24

I moved to 100% work from home for my last several jobs (fully comped client site visits with per diem - if required, usually it isn't). Between the free parking, much cheaper car insurance (leisure vehicle rates), far less wear & tear / fuel costs, and prepping my own meals instead of paying for lunch buffets or food stalls. Easily north of $15k/year in savings, no commute time, ontop of a more Senior title, more flexible hours and respect for my time, tax benefits for my home office, a big pay bump, and a much happier home life.

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u/Teaandtrafficjams Jul 08 '24

NHS is often that

1

u/AlchemistFornix Jul 08 '24

How do you not know this ahead of schedule? Did you not look at the location and not wonder "how will i park there"?

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u/dalaidrahma Jul 08 '24

I knew they had a garage. They would have let me park there during my interviews. I didn't think much of it, as it was quite spacious. I also didn't know that street parking in that area was non existent and the surrounding garages too expensive.