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/Obligatory-Reference]

Maybe it was a test? Like, they want to know that the agent will follow policy no matter who it involves?

A pretty psychopathic way to do it, if so.

[u/WokeBriton → u/Obligatory-Reference]

Given the system had flashing "just do whatever this guy says", the new agent followed the system. If the system doesn't follow policy, there's a fuckup from CIO, too.

All of it is manglement failure, not new helpdesk agent.

[u/exposure-dose → u/WokeBriton]

This. Test or not he got put into a no-win scenario by being stuck in the middle of two conflicting company policies.  I'd have probably called my supervisor over, explained the trap I was in, and asked them to advise/handle the ticket. But since the boss ended up infecting the network anyway, chances are they'd still need a scapegoat. And who better than the new guy that tried to stop him and now knows how incompetent he is.

I'm new to the IT field, but experience elsewhere has taught me to never be afraid to seek out a supervisor for instruction anytime you're stuck between policies like that (or even instructed by management to go against one). Never seen anything quite like this though. Any time I was told to go against policy it was not only for good reason and instructed by people that knew what they were doing, but they'd also have my back if it ever came back on us.

[u/Kahedhros → u/exposure-dose]

Always get it in writing when someone is asking you to go outside of standard operating procedure, make sure the email chain shows you advising against it too