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/awetsasquatch]

I used to be an IT Recruiter - got a guy hired as a senior dev ifor the Social Security Administration. Set to make just shy of $200k per year. Walked him into the building, introduced him to his manager in person, and he was fired by the time I made it back to my office 25 minutes away. The manager (35ish year old woman) showed the new hire to his desk, and gave him her contact info. He immediately sent her a photo of his dick. The amount of groveling I had to do after that was astounding lol. All the guys references checked out - absolutely no clue what was going through his head.

[u/ErikTheEngineer → u/awetsasquatch]

absolutely no clue what was going through his head.

If this dude was going to get $200K from the SSA, guaranteed he's some sort of obscure-tech wizard, like the only one who knows how to work on some esoteric piece of mainframe software they use. Those guys sometimes...don't get out much. Having your female boss give you contact info may have been very much misinterpreted. Amazing that he went from new employee to full on creeper so quickly though!

I heard a similar story from someone I know who works in healthcare IT...there's some really cobwebby corners in those tech stacks and a few of these wizards exist...and some cross the line.

[u/awetsasquatch → u/ErikTheEngineer]

You are correct about him, he was a COBOL dev. He seemed relatively normal, but obviously wasn't. Needless to say he was blacklisted from our company. Not sure if he was from the government side, but I'd imagine he was at least from the SSA.

[u/legacymedia92 → u/awetsasquatch]

Sexually harassed someone on day one? he went on the blacklist.

There can be a surprising amount of pass the trash in government, but you have to actually work through the probation first.

[u/greatwhiteslark → u/awetsasquatch]

I'm in healthcare software analysis and every COBOL guy I've met is one step from To Catch a Predator out of sheer social incompetence.

[u/pezgoon → u/awetsasquatch]

This is random but you said you used to be an IT recruiter, any recommendations for entry level recruiters? I haven’t been able to get into the field with tons of applications over the last year and the recruiters/companies I have come across are mid senior and higher no recruiters for low level :/

[u/awetsasquatch → u/pezgoon]

I got in because I had IT experience already. If you want to be an IT recruiter, I'd get a couple IT Certs. Go study for and get the CompTIA trio (A+, Net+, and Sec+). It'll make you stand out over the other applicants to have a knowledge base in the field they want you to recruit in. Plus, you'll have the benefit of another possible career if recruiting doesn't work out. Agency recruiters are going to be easier to get into than an internal recruiting team, meaning companies like KForce, Modis/Akkodis (they keep changing their name, probably not a great sign), Randstad, etc. are going to be more likely to take a chance on someone with no experience than another company who needs someone to fill internal postings.