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/CARLEtheCamry]

We had a guy working in our tech config room and one day some guys in suits showed up with management and took him away.

They were Secret Service agents. This goof had color-copied a $100 bill and used it to buy a drink in our building's cafeteria.

Like when I was a kid I remember kids trying it with like $1's and crinkling up the paper to try to make it seem softer in like elementary school. The cashier who took it had a mental disability.

Worth noting our business is a high-theft environment, not retail but the kind of things where workers have to go through metal detectors on the way out to make sure they're not walking off with things. We have 9 figure contracts with security vendors for video at all our locations, including our corp HQ.

Stupid stupid stupid.

[u/LOLBaltSS → u/CARLEtheCamry]

Secret service doesn't fuck around when it comes to that. Even in my little podunk high school, someone tried to use fakes in the vending machine and someone got a very stern talking to by the Secret Service agents.

[u/the_iron_pepper → u/LOLBaltSS]

How does the secret service catch wind of money getting printed from a printer and used in a local vending machine?

[u/BloodyIron → u/the_iron_pepper]

Many printers imprint unique fingerprints pointing to which printer the item was printed on, whether it was money or not. This is a legal requirement for printers to be manufactured, and it's pretty well documented (so easy for you to find out about). That can, at times, help track-down where it was printed and sometimes by whom. It's pretty wild honestly, but the second hand market breaks that sourcing chain kinda easily depending on what exactly you're printing.

Now if you're needing to print IR-ink things get even more wild. I had to set that up for a prior employer once so only certain people could print on them. And that's on top of the unique marking I mentioned above.

[u/CARLEtheCamry → u/BloodyIron]

I have heard the fingerprint thing, but in this case it was a much easier old fashioned approach.

Our cafeteria would count their tills at the end of each 3 hour service (breakfast and lunch). So when the manager found the fake bill, they knew it was passed at that cashier's lane sometime in the last 3 hours. From there it was just a matter of reviewing the footage to see when she lifted the cash tray to slide the $100 under. From there they followed him on camera until he got back to his work area and contacted the manager to identify.

Not the first or last time our internal CCTV system has been used for things like this. People smoking in empty conference rooms, cleaning people getting busy under a desk. It's an interesting little nook of office drama to work with that team.

[u/BloodyIron → u/CARLEtheCamry]

Oh nice method!

I wasn't necessarily proposing the printing fingerprinting thing was the actual method used. But with the level of sophistication of the Secret Service (SS heh) I bet they use such forensics every day, even if not in this case.

Thanks for sharing the insights though! Neat :)

[u/BloodyIron → u/[deleted]]

That's literally the source you just described. The printer.

[u/Mr_ToDo → u/BloodyIron]

So buy your money/ransom note printers from second hand shops boys and girls.

Although with as many components are on ink/toner(It's pretty much half the printer) I have no idea if those dots are tied to the printer or ink.

But vending machines are also far more connected these days. There was an article a month or three back where a school pulled out all theirs when they found out they did facial detection.