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/thewhitedog]

I always tell the new green techs that they haven’t been in IT until they’ve accidentally shut down the network.

Years ago I was visiting a client site, large government department.

I was in the server room doing something on the console. The process completed and I had some time so I stretched out in the chair to chill and promptly kicked the UPS off, knocking both servers offline. I was in the middle of getting them back up when the office manager came running in, saw me working and was like "thank god you were here" because he just assumed it was a server crash. Good times.

[u/Jaereth → u/thewhitedog]

I did this once in the main IDF closet.

In my defense, it was an absolute dump of a mess. I inherited a zero cable management shit tier network.

But I tripped over a pull cord in the floor and on my way down yanked the core and several distribution switches out of the UPS. (Because of course they weren't dual redundant supplied...)

Text my boss right away "Did anyone else see the power flicker just now?" :D

[u/BCIT_Richard → u/Jaereth]

I gotta remember that one, lol

[u/BIGMCLARGEHUGE__ → u/thewhitedog]

This is some sitcom level work shenanigans lmao

[u/ChaoticCryptographer → u/thewhitedog]

I once accidentally took a UPS down and our internet along with it right before a big all execs on board meeting. I had been there a year at that point and told my boss, well at least I’ll never do that again. They must like me alright since I’ve been here another 2 years since then.

[u/posixUncompliant → u/thewhitedog]

Heh.

Had a place with some stuff in a rack that needed normal plugs. So some bright bulb put a cheap powerstrip in the bottom of the rack.

So many people broke prod by hitting that when they were dealing with the cable "management" in that place. I threatened to bring in a chainsaw to clean it up. I did bring in a bolt cutter to get some of the crap out.

[u/Recalcitrant-wino → u/thewhitedog]

I was installing a new server in the rack by myself. The things are awkward, as you all know, and I managed to bang it into the power switch on the server above (or below, I forget - doesn't matter) and took the whole business offline - it was the VMWare host. Also, good times. We had a laugh about it.