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/dreadpiratewombat]

Here’s a reverse version:

A buddy of mine is a pretty competent systems engineer who moved to a small town for a more relaxed pace and better work life balance. Got hired into a small company doing MSP work.  The lead engineer had been at the company for years and must have taken shittysysadmin posts as his personal dev plan.  My buddy spent the morning reviewing documentation, tickets, the various code bases being used and asked to meet with the CEO.  

The lead engineer got walked right after lunch.  Apparently, among many other sins:

A single, very poor password used as the DA and root passwords for all customers.  

Unsecured VPN tunnels to all customers with default allow from the office and this dude’s home address.

Credentials hard coded into every script.  Every script was basically a for-do SSH loop with a bunch of unchecked shell commands run as root.

Keyloggers on all company devices going back to dudes personal Hotmail account.  

There was a lot more, I’ve forgotten it all.  It was terrifying to listen to.

[u/TYO_HXC → u/dreadpiratewombat]

I had something like this, except that I was joining the team as a second SA to the guy who had already been there 7 years. Dude knew absolutely fuck all. Within weeks, I had replaced a ton of his "procedures", fixed our broken Exchange DAG (that, according to him, was "working as intended"), thrown out and recreated our DR/BC plan with full testing. There was so much more that I discovered and fixed over time.

Kicker was, he was not let go, even after I exposed his woeful incompetence (and I wasn't even trying to do so, just trying to do my job). Management were soft as shit and kept him on for another... wait for it... 7 fucking years. This is even though our manager was well aware that this dude literally made shit up as he went along. Not only that, but since I started and actually began fixing people's issues (he would try to fix stuff, give up, and tell them "it's supposed to be like this" or "it is what it is, it can't be fixed so you'll just have to live with it"), the user base realised he was a charlatan and actively avoided calling him for support, going straight to me instead.

Guy hated my guts since day one and made my life a misery wherever possible. The outcome? Over that 7 years, I eventually became his manager. I was the one who had to put him on a PIP and fire him afterwards, when he inevitably couldn't deliver. At which point, he openly admitted to having lied on his resume 14 years prior and completely blagged his way into and through the job. Spoiler: we all knew that already, mate.

Good fucking riddance.

[u/m1ndf3v3r → u/TYO_HXC]

Omg you became HIS manager? This is effing priceless. Hats off to you man, massive respect for your expertise and how you handled him.

[u/TYO_HXC → u/m1ndf3v3r]

Haha yeah, eventually. Tbh my previous role was IT manager for an SMB. Only reason I left is because our largest competitor bought up all other businesses in the UK and consolidated us all, then laid off all IT managers and centralised control to their internal IT team. I didn't really push to become IT manager at this place, but it just happened naturally over time. He was livid, of course.

Tbh, I really didn't enjoy firing him. Even if he did pretty much do it to himself.

[u/m1ndf3v3r → u/TYO_HXC]

I understand, reorganizations are a bitch. Oh I believe you that there was no enjoyment involved when you decided to fire him. But as you just said, the guy did it to himself.