An amusing GW anecdote

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**Ketara**

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/04/sysadmins_100000_revenge_after_sudden_sacking/

This week, reader "James" has shared a story “from my days as a Sysadmin, at the dawn of the broadband area, when I worked for a very well known company supplying fantasy wargaming products.”

Said company decided it needed an office in Europe, supplied by a warehouse in Nottingham.

“To connect the sites, the ERP system needed a link between the sites,” James recalls. But the company's preferred telco was a few weeks away from launching its broadband product. The European office couldn't wait, however, so James “used an aggregated on-demand international ISDN connection so the databases could sync as required.”

“This was massively expensive, but was only needed for two weeks before we could place the order for broadband. The system worked fine unattended, and everyone was happy as the ERP system worked flawlessly.”

Despite the outbreak of happiness, “a week later the IT Manager called me into a meeting with HR to inform me I had been made redundant, effectively immediately.”

James was escorted from the premises by security and prevented from speaking to his colleagues.

Before he placed an order for broadband.

“Two months later,” James wrote, “I received a call from the horrified IT Director (the IT Manager himself had been made redundant straight after me), to ask if I knew why they faced an ISDN bill for over £100,000.”

Remember that bit at the start of the story about this happening at the “dawn of the broadband age”? Back then, data connections weren't cheap. So by marching James without a handover, his former employer had missed the chance to learn about the expensive ISDN connection.

“I had great delight in telling them I knew exactly why the bill was so large and had they not made me redundant they would have not blown the whole year's IT investment budget in a single month,” James recalls. “Even better, they had gone over the cancellation period, locking them into a year's contract.”

Failing to properly debrief James therefore became a very, very expensive mistake.

**RiTides**

Ouch... I'll be honest though, that was a little mean of him! Might not be good to have your name attached to such a story, although given the timing maybe he's retired now

**eskimo**

Double post btw. Just read this

On bad phone, so linking be hard.

**Kid_Kyoto**

Treat your people well, or it'll come back to bite you.

The only thing "James" missed was refusing to answer the question until he was hired as an IT consultant.

I forget where but I read an old story about programers who knew they were going to be let go, so they removed all the REM and documentation from their code. So if anyone wanted to fix or change it they had to hire them back.

**Ketara**

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Treat your people well, or it'll come back to bite you.

The only thing "James" missed was refusing to answer the question until he was hired as an IT consultant.

I forget where but I read an old story about programers who knew they were going to be let go, so they removed all the REM and documentation from their code. So if anyone wanted to fix or change it they had to hire them back.

It's the fear of people doing that sort of thing that probably led to him being frogmarched out by security.

**kronk**

There is a reason that many companies will escort you out when you give two weeks notice and just pay you to stay home for those 2 weeks. Of course, since you knew you were leaving before you gave notice, you had time to do naughty things, then.

On the topic of the IT guy in the original post, he did nothing wrong. He wasn't given an exit interview (apparently), so they gave him no opportunity for "discovery". That's on them and his boss for not knowing WTF was going on.

**nullBolt**

Quoting myself from the other thread:

nullBolt wrote:
Literally about to post this.

Highlights GW's self-destructive policies that they have in every section of their business, IMO.

Try to make a bit more money here by ruining someone else, lose a gak tonne instead.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Treat your people well, or it'll come back to bite you.

The only thing "James" missed was refusing to answer the question until he was hired as an IT consultant.

I forget where but I read an old story about programers who knew they were going to be let go, so they removed all the REM and documentation from their code. So if anyone wanted to fix or change it they had to hire them back.

It's pretty common for stuff like this to happen. A guy I know worked as programming for a bank. Finished the system and informed them it would require regular maintenance by him because it wasn't fully tested yet.

They fired him. Two days later the system comes crashing down and they have to pay him £40k to come in and fix it. Absolutely beautiful.

kronk wrote:
There is a reason that many companies will escort you out when you give two weeks notice and just pay you to stay home for those 2 weeks. Of course, since you knew you were leaving before you gave notice, you had time to do naughty things, then.

On the topic of the IT guy in the original post, he did nothing wrong. He wasn't given an exit interview (apparently), so they gave him no opportunity for "discovery". That's on them and his boss for not knowing WTF was going on.

A lot of programmers aren't going to be malicious but escorting a programmer out without any handover is a very, very dumb idea. There's so much stuff that you complete that doesn't go into documentation immediately that you need to be up to date on.

**Compel**

Yeah, the employee had (apparently) done nothing malicious in this case. It was more like a big business case of staying accidentally subscribed to something when you thought you thought it was just a one off period.

**Shadow Captain Edithae**

So...GW HQ's rank incompetence goes back an entire two decades? Here I was thinking it was a relatively recent thing.

**leopard**

Not someone who works in networking but have done various bits of adhoc development in another industry... This sort of thing is very common, even with a handover period.

Mind you it helps if the person you're meant to be handing over to will actually listen, or even turn up.

Three events spring to mind.

#1: Having largely automated most of a job undertaking data classification and analysis I was made redundant in a reorganisation, yeah, it happens, I wasn't the only one. Anyway more than happy to hand over the software I'd written, and source code & documentation etc. Got a call the day after I actually left, asking if I had another copy of everything I could send.. apparently the IT lot had wiped my machine an hour after I left... Was getting calls for a few weeks until when obviously on a conference call I asked why, if I was 'redundant' I kept getting such calls, they never called back.

Heard from one of the customers a year or two later that they knew I'd left, the reports I wrote had just stopped, they apparently had to threaten legal action to get them started again.

#2: working notice period for another company, in the commercial team, normally this is instant gardening leave given what you have access to. I was working with customers on my very last day. Didn't do anything unprofessional, Small industry and word would get round, but got a 'WTF?' from the customers.

#3: most recently, company I was with went under, bought from the administrators, got a call, apparently I was the only one who understood the logic in a major project.. could I go in for a few days to help them hand it over.. Sadly had to turn that one down as was under contract to someone else.

This sort of lack of planning, or even understanding of what employees do, and what only one individual knows is endemic, yes it makes GW look like clowns, just like everyone else.

Still a good read though, the number of comments perhaps indicates how many gamers read el'reg

**Crablezworth**

Classic, a good read.

**carlos13th**

RiTides wrote:
Ouch... I'll be honest though, that was a little mean of him! Might not be good to have your name attached to such a story, although given the timing maybe he's retired now

I only read the bit quoted here not the link but he didnt seem to do anything wrong or mean. He was made redundant and escorted out with no questions asked and no attempt to hand things over. If someone just throws you out of the building and stops paying you then you have no obligation to ring them up and make sure all their gak is working properly after they get rid of you.

**Kilkrazy**

It wasn't just him anyway, they also made his manager redundant straight after him, who might have been expected to know something.

Frankly, though, the director of IT bloody well ought to have know about the ISDN solution for network connectivity, if it was that expensive, so ultimately he is to blame. (Or she, it might have been Mrs Kirby.)

**Crablezworth**

Kilkrazy wrote:
(Or she, it might have been Mrs Kirby.)

Given what they dropped on a fugly website template I'd say that's very possible

**Xca|iber**

Great read. This made my morning

**zedmeister**

Beautiful. I bet that phonecall in the end really cheered up "James". Wonder if this was a case of "He doesn't have the right attitude, sack him". Or perhaps they waited until the spangly new system is in place then bin him in an attempt to save cash.

**Lockark**

Now we know why GW hates the internet.

**Rayvon**

The IT director sounds like a real professional.

**leopard**

Rayvon wrote:
The IT director sounds like a real professional.

Sounds like about half the director level staff I've worked near, when they are good they are very good but when not. meah

**nullBolt**

leopard wrote:
Rayvon wrote:
The IT director sounds like a real professional.

Sounds like about half the director level staff I've worked near, when they are good they are very good but when not. meah

The old adage, "You are promoted to your level of incompetence." comes to mind.

**leopard**

nullBolt wrote:
leopard wrote:
Rayvon wrote:
The IT director sounds like a real professional.

Sounds like about half the director level staff I've worked near, when they are good they are very good but when not. meah

The old adage, "You are promoted to your level of incompetence." comes to mind.

Dilbert principle, my industry runs on it, from accountants with a blind spot for 7's through engineers who are even more distracted by shiny things than engineers normally are. Never had two days the same as yet, and to be honest, wouldn't have it any other way.. its endlessly entertaining.

**SickSix**

Lockark wrote:
Now we know why GW hates the internet.

Exalted. It all makes perfect sense now.

**RiTides**

Agreed, well done there