Greatest Hits: IT Head Steals Important Email Address, Sets Off Chain of Events That Get Them Fired

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Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Aug 11, 2022 10:00 AM EDT

An IT Head saw fit to swipe a long-held email address which set off a domino effect that led to their excusal from their position. What is it with power that makes it go straight to some people's heads? So many new managers see fit to exert their dominance over their subordinates as soon as they have a shred of power to wield.

This has been one of the top stories that we have seen come out of Reddit's r/talesfromtechsupport subreddit this year and, as such, it was well worth a revisit. The thread was originally posted to Reddit's r/talesfromtechsupport subreddit by u/Lorix_In_Oz. They shared their story with the title "When a new IT department head steals the prestige e-mail address from long time employee and lives to regret it."

Readers started some discussion in the comments.

"If someone ever said 'It receives all the critical alerts and I'm happy to deal with them,' why the f--k would you want to get involved in that," said someonehasmygamertag.

"Bc they crave attention that they can not achieve on their own merits, I'd say..." responded SirIsildur.

"Nothing better than giving someone enough rope to hang themselves if they ask for it," commented bkaiser85.

"Glad "Joe" got his email back but gosh the current email address rule is ridiculous. Is department AND country code really necessary?" queried emmerzed.

"It made sense in the sense that you could gauge from the e-mail address which region the person was coming from. By the time I joined the company had multiple global offices as well as remote staff in different countries, so it made sense to have an e-mail address like joe.bloggs@it.us.company.com or tom.smith@sales.uk.company.com," responded the original poster.

Read on to see screenshots of the thread.
 

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  • 01
    Font - Posted by u/Lorix_In_Oz 6 months ago 13 13 19 17 When a new IT department head steals the prestige e-mail address from long time employee and lives to regret it. Epic A number of years back I was working for a company that had been around for many years, I was only relatively new myself but there were still a couple of "old guard" senior engineers around who had been there from the start. The kind that knows where all the obscure, undocumented insider stuff is and can fix most problems in
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz

    Thumbnail Image:
    https://unsplash.com/photos/w7ZyuGYNpRQ
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1094436/

     

  • 02
    Font - One of the guys in particular, who I shall refer to as Joe, a bearded and jovial gent with a very Steve Wozniak persona was always happy for us to approach him with our questions and welcomed us to leverage his VAST knowledge of how the company's sprawling IT infrastructure worked to make our lives easier and cope with the constant unrealistic expectations of upper management. He was a real, old-school engineer - someone who loved their job and was well respected by everyone around the de
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 03
    Font - When the company first started out they weren't too concerned with formality when it came to e- mail address policy. In later years as the company had grown they tightened the bolts with an official policy of issuing staff with a more formal address of Firstname.Lastname@department.countrycode.co mpany.com but those who were around from the early days retained their original name@company.com addresses as an alias. It was somewhat of a status symbol and sign of authority in the company to
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 04
    Font - term employees who used them and it wasn't long before the new IT head noticed this aspect of our corporate culture and clearly envied his peers. But as a new employee he was stuck with his formal e- mail address and they weren't issuing new legacy e-mail addresses of this kind unless they were for someone way up the food chain. Even as head of IT he had no authority to claim one which is why when one day he spotted an e-mail from Joe using his legacy address he saw an opportunity to get
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 05
    Font - So as the tale goes, he called Joe into his office and had an exchange that went something like this: IT Head: "Hey Joe, great work on the capacity report and getting it to me so quickly we should be able to get approval from finance to expand our storage way sooner than I thought" Joe: "Not a problem, is there anything else you needed from me for it?" IT Head: "Nope, everything is there thanks. But I happened to notice when you sent it through you were using a different e-mail address a
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 06
    Font - IT Head: "I've got no problem with that but I was interested in getting one of those kind of addresses for me, it would make it easier for people to, you know, know I'm the head of this department rather than just another employee here. My predecessor had one so it should be no problem for me to have one as well too, right? Can you make that happen?" Joe: "I'm sorry, I wish I could but it's HR that makes that decision and it's their policy is to only issue personal addresses at the top co
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 07
    Font - Joe goes and logs the request but of course the head of HR knocks it back, citing policy and not wanting to set a precedent even as a favor to Joe. Joe goes back to give the IT Head the bad news: Joe: (Knocks) "Hey, you know that request I put through to try and get you a top level e-mail address? Unfortunately HR have knocked it back, I did my best to try and push it through but they were firm on our current corporate policy of not issuing any new ones except for those at the very top."
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 08
    Font - IT Head: "Hey Joe, you know how we can't get new personal e-mail addresses created, but we can still reassign an existing one into my name, right?" Joe: (Frowning) "We can do that, yes. You have the authority to have the e-mail address of anyone who has left redirected or assigned to anyone else if you so wish, did you want your predecessor's address? I mean, we can do it but it would confuse a lot of people if they saw your e-mail coming from someone who is gone." IT Head: "What about e-
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 09
    Font - So poor Joe was forced to dig his own grave and give up the e-mail address he had held since day one. He definitely wasn't happy about it but did as he was instructed. Falling back on his regular corporate address he sent an e-mail out to the immediate team and his contacts to let them know what was happening and to please use his full address moving forward to contact him. At the same time the IT Head proudly sent out a company-wide e-mail broadcast letting everyone know that his e-mail
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 10
    Font - Turned out he had forgotten about his responsibility to forward through important notifications when they can through to him. He had set up a rule to handle them, sure, but not to forward them as promised but instead deleting them directly from his inbox without notice. One particular alert dealt with backup failures for a particularly important and long-term defense contract. One of our key SLAs was to ensure daily incremental and weekly full backups being performed on one of these old l
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 11
    Font - The client was not amused. The CEO with whom they had a close relationship was even less so. The IT Head attempted to throw Joe under the bus when word came down that the company was going to incur a MASSIVE rebate for the SLA breach, but Joe in his wisdom had ensured he had done a complete CYA when handing over his e- mail address, including e-mail exchanges with the IT Head highlighting the importance of the alerts and to ensure they went to the right people, including detailed instruct
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 12
    Font - Everyone was wondering who we would be getting in the position next, HR and management were tight lipped on the topic and there was plenty of speculation within the department about what might happen next. But everyone was smiling when they walked in on the Monday to see Joe sitting in the IT Head office, in the wake of what happened management decided in their wisdom that the IT Department should have a Head who actually knew something about IT and tapped Joe to take the seat. He hung on
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 13
    Font - someonehasmygamertag If someone ever said "it receives all the critical alerts and I'm happy to deal with them" why the fi ck would you want to get involved in that 3.2k Share 1.3k . SirIsildur 6 mo. ago Bc they crave attention that they can not achieve on their own merits, I'd say... Share 6 mo. ago
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 14
    Font - bkaiser856 mo. ago Nothing better than giving someone enough rope to hang themselves if they ask for it. 594 Share WgXcQ6 mo. ago Honestly, this is more like someone actively taking a fistful of LAN cables and specifically braiding them into their own personal noose. 198 Share
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 15
    Font - terbiumct 6 mo. ago Well written & a good read. 535 Share DieselDetBos · 6 mo. ago We love the original Joe, not new hip self centered joe 92 Share
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 16
    Font - emmerzed 6 mo. ago Glad "Joe" got his email back but gosh the current email address rule is ridiculous. Is department AND country code really necessary? 170 Share Metaphorazine · 6 mo. ago When a company gets big enough firstname.lastname@ isn't enough anymore. Department and country code is a weird choice though, what happens when someone transfers? 120 Share
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 17
    Font - Lorix_In_Oz OP. 6 mo. ago It made sense in the sense that you could gauge from the e-mail address which region the person was coming from. By the time I joined the company had multiple global offices as well as remote staff in different countries so it made sense to have an e-mail address like joe.bloggs@it.us.company.com or tom.smith@sales.uk.company.com 67 Share
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz
  • 18
    Font - SirIsildur 6 mo. ago I have a very, VERY similar story... In mine, the "usurper" simply was told something along the lines of "Alright, send email/contact whoever you think should be contacted and let me know" by the veteran The Usurper was friends/family from people in upper mgmt and he managed to achieve what he intended, and in a very similar turn of events (alerts being ignored and clients being extra annoyed for problems unsolved) he got in trouble The usurper asked the old guy to fi
    via u/Lorix_In_Oz

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