Top Times Unsupportive Tech Coworkers Finally Got Fired and Left with a Bang

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Sep 18, 2023 7:00 AM EDT

We've all imagined at one point or another during a bad job, quitting and leaving with the most dramatic exit possible. You tell everyone you hated off and you throw everything off you desk and you reveal any secrets you know to everyone and you march out and slam the door and everyone is crying and regretting treating you poorly. 

Funny thing about that fun run-on sentence though is that, that's not how it happens. If you leave like that in the slightest way, you're burning a bridge and that can hurt your career in the long run. So most people try to quit the civil way and leave quietly to just continue living their life. There aren't really any theatrics, but you gotta do what you gotta do. 

That being said, there are still some people who throw the tantrum when they quit or get fired and we're living for it. There's an entire thread on Reddit dedicated to tech employees who got fired for legit reason, but still left like it was the end of the world. See for yourself below!

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  • 01
    Hand
    via pxhere
  • 02
    Font - Posted by u/Appropriate_Day2144 Greybeard 5 days ago So how did that *one person* in your department get fired? Format the Director's laptop without backing it up first? "Accidentally" salvage a new workstation and pulled it off the skip? Started their own OnlyFans channel by coding naked at work? What did they do, and what was the fallout?
    via u/Appropriate_Day2144
  • 03
    Font - TheRubiksDude. 5 days ago Was rude on the phone with CEO's son. He was in a remote office as the only IT guy and questions were asked after that and we learned everyone in his office was afraid of him. Users would visit him in pairs for support. Great technically, bad at social skills.
    via u/TheRubiksDude
  • 04
    Font - The replacement was the opposite: good social skills with management hopeful he could learn the tech skills. He refused to learn, and would disappear for hours at a time to go watch tv in the office gym. He quit before he could be fired because he was angry he was being told to do his job.
    via u/TheRubiksDude
  • 05
    Font - thebirdbiologist. 5 days ago Created a loop in the network, deleted the change logs (or thought he did) and then lied about it. Then threatened the company on the way out the door. Not the brightest individual.
    via u/thebirdbiologist
  • 06
    Font - Pyrostasis 5 days ago. edited 5 days ago We had a SVP who was surfing a certain website where one rates peoples feet. IT had seen it in the filter but since he was a SVP it was "ignored" at least until HR accidentally walked in on him surfing the site with only 1 hand on the keyboard during office hours...
    via u/Pyrostasis
  • 07
    Font - Same company. Company each year took the marketing department to Cancun for a week as part of a team building exercise. The trip mainly consisted of a 2 hours meeting in the morning around 10am and then a "Mandatory" pool party with an open bar from like noon to midnight.
    via u/Pyrostasis
  • 08
    Font - So... when you take a bunch of hot 20 something sales folks (For some reason we only hired gorgeous people), put them in swimsuits and pump them full of booze... HR sh : happens. It became a running joke to guess who / how many would not come back.
    via u/Pyrostasis
  • 09
    Font - One year I provisioned a new hire on Friday, he left for Cancun with them on Monday, I termed him on friday. Apparently he slapped a VP's ass at the pool party and she didnt take it well. Another year the Owners daughter hit on one of the Marketing Bus Dev guys.
    via u/Pyrostasis
  • 10
    Font - AGGRESSIVELY. Would not take no for an answer. He was married. He had the balls to report her (good for him) and the owner termed his own daughter. (Also good for him) Literally every single year at least 1 person lost their job at that party. No idea why they kept doing it.
    via u/Pyrostasis
  • 11
    Font - Titanium125. 5 days ago This persons name was Martin, not his real name. I actually replaced him. He was at best a L1 or L2 Helpdesk who was made systems to work nights. Anyway, onto the story. Work for an MSP btw.
    via u/Titanium125
  • 12
    Font - He was asked to give a couple users access to a particular folder on an important server. He provided root access to the entire C: drive. This server happened to contain all the financial information for the entire company, legal documents that are confidential, HR sh, etc.
    via u/Titanium125
  • 13
    Font - That wasn't what did it though. The last straw was something so dumb, he almost did it on purpose. Remote company in another state, with nothing more than an on prem IT guy to offer assistance for physical tasks.
    via u/Titanium125
  • 14
    Font - So this client has a single server that does everything for them, ADDS DC, DNS, DHCP, NPS, File server, and an LOB application. I know that's stupid, but I didn't set it up. Anywho, this server does not have internet access by design. So in order to update the LOB application over the internet you had to disable the firewall rule.
    via u/Titanium125
  • 15
    Font - So this moron goes to update the application, and it doesn't work. He tries to access the internet, doesn't work. So he runs the suggested network troubleshooting. It can't figure the issue, and suggests a network reset. On a remote DHCP server. This brings down the entire company. Whole thing took less than two minutes.
    via u/Titanium125
  • 16
    Font - He doesn't tell anyone what happened, he just washed his hands of it. Two hours later the on prem guy calls in for our Morning Systems guy. He takes like twenty minutes to fix it over the phone. It gets worse though. We track and record everything, so we had a screen recording of him doing this. We call Martin and he lies about it.
    via u/Titanium125
  • 17
    Font - Next day I told the boss I would work nights, and Martin was gone in like an hour. There are lots more stories of dumb sh he did, but it finally broke the camels back.
    via u/Titanium125
  • 18
    Font - Zolty 5 days ago Cloud Infrastructure / Devops Plu... ● So when I was a newly minted sysadmin I reported to Jeff, not his real name, who reported to the head of IT Roger, not his real name. Roger had been with the company for 15+ years, Jeff had been there 3-4 years. Roger had his first 2 week vacation ever scheduled in the summer,
    via u/Zolty
  • 19
    Font - this was the first time he'd ever taken more than a week off and was super excited, he was taking his family to <major theme park> and was leaving Jeff in charge. The first week was ok, though Jeff left super early one day and didn't come in on Friday. He
    via u/Zolty
  • 20
    Font - came in Monday, missed Tuesday and Wednesday. At the time I didn't know he was missing, I figured he had meetings or something, who knows what management does am I right?
    via u/Zolty
  • 21
    Font - Thursday he came into work at 11 or so and we had a quick meeting, he needed me to take over a project to add a secure email product to our mail flow. The vendor was there to help us on board and it should be easy. We outsourced most of our exchange support so I didn't touch it much but I was always eager to learn. He left and I had a calendar invite.
    via u/Zolty
  • 22
    Font - Hopped on the 230 call with the vendor and didn't see Jeff again, like ever. Vendor was nice, told them I was helping out so cut me some slack if I don't know certain things. We set up the VMware appliance to run their server, gave it an IP tested it was responding properly and it seemed good to go. This thing needed to sit between our mail server and the Internet so I needed to adjust our public DNS records to go live.
    via u/Zolty
  • 23
    Font - So it's 430 I email Jeff asking if he can hop on the call to help. At 5 I call him, at 6 I call it a day. I let him know where the project was and what I needed via email.
    via u/Zolty
  • 24
    Font - Friday comes and I show up at about 830 and I see Roger is in the office, 3 days early. The first thing he asks is where's Jeff, I explain the last 2 weeks how Jeff has been hard to reach and I need DNS access to finish with the secure email thingy and Jeff's not responding. Roger
    via u/Zolty
  • 25
    Font - makes a few calls and is in a bad mood until about 1030, he calls me into his office and tells me I'm reporting to him and Jeff is getting let go. We spend the next few hours disabling accounts. Six months later I'm a senior sysadmin and head tech for the org.
    via u/Zolty
  • 26
    Font - No one ever got a hold of Jeff, we know he didn't d. or get sick or anything. I'm pretty sure he went on a coke bender. I talked to a recruiter a few months later and she said he reached out to her desperate for any job and she got him a job with <national level ISP>.
    via u/Zolty

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failblog tech support employee quitting stories coworkers i quit it sysadmin tech job stories Reddit tech jobs quitting
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