20+ IT workers share the strangest thing and most incompetent technological blunders they've witnessed at work: 'An outgoing software dev put an easter egg in our ERP before he left...'

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Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Jun 27, 2024 6:00 PM EDT

It feels like the more specialized someone is at one thing, the worse they are at others, and the more educated and specialized they are, the more surprising the things they can't do will be.It's almost as if living your life with a singular drive and focus leaves you as a not-very-well-rounded individual, probably one of the reasons celebrities are being consistently picked apart in the landscape of the modern social media levels of exposure they're placed under. We're quickly reaching a point where people aren't willing to tolerate someone being prolifically talented in one area and a horrible and sorry excuse human being in all others. 

Anyways, this is a weird way to introduce a post about strange things IT has witnessed, but I'm sure a lot of IT professionals will vouch for the fact that often the most "important" people they deal with are also the most clueless when it comes to technology.

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10366802432
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  • 02
    People who work in IT, what's the wildest thing you've discovered/had to do while at work?
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 03
    KhaosElement Back when I first started ages ago, a woman called in and said "my mouse isn't working!" I asked her if it was wired or wireless. "I don't know! Why would I know that?" "What do you mean? Is it wired or not? Is there a wire on it?" "I said I don't know! This isn't my job to know it's yours!" So I asked her if she picked it up and walked away, how far would she get. I was the one that got in trouble.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 04
    Rambos_Magnum_Dong An outgoing software dev put an easter egg in our ERP before he left. Anyone who typed the word "RAPTOR" in any text field, would have a Raptor from Jurassic Park fly across their screen with a loud screech. Only 3 of us on the team knew about it.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 05
    Little over a year later during a demo of our Asset Management module a manager asked about inputting vehicles, the trainer asked what kind of vehicle he drove, "An F150 Raptor". So the trainer, as a demo, input the vehicle description and BAM! "RAAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRR!! !!!!!" comes screeching with this Raptor flying across the screen in a room of 50-60 people, including our CBO, and most of our upper managers. My wife is one of those upper managers so she sees me in the back of the room trying so h
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 06
    Our boss just calmly said "Well, that's not a bug or a feature. Looks like we'll need to fix that." He had no idea. The next day he went back through the commits and saw where it originated. During an after action meeting he kept it low key and just assigned it to me and this other dev who knew about it to take it out. He finished by saying "And please don't put easter eggs in our code."
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 07
    HuuffingLavender My husband does not work in IT but he should. He worked on a facilities team at an expensive private school, and one day got a ticket to remove/trash a 75 inch TV. He approached the head of the IT department asking why he needed to trash it when he had just installed it brand new. The head of IT told him it won't stop shutting off. My husband loaded it into the work van and dropped it at our house instead. Later he came home, plugged it in... and turned off the 10 min automatic
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 08
    gac64k56 Got called to investigate unplug a laptop that had viruses detected on it. When I arrived, this laptop was in the open with the login information taped to the desk. This laptop was given local admin privileges by someone before my time for some application. This was in an office area that was always unlocked and 10 steps from the entrance of the building. No one was in the office as they went home early, including management.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 09
    On a laptop filled with everyone's information (SSN, names, addresses, and more), Limewire, games, and more. The two who worked on this laptop just used it like their personal laptop with occasional work being done on it. The laptop was promptly disconnected from the network, confiscated, and returned for analysis. Yes, there was spyware and we don't know how much personal info got out. This was reported to higher management. The two who used it disappeared quickly and quietly after that.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 10
    ouchmypeeburns Walked all the way across campus in the Florida heat just to tell a PhD professor that the reason their monitor kept turning off every few seconds was because the computer was in fact turned off. Then got yelled at for her classroom not being ready for her when she came in.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 11
    Also was told to "make sure these projectors aren't in the building by the end of day. Don't care where they go, just that they aren't here tomorrow" by my boss. It was more expensive to buy new bulbs for them than to just buy new ones so that's how I ended up with 5 projectors that lasted years.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 12
    Shooterman Some of the dumbest people I've ever met are profs with PhD's. It's always amplified by the fact they blame others when things don't go there way. Once had a PhD researcher activate a sprinkler system by accident and flood an entire hallway. It's clearly labelled and requires you to hold a pull-button. All because he blamed maintenance for setting the temp too high (it was a hot summer day) and he thought it would be a nice gentle mist to cool off.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 13
    togetheralone Drive to an office for emergency oncall service charging the client $400+ dollars an hour to plug the power back into a switch which their cleaning staff had knocked loose.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 14
    laddsta Take literal magnets off of the laptop so that it would work again.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 15
    dragonrage12343 Someone recently called my helpdesk requesting that we clear the roads so she could get to work. "The sky is falling and waters in the way" Meaning "It's raining really hard and the streets are flooded" As the IT helpdesk, of course there's nothing we can do about that.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 16
    MrBenzedrine Lady from the office downstairs borrowed my bosses keyboard whilst waiting for a replacement. When hers arrived she washed the borrowed one in the kitchen sink and left it on the draining board to dry out.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 17
    Who_am_i_0468 Explain to the Chief Technology Officer that having the prod server and its backup server sat next to each other, may well save cost on not having two data centers, but when that data center (also known as the stationary cupboard...) goes, it's not such a money saving idea...
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  • 18
    YetiCincinnati Other workers screen shot her windows screen, made it her background then moved her task bar off screen. She kept clicking start but nothing would happen.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 19
    edmanet I had to remotely install a spyware program on a VP/CFO's laptop because loss prevention was trying to gather information on him. The software recorded keystrokes, program usage, web history AND videos of what he was doing on the laptop. He resigned the next day after they found that he had a girlfriend in one of the company's manufacturing plants in China. The guy lost a million dollar job for that. Probably lost his wife and home too.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 20
    Sylar299 I just flicked a defective screen back to life not 2 minutes ago. Like a small laptop screen that just would'nt turn on even after taking it out and putting it back in. Then I get uppity and flick it and boom... Actual craziest was a fired employee who was wildly underperforming coming to give back her laptop. I booted it up and she had a contract and payslips from the other company she was working for with our stuff. She was dumb as a rock and HR tore through her case...
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 21
    evolve77 I walked into the office one morning to my CEO asking me to follow him to his office. He pulled out a stack of paper, almost a full ream, of printed p from our network printer and asked me to find out who sent it. Back then, most of our office staff had their own desk printers. I assumed that this person had worked late and meant to print out these pics on his local printer. Our CEO only used the network printer near his office and gets to work well before everyone else. Obviously, dude
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 22
    Due-Aioli-6641 Hiding a "kill switch" in the code of a web application we had because my boss thought the customer would try to steal our code. Just to add, my boss never used the switch, but they did stole our code, I already left the company, but as far as I know there's a lawsuit going on, I remember having to help my boss gather proof of it to share with the lawyers.
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 23
    Temba-his_arms_wide I work with a lot of engineers, like literal rocket scientists. The number of really intelligent people who don't know what simple things like "can you minimize that window" or "let me see your desktop" are is simply mind blowing. I am thankful everyday that Teams. added the ability to take control of someone's cursor. I feel like the more advanced a person's specialized knowledge becomes, the more rapidly their general knowledge declines. Some kind of weird inverse correlati
    via u/vapor-ware
  • 24
    WYGD_Brother1987. IT problems are human errors and it's usually because something is powered off. 200 dollars to drive 5 miles just to hit the power button is more common than you think,
    via u/vapor-ware

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