'Just so we're clear, you fired me...': IT guy replaced by new CFO's 21-year-old nephew, they ask him back after nephew proves to be incompetent

Author image for Ben Weiss
Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Dec 21, 2024 8:00 AM EST

Working in IT often means being constantly undervalued and under-appreciated. This, of course, should not come with the territory, considering nothing could run properly without a functioning and knowledgable IT department, but alas, other employees seem to take advantage of what it means to actually have a good IT guy.

Unfortunately for this Redditor, he had to endure the classic biases against IT on top of a totally unprofessional new CFO who was gradually replacing everyone around her with friends and family members. Eventually, the Redditor became an IT department of one, and his budget was quickly transformed into a "wish list" that was almost always ignored. One day, he was asked if the CFO's 21-year-old nephew could shadow him, and it did not take long for the Redditor to connect the dots and realize that his days were numbered. It also didn't take long for him to realize that the nepo-baby was pretty much incompetent and that no matter what happened, the company would eventually need his help. 

Let's just say that when the day finally arrived and the Redditor was unjustly fired, he had already planted the seeds for the company's downfall. Keep scrolling below for the full story. For more, check out this post about an employee's Christmas Eve conundrum. 

Advertisement
  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10443705600
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    Don't fire me so you can hire your nephew This happened several years ago. I was working for a small medical supply company as the IT manager. Business was bad and eventually the IT department had to downsize to just me. During this
    via red23011
  • 03
    time they brought in a new CFO that I had to report directly to. Let's call her Pam. Pam had zero knowledge of IT and how things worked. Her motto was if it ain't broke don't fix it. PC/server lifecycles didn't exist. We don't
    via red23011
  • 04
    have to pay for licensing to keep our firewall updated, it's working just fine now. I went from having an annual budget to a "wish list" which she would deny everything I asked for.
    via red23011
  • 05
    The couple that owned the company were real pieces of too. One time we had a quarterly meeting and people were asking about how secure their jobs were.
    via red23011
  • 06
    The owners said that nobody was off and that our jobs were all secure. This was at 5:00 pm on a Wednesday. The very next morning at 9:00 they laid off 6 people. At noon one of the owners showed up to show off the Escalade that he had just purchased that morning. During
    via red23011
  • 07
    the first six months that Pam was there she started firing everyone that worked for the old CFO and replaced them with her friends and family. Three of her bridesmaids from her wedding a few years prior got hired to replace those that she fired. I knew I was on borrowed time.
    via red23011
  • 08
    After she had been there for 9 months I was the only one left out of what was about a dozen people that worked for the old CFO. I knew my time was running out. I had been looking for work but the 2009 crash just happened and the job market in my area went south
    via red23011
  • 09
    quickly. Sure enough she called me into HR and blindsided me with an entirely trumped up charge that she claimed happened the day before. I was working with the VP of sales on a project that entire day so I had a witness. I asked to bring him in since my boss was lying and was told "this is not about him this is about you" (remember kids, HR
    via red23011
  • 10
    is there to protect the business, not do what is right or legal in some cases). Needless to say I knew my days were numbered.
    via red23011
  • 11
    The next morning I get introduced to an IT expert who just happens to be Pam's 21 year-old nephew. He was to shadow me and evaluate everything that I did to see if we could streamline any processes. In
    via red23011
  • 12
    other words, they wanted me to train him to do my job. I quickly learned that this kid had absolutely no knowledge of IT. He's the kid people think is an IT expert because he can hook up a play station to a TV. He didn't even know how to join a PC to a domain.
    via red23011
  • 13
    So I knew what had to be done. The inventory, billing and shipping and receiving were all run by scripts that I created on the server. They were all run using the domain admin account.
    via red23011
  • 14
    I raised quite a fuss about giving him the domain admin account in front of Pam and him. I then loudly proclaimed that I was going to change the password to it since you can't have people who don't work for the company to have admin access to our network. I was
    via red23011
  • 15
    overruled and was told to give it to him. I complied but I also showed him multiple times how to change passwords on the domain. I even had him write it down to make sure that he could do it. I really stressed the importance of changing the admin password and
    via red23011
  • 16
    deleting his local account the second he is no longer "consulting" with us to him. I showed him a few things (but nothing in regards to what really made the company run) that day. There wasn't enough time in a year to bring this kid up to speed on how to run that place due to his complete ignorance of IT.
    via red23011
  • 17
    I come into work the next day and sure enough I was let go because her nephew had found "my skills lacking in many areas". I collect my last paycheck and head home. The next morning I get a call from the CFO and owners. Apparently her nephew wasn't quite up to speed
    via red23011
  • 18
    on everything we did there and she was graciously offering to pay me my regular salary to come in as a consultant and get her nephew up to speed on the IT infrastructure. I told her that I was now an independent contractor
    via red23011
  • 19
    and if she wanted my services I was going to charge her $200 per hour with a 250 hour minimum. At that point she told me that she was going to call the police and have me arrested for what I did if I didn't come in and fix everything.
    via red23011
  • 20
    My response was "Just so we're clear, you fired me, replaced me with a completely unqualified idiot and now you're threatening to call the cops on me if I don't come in and fix what he did? I'll hold,
    via red23011
  • 21
    please call the police and let me know what they said". She started cursing at me and hung up the phone.
    via red23011
  • 22
    Turns out her nephew did actually learn something from me, he changed the admin password after I had left. The one that ran all the scripts for inventory, billing, shipping and ordering. According to some of my coworkers, the place was de d in the water for
    via red23011
  • 23
    several days until they could get a real consultant in to go through the documentation that I had created and fix the issue. The nephew was immediately fired and Pam was gone within a month.
    via red23011
  • 24
    TLDR: Don't try to replace me with your idiot nephew that isn't smart enough to not bring your entire business to a screeching halt.
    via red23011

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

pro revenge workplace-stories fired work stories toxic-workplace job fired story work reddit thread Reddit company toxic-work-environment
Scroll Down For The Next Article