Company faces major system shutdown after entire IT department gets fired and instructed to have their data destroyed without leaving backup: ‘They're not sure how to fix it’

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Jan 28, 2025 10:00 AM EST

The first rule of rock climbing: never let go of one handhold until you have a firm grip on the next one. While this valuable rule is crucial to the rock climbing world, it can also be applied to many other aspects of life, including some in the workplace.

Just as people say you shouldn't quit your job before securing a new job, companies shouldn't let go of roles or teams responsible for significant parts of the company, no matter how replaceable they may find them. Even if a department seems completely disposable, getting rid of all of it altogether sounds extremely reckless and downright irresponsible. 

That is why it appears the people of the company in the story below have never heard of the first rule of rock climbing, because if they had, maybe they wouldn't have fired an entire IT department without having a firm grip on their replacement. They were so convinced that the department is no longer needed, that they even instructed that team to delete every single piece of data and information they had.

It wasn't long before the company came to seriously regret this decision…

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  • "Delete the Knowledge department? Okay..."
    via .shock

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "Delete the Legacy Knowledge department? Okay."

    A former employer has decided to sh ot themselves in the foot with a bazooka. I thought I'd share it here so you can laugh at them too.
    via AnnualAntics
  • In a nutshell, the business built it's own in-house software which is designed to cover all aspects of the business. From invoicing, tracking stock, creating reports, semi-automating
    via AnnualAntics
  • direct debit billing, and virtually everything else; a thousand "sub-areas". As such, the business ended up with three "IT departments". One was
    via AnnualAntics
  • more hardware issues & basic IT issues, there was the "medium" IT department who could fix small issues within specific sub-areas of the software, and the "Legacy" team who worked
    via AnnualAntics
  • on the rawest base level of the software and had kept it functioning for over 20 years. In an effort to cut costs, the senior management decided
    via AnnualAntics
  • that the Legacy team were no longer required as they were creating a whole new software anyway & would be ditching the old one. "within a year or so".
    via AnnualAntics
  • In doing so, they also insisted that the large office they occupied was completely emptied. This included several huge filing cabinets of paperwork, compromising dozens of
    via AnnualAntics
  • core manuals, and countless hundreds of up-to-date "how to fix" documentation pieces as well as earlier superceded documents they could refer back to too.
    via AnnualAntics
  • The Legacy team sent an e- mail to the seniors basically saying "Are you sure?", to which they (eventually) received a terse e-mail back specifically stating to "Destroy all paperwork".
    via AnnualAntics
  • They were also ordered to "Delete all digital files" to free up a rather substantial amount of space on the shared drive, and wipe their computers back to factory settings.
    via AnnualAntics
  • So, it was all shredded, the files erased totally, & the computers wiped. The team removed every trace of their existence as ordered, and left for greener pastures.
    via AnnualAntics

  • Why, why did they think it was a good idea to get rid of all that information? Who was it hurting to keep it, at least until the new system was up and running?

    I am no hoarder, but if I have a document that I have even the smallest thought that I might need in the future, I don't see the reason against keeping it. Who knows what the future holds?

    Keep scrolling to read what happened a mere three months after the company destroyed all that valuable information. Spoiler Alert: It does not look good for this company's future…

  • Cheezburger Image 10460170752
    via skhoward

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • It's been three months, and there was recently a power outage which has broken something in the rebooted system. The company can no longer add items into stock, which means
    via AnnualAntics
  • invoicing won't work (as the system reads as "can't sell what we don't have"). In turn, this means there's no invoices for the system to bill. So, it's back to pen, paper, and shared excel
    via AnnualAntics
  • sheets to keep track of stock, manually typing invoices into a template, and having to manually check every payment received against paper invoices. All of which is resulting is massive
    via AnnualAntics
  • amounts of overtime required to keep up with demand. The company has reached out to the Legacy Team, but they've all said without the
    via AnnualAntics
  • manuals they were ordered to destroy or erase, they're not sure how to fix it. The new system is still "at least a year out".
    via AnnualAntics
  • On the positive side, two of the senior managers have a nice large office to share & sit in.
    via AnnualAntics
  • Cerealefurbo When someone asks you "Are you sure?" you better think really hard before going on with your idea. Things are not going the way you think they are going
    via Cerealefurbo
  • Tree_Chemistry_Plz sounds like some possible compliance issues could arise and get the company into. legal murky waters. Got to love manglement making decisions they haven't explored the scope or impact of.
    via Tree_Chemistry_Plz
  • codykonior So sad. I have a feeling this happens a lot. I bet it's even more than a year out (but I think you've implied that too). Most companies I've seen try to do complete rewrites end up 5x-10x past initial estimates.
    via codykonior
  • PN_Guin Legacy knowledge is your main value and asset as an IT company. New software and services can be made by anyone willing to fund it. The things a fresh competitor can not offer is experience and a mature system.
    via PN_Guin
  • And even if you are building something new, the previous experience will let you skip a lot of pitfalls and save huge amounts of cost and time. If you think(!) something isn't needed anymore, reduce
    via PN_Guin
  • access first. Offsite, basement, locked away, whatever. This way access can be better monitored. Move a few senior legacy guys as consultants to the dev team. When (not if) things go down, you might have increased response time, but you can still recover.
    via PN_Guin
  • Battleaxe 1959 My husband was an IT consultant until just recently (retired). His major pet peeve was a company, like the one you described, wanting him
    via Battleaxe1959
  • to "make it work" again, but the company had no manuals, no back up drives and their software licenses are often expired.
    via Battleaxe1959
  • dsdvbguutres Even monkeys know not to let go of one branch before they have the next branch in hand.
    via dsdvbguutres

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boss workplace-stories employee fired manager job malicious compliance tales-from-the-workplace technology reddit story data workplace Tech Reddit company information technology
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