Employee publicly blames boss for company's major network outage, boss refuses to accept the criticism, leading employee to pack up their office: ‘I went into full defense mode’

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Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Apr 9, 2025 4:00 AM EDT

What is it about bosses and their inability to accept criticism? We are all humans, and we all make mistakes. Yet for some reason, being told that by someone who is in a 'lesser' position is considered insulting, and if you ask me, that is plain counterproductive.

Finding a way to criticise your manager without actually losing your job is not an easy task. In fact, it is a task that many employees would do their best they can to avoid. Even if they know for a fact that their boss or the management is doing something wrong, confronting them about it would only be their very last resort.

In some cases, usually when employees are being forced to take the blame for their bosses' mistakes, the situation reaches a boiling point. A point at which employees feel like they have no other choice other than to speak up, and they can only hope that this decision will not lead to them losing their jobs.

That is what the employee in the story found themselves dealing with, after they finally lost it in front of their boss (and the rest of the team, oops).

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  • After years of warning management of a certain tech issue and being ignored every single time, this employee's company experienced a major network outage. Instead of owning up to their mistake, management blamed the tech team, the same one who tried to prevent the issue.

    One employee decided they are not going to take the blame, and publicly confronted their boss about it, who did not take it very well.

  • BUSIN "It was only a matter of time"
    via pixelshot

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

  • "Finally lost my cool today in a meeting, and now I'm just packing up my office waiting for the word."

    Our company had a major network outage two weeks ago. Our network provider SC ved the pooch, and caused an almost 48 hour outage. The design was
    via Foreign_Pay_4516
  • several years old, and 3 years ago we had a similar failure and I explained how to fix it. I was told at the time that the fix was 'too expensive' and our current
    via Foreign_Pay_4516
  • solution was "free" as part of our contract. Today during a cause analysis, my manager said how embarrassed he was
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  • when our data center hosting company said our connection was 'antiquated and obscure' and no one else uses it. He was mad because the CIO
    via Foreign_Pay_4516
  • heard that, and wasn't happy with him. He was upset that MY team got us in this state. He even went so far as to suggest that the "hack" we put in place.
    via Foreign_Pay_4516
  • to get us back up and running was probably good enough to just keep going forward with and we should just go back to business.
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  • I lost it and went into full defense mode. We proposed a fix to the solution, twice, in the past, but both times management chose the
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  • "free" solution over the right solution. We explained this was just going to get worse and it was only a matter of time until the timebomb blew
    via Foreign_Pay_4516
  • up, like it did. And leaving things as is without a proper network review is just begging for another outage.
    via Foreign_Pay_4516
  • I got a grunt of acknowledgement, and then silence. I haven't been added to any of the followup meetings.
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  • 9900
    via Motortion

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

  • jooooooohn If you know the solution and they are avoiding having you in meetings, sounds like their feelings got hurt and they're more interested in preserving
    via jooooooohn
  • those than their uptime. I'd start looking for another job anyway, sounds like just another place where spending money = bad
    via jooooooohn
  • Hoosier Farmer_ sounds like you need a promotion. hope things work out for ya!
    via Hoosier_Farmer_
  • blanczak One thing I learned in life is to acquire proper "cover your a (CYA) documentation for just these situations. "Oh Bob don't you remember that
    via blanczak
  • email I sent you on 06-01- 2024 at 13:23 CST explained all this and you even sent back an acknowledgment 30 minutes later?". Just irrefutable, straight to the
    via blanczak
  • point facts that you can bury people with. When sh blows up they may still get disgruntled but at least you got your ducks in a row.
    via blanczak
  • ps030365 Sounds like if they cut you loose, they are doing you a favor. Been there.
    via ps030365
  • Cczaphod CIO is looking for truth. It's his job to make the business decision between spending money for better uptime, or taking the resulting outages.
    via Cczaphod
  • It's your job to propose solutions and provide details. Everyone is on edge with an outage, so it shouldn't be a big deal.
    via Cczaphod
  • You told them so, and they're dealing with the consequences. Stay in your lane and look for other less expensive solutions if they exist. Provide options and follow company direction.
    via Cczaphod
  • persiusone If they fire you for not being able to accept criticism, you don't want to be at that company anyway.
    via persiusone
  • Situation Normal1138 Start planning your freelance rates. If they fire you, they'll prob be reaching out to you afterwards.
    via SituationNormal1138

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