Employee laid off after 8 years returns company laptop wiped clean, company loses access to critical files: 'He [was] the sole administrator for some of the core systems'

Last Saturday, a recently laid-off employee met a friend for dinner. He was still coming to terms with losing his job the day before. He had worked remotely for the same company for seven or eight years and had become the go-to person for several key systems. The company was small and didn't have a real IT department. Each system had someone in charge, and he was responsible for more than one important platform.

Over the years, most of the operational knowledge for those systems lived either in his head or in documentation he personally maintained.

A few months before, a new manager started at the company and quickly set a strict return-to-office rule with no exceptions. The issue was that this employee's contract clearly said he was hired to work remotely. He lived about 200 kilometers from the office, so moving would have cost him a lot. Working from home had always been part of his salary expectations.

HR confirmed the obvious: unless he voluntarily agreed to relocate, there wasn't much the company could do.

The manager was not happy about this.

After that, the manager slowly put more and more pressure on him, which eventually led to him being let go. The manager kept saying his job wasn't that important and that someone cheaper who would work in the office could replace him.

When he was finally let go, the manager had one request: return the company laptop.

"Just the laptop," the manager said. He wanted to give it to the new hire.

So that's exactly what the manager received.

Before sending it back, the former employee saved his personal files and reset the laptop to its original settings. There were no documents, no login details, and no manuals left. It was just a clean, wiped laptop.
A few days later, the manager called him.
The manager was furious.
No one could access important systems. Login keys were missing, and all the documentation was gone. Nobody knew how to run the platforms the employee had managed for years.
The former employee replied calmly and simply: he had done exactly what was asked. Just the laptop.
The call ended soon after. Meanwhile, the former employee already has a new job waiting and will start in a few weeks. First, he’s taking a well-deserved vacation. The company he left is about to find out the hard way that there’s a big difference between simple tasks and real institutional knowledge.
via Getty Images For Unsplash+

^{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}
"You only want the laptop back after firing me?"

via mdlapla
via mdlapla
via mdlapla
via mdlapla
via mdlapla
via mdlapla
via mdlapla
via mdlapla
via mdlapla
via mdlapla
via mdlapla
via mdlapla
via mdlapla
via mdlapla
via Kari Shea for Unsplash+
via Fickle_Penguin
via mdlapla
via azraphin
via mdlapla
via OneSufficientFace
via mdlapla
via tsian
via mdlapla
via dnabsuh1
via Manic_Mini
via Sure_Acanthaceae_348
via umassmza