Employee password-locks a year’s worth of training materials, then pretends to forget the password when he gets fired, leaving bosses scrambling before a 400-person event

I password protected all the trainings I created before I was fired.

pyroapa

Management loves a finished training program because it promises a future where expertise lives conveniently inside a folder. And this employee spent a year making everything clear, organized, and easy to follow. 

But because we all know the ins and outs of corporate leadership mindset, they naturally looked at all that accessible knowledge and wondered whether the person responsible is now an unnecessary expense. A presentation or deck can look self-sufficient from across a conference table, especially during budget season at headquarters. That’s pretty easy calculus for a boss.

This happened about 7 years ago. I had spent about 1 year developing training materials (videos, PowerPoints) for our company and stakeholders. The trainings were great, and included about 25 hours of important material over the course of about a 5 day workshop. I piloted the trainings with my peers and bosses, all of whom really liked the trainings.

welp, I was told my specific position would be ending and I’d be let go In the coming month.

so, what did I do? the trainings are on our shared Dropbox account. and, soon after my last day, there was a company-wide event of about 400 stakeholders who would need to engage in the trainings.

All my bosses can access them. but I had always had them password protected. And, welp, I conveniently forgot to tell others what the password was. I was unhelpful wirh every message I received pleading for the password, citing I didn’t remember (I did).

pyroapa

TechMonkey13:

Reminds me of a job I had a few years back. It was in a remote location, and I was the solo IT guy for the entire facility. I basically built and programmed their whole infrastructure from scratch. We're talking the network, security systems, door locks, automation, all of it.

The pay was absolute garbage for the workload, and the CEO kept blabbering about how he "spared no expense," which was total nonsense because he clearly cheaped out on IT. So yeah, maybe I wrote a little backdoor code to fix my own cash flow issue, and maybe I set up a custom lock screen that wags a finger and says "Ah ah ah, you didn't say the magic word!" while the fences lost power. Why are you touching my computer in the first place.

Man I hated that place. I heard its been taken over by a bunch of dinosaurs. F-ng old people.

throwitoutwhendone2:

I’m a chef. A had a home recipe I had made myself for some bad @$$ fried chicken. Job had a mediocre “special” chicken fried sandwich. I was asked to make it better.

Using my home recipe as a blueprint I developed a very good chicken sandwich recipe that sold out every single night. I was the only one that made it, not because it was “mine” but because I knew it by heart and could make it quickly.

Found out I was being let go due to the company downsizing so I deleted the recipe off the computer which was the only backup they had and removed the recipe from the physical recipe book. We made close to $400 a night off that recipe. I go it comes with me.

Unfortunately for the calculation his bosses made, files have a habit of requiring access. Suddenly, the employee whose position could disappear had information everyone urgently needed. That must have made for some delicate messages. Corporate farewells usually involve a supermarket cake and a reminder to return the laptop. Asking for a favor afterward requires reaching past the leftover frosting to explain why the supposedly manageable departure has become everyone’s afternoon problem.

Four hundred stakeholders waiting for training adds a satisfying amount of pressure to the situation. People likely booked rooms, prepared introductions, and chosen business casual outfits specifically for sitting through slides. The whole event depended on a password held by the one guy who was already invited to pursue exciting opportunities elsewhere. 

An executive can describe a departure beautifully in an email. Getting a login screen to appreciate that wording takes considerably more persuasion though. Of course, the employee remembered the password. Forgetfulness simply arrived at a professionally convenient moment, much like those missing promotion budgets that managers rediscover after somebody resigns. Claiming a blank memory gave every frantic request somewhere wonderfully unproductive to go. 

The materials remained visible, polished, and tantalizingly close to useful. Every video and presentation demonstrated exactly how much work had gone into making the workshop happen. Management could admire the deliverables while repeatedly encountering the one final training requirement its staffing plans had overlooked: knowing who still had the password.