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I had a similar screwup, different outcome. Was working for a brokerage as an intern, IT gopher stuff, pretty much my first office job. A month in, I’m told b
by madaxe_again 5y ago
I had a similar screwup, different outcome.
Was working for a brokerage as an intern, IT gopher stuff, pretty much my first office job.
A month in, I’m told by my boss to delete a directory on the file server. Which I do. I scurry off and rm -rf it, think it’s taking a while, so saunter out for lunch.
Turns out that that directory was an active mount point for the root of the filestore on which they kept all of their user drives, legal documentation, everything. rm had got about halfway through wiping it before they pulled the plug on the machine.
Turned out they didn’t do backups, because “nothing like this ever happens”.
My boss’s boss flipped his desk over the incident, hurled a monitor tree at me like a battleaxe while purple and screaming, incandescent with rage. My direct boss of course fired me. I was literally booed out of the office by the traders, who chucked cups and bottles and crap at me as I did the walk of shame. Grown-ass men. I was 18.
I learned then that most people everywhere just want someone to blame for their own shortcomings, and being that person can be a valuable service if correctly structured.
Edit: I lie. I learned no such thing at the time. It dented my confidence and gained me a reputation in the city - and not a good one. It was however one of the formative experiences that led to me starting my own business, and never, ever treating anyone (or allowing anyone in my business to be treated by anyone else) in the fashion I was treated.
- Aeolun 5y agoA monitor tree?
- madaxe_again 5y agoA desk mounted vesa armature with four LCD monitors on it in 2x2. 2002, so would have cost an absolute fortune.
- exdsq 5y agoThats disgusting behavior
- tagfowufe 5y agoWhat a bunch of scumbags. There a are so many things wrong with the company and its workers under the light of this story...
- djmips 5y agoI did something just like that early in my career, working too long hours with little sleep. Someone was fired... the head of IT who was responsible for backups and didn't have one. Felt really bad about that. I was dressed down in front of the company like a scene from full metal jacket. I wasn't let go, but I took a hit which from which I never recovered and I left eventually a couple years later.
- lokischild 5y agoYou lost me somewhere between "I’m told by my boss to delete a directory on the file server. Which I do." and the rest of the story. Did you misunderstand? I don't see the logical conclusion
- madaxe_again 5y agoIn that type of company, shit flows downhill - very alpha male chest thumping workplace, lots of cocaine floating around. The IT guy was a buddy of the owner, and was clearly ashamed of the situation but wasn’t about to stick his neck out for the PFY, and I was basically there to run trunk cabling in plenum spaces and get some real world Linux sysadmin experience. Someone’s head had to roll, and it was mine, as it was a very cheap and disposable head to lop off.
- codegeek 5y agoSO many lessons here for a lot of people. 1. Always do backups. REMOTELY. OFFSITE. 2. Check your backups regularly. Make sure you can restore from them if needed. 3. Don't ask Interns to run delete commands casually. Heck, don't run deletes casually at all. 4. See #1. 5. Don't be a dick. This was really bad for the firm but having worked at investment banks myself, people can be dicks especially in high pressure environments like that.