Outage
I called in sick to work on Friday, but even so I had work to do, so I logged in from home to get it done. In the course of the work I was doing, I managed to accidentally corrupt a production database during business hours. A production outage of perhaps 30 minutes was incurred, and I received a page to call Todd, my two-levels-up boss as soon as possible. So I called him, and he immediately put me on speaker. He told me that he had his boss, Carl, with him in the room. I have never heard Carl speak.

The following quotations are paraphrased for the sake of simplicity.

"John, I understand that you caused an outage today."

"Yes."

"I need you to promise me, and Carl, that you'll never do that again. Do you promise?"

"Yes."

"Thank you." -click-

The next day(Saturday), I heard from coworkers that the root password was changed across the environment on Friday evening. I decided to check on what that actually meant on Sunday afternoon, and wasn't able to login from home. Things did not bode well, despite the assurances from multiple friends and coworkers that there must be a reasonable alternative explanation. Something inside me said that there must be, but the rest of me took the time to dust off my resume and get some inquiries out for jobs. It was at this point that, regardless of what happened the next day, I decided that I was no longer interested in working at DST.

I walked into my cube this morning to find my computer missing. I sat down and checked my email with my phone to see if any of the job emails I'd sent the previous day had produced any replies. They hadn't. Soon after, Todd came by my cube and without making eye contact asked me to follow him. He took me downstairs to an office I'd never seen before. Silent Carl and another guy I recognized but whose name I didn't know came out of hiding and entered the room behind us.

Todd picked up a piece of paper in his stubby sweaty hands, and read off a passage about how I acknowledged on Friday I caused an outage, and because of that I was dangerous and couldn't be trusted. Since DST doesn't employ dangerous and untrustworthy people, the piece of paper went on to state that as of that moment my employment was terminated. I was out of the building in ninety seconds. I don't know why I even made the drive.

terra commented:
i don't know what to say.

except that i am sorry.

you know your worth well.

someone else will be happy to have you.

until then enjoy your unplanned vacation and we will grab some beers.

9:53 AM, Oct 27, 2008

Brad interjected:
I am buying you a beer or four.

11:03 AM, Oct 27, 2008

demian blurted:
Sorry to hear that man. I have been there. It sucks balls. They didn't force you to sign anything with their statement of "dangerous" and "can't be trusted" did they?

11:45 AM, Oct 27, 2008

bahua chimed in with:
Thanks. As yet I have signed nothing having to do with any of this.

11:53 AM, Oct 27, 2008

tobias thinks:
booo! what a terrible way to treat an employee - i will also buy you a beer since that is the way friends should be treated.

3:25 PM, Oct 27, 2008

Noah said:
Aww jeez. Sorry to hear the news. I haven't even been in the office this week yet. Ping me (my first.last name at gmail), I know someone who's looking to fill a decent-paying AIX admin gig, if it hasn't been filled yet.

4:05 PM, Oct 27, 2008

Rachel wants you to know:
holy crap, brother! holy crap! that is a bunch of IT!

I have eeeevery faith that your time off will be not only well-spent but brief.

12:36 AM, Oct 28, 2008

Alexjandro was sure you'd want to know:
That is messed up.... and no way to treat people.

11:07 PM, Oct 30, 2008

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