Office politics rarely make sense, especially when leadership is more interested in personal indulgences than professional integrity.
At one small business, a grudge against a hardworking employee set the stage for some expertly executed IT mischief that, of course, went way over the bosses’ heads.
Read on for the full story!
When I was at the university, a friend landed a part-time job doing networking for a really small company.
He asked me if I wanted in because he also had other customers and was worried he wouldn’t be able to handle them all.
It was easy money — 12 hours per month to basically maintain the network infrastructure, upgrade firmware on routers, check logs, run antivirus software, and install some software on computers.
So, I said yes.
He first explains the company hierarchy.
The company used to fix and sell printers and printer-related stuff.
It was run by two ladies who were friends, let’s call them May and June.
However, the CEO in function was May’s husband, let’s call him CEOPeter, who was also June’s husband’s best friend.
The rest of the company consisted of AccountantPeter (who shared the same name as the CEO), some technicians who were rarely there, and two hardworking sales representatives.
The distribution of work definitely wasn’t very equal.
Basically, the accountant, technicians, and sales reps were the only ones doing work there.
Even though May and June were technically sales reps, they hardly ever made a call.
May spent all day browsing the internet for things to buy (her thing was shoes).
June spent all day chatting with another guy (not her husband) who also shared the name with the CEO, let’s call him ThirdPeter.
The CEO’s activity was even more surprising…
Meanwhile, CEOPeter spent all day watching dirty movies — yes, at work.
Strangely, May appeared to have no problems with CEOPeter’s habits.
I spent most of my time there trying to clean CEOPeter’s computer from the myriad of viruses he would install while browsing sketchy sites.
Even when I complained to him about it, he claimed he didn’t know why there were so many viruses and kept doing the same thing every single day.
Watching management’s antics became quite the spectacle.
The place was full of drama.
After a while, my friend and I would pretend to have work to do there and spent time there just for the LOLs.
May then has the audacity for questioning the work ethic of her sales reps.
One day, May approached me, furious, saying that she caught one of the sales reps browsing the internet instead of making calls.
So she makes a bizarre request.
She wanted to disable internet access for the sales reps.
I checked the logs and saw that the rep was browsing the specs of one of the machines she was selling, a newer model she wasn’t familiar with.
Cue malicious compliance. I disabled internet access for the entire company.
It’s soon clear she doesn’t quite understand how the internet works.
About two minutes later, May, June, and CEOPeter came running to the server room, shouting about what the heck had happened to their internet.
The accountant and the sales reps barely noticed anything had changed because they were hard at work.
I told them that May had made me do it.
She protested, “But just to the reps!”
His explanation goes flying right over their heads.
I explained some bull about not being able to block specific IPs because they were assigned dynamically and would keep changing, throwing in some technical jargon for good measure.
CEOPeter was red as a tomato.
He demanded that internet access be reinstated for everyone.
I looked at June, and she nodded. I looked at May, and she asked, “Are you sure you can’t just block it for them?”
I shook my head and said no.
She exhaled. “OK, then. Internet is back up.”
If nothing else, this workplace sounds entertaining as heck.
What did Reddit think?
This reader is hooked and wants to hear even more of the story!
May and June’s priorities are so out of wack that they forgot their own title!
There’s nothing worse than not being able to tell characters apart!
Management’s antics were so entertaining they even came to work off the clock!
Restoring the internet was simple, but untangling the mess of egos and excuses proved far more complex.
There’s definitely a disconnect here – and it’s not just the internet!
If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.
