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The original was posted on /r/sysadmin by /u/Lotheretan on 2023-10-06 19:12:04.

I work in a local phone carrier/VoIP company, around 10 employees, 2 of them being me and another tech guy. Both of us are the only two guys with any computer knowledge, no IT department per say. I was the one setting up the NAS we’re now using, the VPN accesses, the wireless APs, all that stuff.

My boss once asked me to change everyone’s password to the same password so HE would have a better time when having to access anyone’s machine, but I told him it would be the same as just having no password at all, so he let it go.

Later on he asked my colleague to collect everyone’s computer password, ours as well and put it in a spreadsheet and email it to him… I still put mine in, but changed it right after.

Then a few weeks later, he asked for the full control over the NAS, he already thought he had access but never connected once since we’ve had it, so I had his access limited in term of control and it’s been over a year, no issue.

He wanted us to show him how everything worked, asked us to delete all the folders, accounts and accesses from departed colleagues. I only had them disabled, so no one could access after they left and we still had access to whatever data was on their shared drive. The reason I didn’t delete their account is because it would also delete their data and backups of their data (It’ll be important later on).

On the next day, me and my colleague’s credentials had been changed, we received emails from the NAS saying our password had been reset. We asked him about it, he said he was making changes and had to disable our accounts in the meantime.

That night I received an email saying the daily backup failed. Then on the weekend, you guessed it, the Weekley failed as well.

He then removes my email from the backup software so at least no more spam about what I can’t deal with.

A week later, the new IT guy he had contacted to deal with all this called me (He’s actually the IT guy from one of our client) asking me if I could help him out with an issue on the NAS, no one could access their files over the VPN, it was working fine before though…

My boss took me in his office to tell me I couldn’t be trusted anymore because the people who recently left had their data wiped from the NAS and he couldn’t access their data anymore, but he could access anyone else’s recycling bin and deleted data, I tried to explain to him it was because he asked us to delete those people’s account but he wouldn’t believe it. I gave my resignation latter a week after that, I had another company asking me to join them for a while, this, was the last straw and decides to join them instead.

Thanks for listening to my TEDtalk.