Just because someone is an on-call staff member doesn’t mean you can’t trust them with company confidentiality.

This man was an experienced electrician.

He was brought into the company as an on-call technical engineer.

The new manager put up a combination code to the server room that only he and the IT guys knew, but this technical engineer needed access too.

Read the story below to find out what happens.

Put a combination lock on. Ok

This was a few years back.

I’m an electrician by trade.

I have moved into more technical areas over the years.

I started working for this company as a technician but ended up as a lead electrical commissioning engineer.

This man brings in support to the company as an on-call technical engineer.

One thing I’d always done from starting was help the old facility’s electrician.

When he retired, he was never replaced, and I just sort of covered the role, bringing in support from outside if it was major works.

When we moved to a new location, I was involved with design as well as installing much of the electrical and network setup.

The IT team would call him if they needed help with installation or reset.

All good really.

And it worked out great for the IT gang as they were based an hour away, so they could give me a call to reset something or similar.

Meet the new facility manager…

Then, we had a new facility manager.

Nice guy actually, but very buttoned up.

He was also by-the-book ex-military type.

He was getting pressure to smarten things up.

The manager decided to put up a combination lock on the server room.

One of the ways to do this was deciding to put a combination lock on the server room door.

Which mildly annoyed me as I’d stash my toolbag in there since I was technically parked at a desk at that point.

But he was set that only he and the IT crowd were allowed to know the code.

He would call the facility or IT guy to open the lock.

My job often meant I was there at odd hours and the go-to guy if things stopped working.

Lots of times, I’d get a call to plug something in, or asked if I can network up some kit for testing, monitoring, etc.

No problem if it’s 9 to 5 weekdays, just drag up the facility’s guy and have him open up.

He refused to be given the code.

But things don’t stick to 9 to 5, especially if I’m busy with my real work.

So, I got to enjoy calling up the facility’s guy or IT guys to come to site on weekends.

After only a couple of these incidents, they wanted to just give me the code, but I refused, citing that it wasn’t part of my job description.

He said it’s a good security practice.

It was good security practice, so I wouldn’t circumvent it!

It stayed that way till I left, although they did get better at scheduling.

That’s funny! Gotta follow the rules even when they don’t make sense!

Let’s check out the comments of other people on Reddit.

This person shares a short but meaningful comment.

This person describes it as “merciless.”

People are loving the malicious compliance.

This user shares their personal thoughts.

And finally, short and sweet.

Not trusting the on-call engineer means getting inconvenienced at the any time of the day!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.