When you are just starting out in a new job, you really have to just do as you are told since you don’t fully know what you are doing on your own.

What would you do if your boss told you to take an action that led the entire security camera system at a casino to go offline?

That is what happened to the security tech in this story, and then his boss tried to make him take the blame for it, but he was able to show that he wasn’t the one who caused the problem, and got his boss fired.

Check it out.

First day on the job, I was asked to run faulty code, I did, and the business lost a lot of money.

I work at a Casino, I’m the technician that handles all the surveillance cameras.

He got a great promotion.

Originally I worked in the casino warehouse, but was hired to be the tech after a glowing recommendation from my former boss.

I’ll preface this with the fact that I had no IT or mechanical experience professionally when hired to this position.

I was told many times during the interview and orientation that I didn’t need any experience and that I would be trained by our other tech.

Carpooling is a great way to save on gas.

This story begins on my ride to my first day on the new job. The previous mentioned tech, we’ll call him Walter, and I actually live close together so we began carpooling.

During the ride, Walter (who is really a nice guy but this story might make him seem like a jerk) began telling me that there were some orders I would be given by our boss, that he doesn’t feel is part of his job that he refuses to do and that basically he’ll be mad at me if I try doing them for him.

You have to do what your boss demands, especially when you are new to a job.

I tell him that since I’m so new, I’ll have to follow expectations because I don’t want to cause waves. This sets Walter off, berating me with all sorts of nonsense like “How are you gonna say you have pride in your job if you do things that aren’t your job?” He basically called out my pride.

My pride doesn’t come from the things I do while I slave for pennies to pay for some rich guy to have a fourth Porsche and a ninth mansion, so whatever, I shrugged it off.

Cameras are absolutely essential at a casino.

Now when we get to work, our job is to install new cameras in the bar which is going through complete renovation. In order to do this, we had to integrate these new cameras into our very dated, very disorganized camera network that only Walter knows how to work with. (Former techs left the department in disarray.)

After working with a hub that acts as a landing point for our new inputs, he began getting frustrated, swearing and throwing his tools.

Honestly, this guy does seem like a jerk.

I begin to distance myself, I go to the bathroom and come back. He is then very angry and begins accusing me of doing the things my boss tells us to do that apparently isn’t our job.

Walter goes to our boss’s office (we’ll call him Todd) and tells him none of this is his job and leaves for the day abruptly.

I come to the office a few minutes later (I went on and did other work for a while) and Todd tells me that since he left, it’s now my responsibility to integrate the new inputs.

You don’t want to mess with code you don’t understand.

I explain to him that the error can only be solved by entering lines of code I know nothing of, and that tech support won’t be back until the following Monday (this is a Friday).

Todd says “Well it’s broken now, you couldn’t mess it up any further than it is, go do it, I don’t have time for this I need to go home. Make sure it’s done by tonight because our executive committee (EC) will be inspecting the bar.”

Things could get worse. A lot worse.

I explain that this issue is a network issue and potentially could take down cams that are necessary for state compliance.

I told him the only other thing I heard was that the code that tech support had given us kept doing something weird with cams we needed for compliance, and that Walter knew how to bring them back online and I did not.

He doesn’t care, and leaves, but not before telling me to just run the code.

I bet he regrets taking the promotion at this point.

By this time, I’m at about 10 hours logged on this shift, my ride home is gone and I’m starting to get a little mad. I decided to comply, with malicious intent.

I read for another two more hours about how to even look at the settings for this hub. I plug a laptop into it and open up putty. I was able to figure out through trial and error how to enter commands.

He is smart for verifying one more time.

Before I enter the lines of code, I ask my boss via phone call one more time if this is a good idea, he tells me not to call him at home unless its an emergency and reiterates his prior command.

So, I start entering the code and suddenly I see all of our cameras start dropping off one by one. I start getting calls from the surveillance observers, wondering what was going on.

They were reaching out for help everywhere.

I told them that I was following the instructions that Todd gave me. They were all very mad, and began calling Todd, our directors, and after nobody helped, they called Gaming.

They issue the command to shut down the casino until the problem is resolved. Eventually, Todd stops whatever he was doing and comes back to work just in time for the EC to show up.

Wow, he can’t even take responsibility for his mistake.

Todd scolds me, and says that I can be the one to face the EC since it was my mistake. I was more than happy.

The EC is all in a conference room along with two state gaming regulators and the actual CEO of the Casino company.

This is not a good look for Todd.

They ask for Todd, Todd sends me. I get into the room and everyone is demanding answers: where’s Todd? Why is this happening?

Every minute a casino stays closed can potentially be thousands of dollars in lost revenue. So, this is a really, really serious deal for these suits.

The EC unrelentingly grills me, and I have to take a second to clear my head before I respond or I might just start slapping people the tension in that room was crushing.

Surely they can’t blame him for these problems.

So, I sit down, grab a bottle of water and explain to them what happened, and that it was my first day and the other tech just went off some place and nobody knows where he went.

The CEO actually apologized and told me to go ahead and head home and that I wouldn’t be blamed for anything. I took the bus home. (HR comped the ticket, luckily)

I’m surprised they transferred him rather than fired him.

The next day (the casino floor still being down) I pass Walter in the hall, who had just been transferred to another department, and then I go into the surveillance room where the observers showed me on video what had happened once the EC tracked down Todd.

Apparently one of the EC members found him hiding in an elevator service room.

He knew he was in trouble, and was actually hiding.

I got to watch him walk, shoulders slumped, into that conference room. I got to watch and hear them harshly call him out, his poor decisions and his poor leadership.

I got to listen to them tell him how unfair and poor a decision it was to assign me to the task when he himself had the skills to complete it.

One of our directors told him that he was no longer needed here. I watched the footage of him pack his stuff, and have two security officers escort him off property.

I bet this was a great feeling.

The feels were great. I then worked with a flown-in tech specialist who was very helpful and actually showed me quite a bit while we solved the issue together.

Later, I found out the Casino lost almost a million dollars in revenue over the evening between fines and the fact that this was a high roller event weekend gone wrong.

I still love thinking about it 5 years later.

This would be very satisfying. Hopefully they found someone competent to come in and work with this guy going forward.

Check out the comments below to see what other people think of the story.

Casinos are big money makers.

Having a single point of failure is a big mistake.

I’m wondering this as well.

He just didn’t want to explain it himself.

I guess these cameras weren’t on the same system.

This casino had an idiot in charge of security!

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.