If you worked for a corporation and a higher-up executive told you to do something that you knew was a really bad idea, would you explain the problem, or would you comply and let them face the consequences?

In this story, one IT worker was in that exact situation and chose the second option. And oh were there consequences!

Here’s how it all played out.

You want the server down during business hours? You got it.

I used to work IT at a mid-sized logistics company.

Our warehouse ran 24/7, but the corporate office was open Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 6 PM.

I was responsible for maintaining the internal server that handled everything from payroll to inventory management to shipping labels.

This seems like a really odd request.

One Monday morning, I got an email from a higher-up, let’s call her Karen, demanding that we take the server offline immediately for scheduled maintenance.

Now, I had scheduled that maintenance for Sunday evening, sent out three notices, and got no objections.

But Karen hadn’t read those emails and was now insisting we do it “right now” during her working hours.

I replied, Taking the server offline during business hours will temporarily halt access to the shipping system, inventory, time tracking, and payroll processing. Confirm you’d like me to proceed.

She confirmed.

She replied (and I quote) Yes. You should be working on my schedule. Get it done now.

Alright. Malicious compliance time.

I looped in the warehouse manager and let him know the system would be down per Karen’s urgent request. Then I pulled the plug at exactly 10:30 AM.

Here’s the fallout.

Within 15 minutes, the office was in chaos.

No one could clock in or out, print labels, track shipments, or even check inventory levels.

Phones were ringing off the hook.

The CFO stormed into my office asking what the hell was going on.

It was pretty easy to explain.

I just showed him the email thread.

Less than 30 minutes later, Karen came to my office red-faced and yelling.

I calmly pointed out that she had approved the server downtime in writing despite warnings. I offered to restore access early, but reminded her it would take time to reboot and check for errors from the forced shutdown.

Fallout? Oh yes.

Karen had consequences.

She got dragged into a meeting with the COO and CTO that afternoon. From what I heard, it didn’t go well for her.

After that, all urgent IT requests from management had to go through a change management process with multiple approvals.

I also got a little bonus on my next paycheck for handling the outage with professionalism.

Sometimes, the best way to teach someone why we have procedures is to let them break one. Once.

She was really pretty clueless to insist that the server needs to go down DURING business hours. How could that remotely sound like a good idea???

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

It really wasn’t logical.

This is a good rule to live by.

This person is skeptical of the story.

It would’ve worked out differently for this IT professional.

Some executives think they know everything, but they don’t.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.