Fixing a problem feels great until you find out the solution broke several rules you did not even know existed.

Imagine coming up with a clever workaround to get an office online, but learn afterward that it violated licensing laws and safety standards. Would you be upset, or would you shrug it off and undo all the work you just did?

In the following story, one junior IT employee finds himself in this predicament and has no choice but to undo it all. Here’s what happened.

Excellent work on fixing the issue, however, you will need to immediately undo it.

Back when I was still very green in the IT world, at my 2nd ever tech support job, I worked for a council (basically the equivalent of a county) in Australia.

The council’s works depot was expanding, and they installed a portable building to use as extra offices. There was power when this was installed, but no one considered installing data points.

This was in the days before WiFi was common (back then, 802.11b was the latest standard), and the council didn’t have WiFi at this location. The distance meant that WiFi probably wouldn’t have even worked anyway.

Australia has strict wiring laws.

Discussing this with staff onsite, and me recently learning how to crimp network cables, I suggested that if the staff at the works depot can dig a trench with their backhoe between the main building and portable building, I could just run a network cable in the trench, crimp each end, and we would have data to the building.

So I did exactly that, and it worked. Once I am back at the main office, I proudly tell my boss that I have found a solution and made it happen.

For those who might not know, Australia has very strict laws about who can do wiring, both electrical and data wiring. You need to be qualified and licensed to install things like power points, data sockets, and run cables in walls, roofs, etc.

The boss pointed out multiple problems with what he had done.

On top of that, the cable I ran was directly buried in the ground. It was not rated for direct underground burial, just your garden variety network cable.

I didn’t know it at the time, but what I did was not permitted. My boss pointed out the multiple violations I made (specifically using the wrong grade of cable, and that as I was not a licensed cable installer, I couldn’t legally install it in the manner that I did).

He was really cool about it and understood that I wasn’t aware and was happy that I genuinely wanted to help, but mentioned that I would need to go and immediately go rip it all back up.

Within a few days, we had a licensed cable installer install the cable legally.

Wow! Well, at least he tried to help.

Let’s see if the people over at Reddit relate to this situation.

According to this comment, it was a proof of concept.

Here’s someone with a similar sentiment.

Most people probably have no idea what this means.

Here’s someone who did something similar.

It was a great idea, but very unfortunate that it all had to be undone.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.