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When it comes to technology, if you don’t know what you’re doing but you think you do, it’s possible that you might make a huge mistake and really mess things up, such as changing settings that shouldn’t be changed or deleting files that are important.

In this story, one tech support worker explains what happens when his supervisor admits to making a huge mistake. He thought he knew what he was doing, but then he realized he may have created a much bigger problem than the one he was trying to solve.

He was right.

Keep reading for all the details.

A tale of the inexperienced over-achiever and a locked out supervisor

To preface, I am employed by a non-profit that has less that 250 users total.

The previous IT “team” could not put together security related GPOs, or properly manage the AD to save their lives. Got numerous health IT related goofs that need fixing.

Wait… did I say fixing? I meant created, as none exist.

This is odd.

Anyway, about a week ago, I did this blunder: I did a GPO no-no.

It was working great. I had about 25-30 rules defined, and more were being added as we were finding more odd-ball software we use.

However, my supervisor could not burn discs. He took his machine off the domain, and it worked. Back on the domain, nothing.

Perplexing, as I don’t have any rules defined for external media.

He got to work.

Onto the story…

Yesterday, I head to our branch office, which houses all our financial, HR, and other such staff, to troubleshoot an odd-ball software that’s not playing nice.

I get started to work on it, with the user there as it works fine on my profile (apply rules on all users, except local administrators). I open the software, get cracking on what it needs, then open Chrome.

Your administrator has blocked this software by policy.

Time to try a workaround.

I knew that. I had to allow Chrome to run, and I was discovering PC’s that wouldn’t download the updated policies. Ok, alternative. Open Internet Explorer.

Your administrator has blocked this software by policy.

Hmm… Firefox? Blocked. Outlook? Blocked. Quickbooks? Blocked. Calculator? Blocked.

Dang.

His supervisor called.

Right then, the secretary dials the phone I’m at, says my supervisor is on the line.

Ok, transfer him over.

S for my supervisor. Great guy, worked with the company from it’s inception in the mid-late 80’s. Set up their original UNIX server-terminal system, way back in the day. Better things came along, and he moved on. Recently, he came back.

And, myself, u/afr33sl4ve. The inexperienced over-achiever, that’s held back by bureaucracy, common sense, and logical thinking. Oh, and my supervisor, who smacks some risk analysis into me, as well.

The supervisor thinks he messed up.

u/afr33sl4ve: Hey, S, what’s up?

S: I made some changes. I’m afraid that I’ve done more harm than good.

What could he have possibly done, that could have been worse than mine? Having completely forgotten about the blocked programs for a split second.

u/afr33sl4ve: I can see that I’m blocked out of everything.

He explained what he did.

S: Well, I was burning some discs, and they kept failing. So, I went into your software policy, and started flipping the disallowed to unrestricted. That was taking a long time, so I decided to take a shortcut.

My heart sank a little.

S: I had thought I made a copy of your policy and was modifying the one I copied over. I was deleting rules, and after I deleted the last one, I realized that it was the original policy.

u/afr33sl4ve: So, we’re locked out of everything?

It really was a big problem.

S: I was under the assumption that deleting the rules would revert everything back.

u/afr33sl4ve: That may be true for active directory with 2003, however, that’s not true with active directory on 2008. We have to create counter-policies to reset everything.

S: S#!t. What’s the fastest way we can fix this?

u/afr33sl4ve: We’d have to recreate the policy in it’s entirety, and because I don’t have a backup… That’ll be time-consuming.

He solved the problem.

S: I see the old software policy still here. Can we work with that?

u/afr33sl4ve: Yes, we can definitely work with it. I’ll get it done.

At this point, I fired up my work laptop, opened the GPO Editor MMC via RSAT, and got cracking on creating 3 path rules as unrestricted. I’m not happy with it, but it lets people work.

I got back to the main location, and saw my supervisor first thing.

At least the supervisor can admit when he messes up!

S: Ok, I admit. I messed up. I’ll let the security GPOs be your domain.

u/afr33sl4ve: Thank you.

The VP of Operations was walking by as he said this, and she chimed in.

VP: Yes, no more breaking things for you, S.

We all laughed, and had a good time after. However, I’ll be recreating that specific GPO in the coming hours. :\

What I love about this story is that the supervisor admitted that he made a mistake instead of trying to blame it on someone else.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

Yes, this is basically what the supervisor must have thought.

Another person shares their thoughts.

This person shares their impression.

A supervisor who messes up something that creates more work for you and inconveniences every employee is a huge problem, but a supervisor who does all that and admits that he made the mistake all on his own due to his own ignorance is quite rare.

I’m impressed that the supervisor didn’t try to point blame at OP or someone else. Instead, he owned up to making a mistake and explained what he did wrong.

Knowing exactly what happened makes the problem easier to solve.