Businesses have policies in place for a reason, and even when they don’t make sense, you need to follow them if you want to work there.

What would you do if you told an IT contractor that they were not allowed to take specific laptops because they were locked and not working right now, but the contractor took one anyway because he thought he could fix it?

That is what happened to the employee in this story, so even though the guy did it to try to help, it showed that he couldn’t follow company policy. This cost him a job offer that he was going to get.

Read through the full story below and see what you think of how the situation was handled.

Probably shouldn’t have taken that

At my job I am responsible for recovering computers from fired employees.

This is definitely an important job.

I am very good at my job with almost 95% of the computers being recovered and reimaged to be used for new employees within 3 weeks.

We had a new contractor come in to be our network guy. He was very cool and knew his stuff. My desk always has some interesting computers and other equipment on it as I get them turned around for reuse.

Work equipment is made for work only.

One thing I always told him that nothing on my desk should be used. If he needs a computer or tablet, I will provide it him. I especially made this clear about any Apple equipment that came in.

I told him in no uncertain terms that every phone, tablet, and MacBook is locked to the corporation. Unless you are okay with the company seeing everything you do and erasing it, nothing should be put on them that isn’t work related.

What a waste of money.

Last week I got a 16 inch 2025 MacBook Pro returned from a fired executive. I hate these things because the company pays more than $6k for them as vanity computers for execs, and when they come back, we can never turn them around because the fired execs always leave their cloud accounts on them, and we can’t wipe them and return them to use.

They are basically $6k paperweights. I told him this and not to touch it because I was reaching out to higher ups to see what to do with this computer.

Why would he take something he was specifically asked not to take?

Friday I had to take the day off, and then I found out it was also his last day because our two contract companies couldn’t come to terms. I was upset to hear he wasn’t coming back, until Sunday evening.

He gives me a call and let’s me know that he is officially not coming back. Then he tells me that he grabbed that MacBook Pro to try to use his equipment at home to unlock it.

Of course he can’t keep it.

Then he kind of insinuates to ask if he can get it unlocked, can he keep it. I have to play it cool, because I am MAD, and just say that I will meet with him on Tuesday to pick it up.

Even if we can’t use it, because I put it in the system as having been returned, somebody is going to ask about it. \[Which is what ended up happening.\]

Good, he might be getting hired on.

Monday, the word gets out to the rest of the tech team that dude hadn’t been renewed. They start commenting about the company needs to bring him in-house instead of relying on another contract company. That we really need him because we have a major network roll out that is happening in 2.5 weeks.

I respond with a tombstone meme. My manager tells us that they are working on that and that the parent corporation will probably bring him in as the permanent network administrator.

Well, he missed a great opportunity.

Later that night I call my manager and tell him exactly what happened. His first question is how do I know. I respond, “He told me.” “Are you kidding me? He told you? What was he thinking?”

I tried to be diplomatic and say maybe he thought he was being helpful to find another way around the lockout. We come to an agreement. He’s going to let me handle getting the laptop back. Meanwhile he is going to stop advocating for him to be brought back and will get him blackballed from the company.

They finally got the laptop back.

It looks like the network job will have to be delayed, since once they hire a new guy, it will be at least two months before they are up to speed.

I talked to him after all this and set up a day for him to return it. He still didn’t understand the gravity of what he had done. He ended up turning it into our security department. No harm, no foul for us, although Security was majorly confused since he had left the post-it note on it with the execs information.

I’m sure this was confusing for everyone.

They knew this exec had been fired two weeks ago and they had collected all of her equipment then. However, he is blacklisted. The permanent high paying network administrator job that was being lined up for him is gone. Now that my other coworkers know the full story, they are also mad.

I talked with one of the administrators, and while she doesnt have a solution for the MacBook issue, she has put me in touch with some folks who can take the 300+ iPad pro and iPhone 14/15/16s off our hands.

This guy really shot himself in the foot here. He could have been offered a great job if he hadn’t taken the laptop after being told not to.

Check out what the people in the comments have to say about this story.

Not in this case, though.

Apparently, there is a way around the issue.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who received a work email from a place she never even applied.

He really messed up here.

If he had followed the rules, he might have a great job now. Unfortunately, some people always think they know best and refuse to listen.

Hopefully, this will be a learning opportunity for him, and he won’t make the same mistake again.