He Was Ordered to Drill Through a Swollen Lithium-Ion Battery to “Fix” an ER Workstation—Then Triggered an OSHA Emergency Audit
Shutterstock
Imagine getting a job, doing your job, and knowing you’re doing it correctly. What would you do if your boss tried to tell you that you weren’t doing your job correctly? Would you try it his way or keep doing what you’re doing?
In this story, one tech support worker is in this situation, and he knows better than to do things the way his boss says they should be done. In fact, he thinks it sounds like a really bad idea and tells his boss exactly how he feels about him and his idea.
I’m kind of surprised he didn’t lose his job or get reprimanded for how he talked to his boss!
Keep reading for all the details.
Of course you know more, that’s why you’re the manager!
I was subcontracted to a hospital, providing desktop support. A ticket came in one day for a PC that wouldn’t boot.
No big deal.
Check the machine out and it’s just a dead CMOS battery. F1 to continue or swap the battery.
I’d only been there about six weeks and didn’t know where all the supplies were kept yet so I hauled the device back to my office.
OP thought it was an easy enough fix.
While I am reaching into the case to pop the battery out, my boss walks in and starts flipping out.
“What are you doing?!”
“Um, just replacing the battery”
“You never do it like that! Who taught you?”
The boss explained the way he thought it should be done.
“Huh?”
“You never replace the battery with the machine powered off like that! You could corrupt the hard drive or worse, mess up the DNS settings!”
“Wait… what?”
“Did I stutter?”
OP refused to comply.
“Nooo, you didn’t stutter but what you said was so mind numbingly stupid I’m still trying to process it. You want me to replace the CMOS with… the machine… running?”
“Did you just call me stupid?”
“I’m sorry. I thought you already knew. No, I am not replacing the battery with the machine running.”
OP clearly didn’t think too highly of the boss.
Granted, this was the same mental giant that decided that an effective way to reduce service tickets was to give all users local admin access on all machine.
In a production environment.
Where the public could just walk up and start doing whatever they want because the systems weren’t locked down.
Never Miss a StorySign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.
And for those that want to question it, yes, I will talk to my management like that. Always have. Still do.
Yikes! I don’t know a lot about what it takes to fix computers, but keeping the machine powered on while replacing the battery sounds crazy!
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This person’s coworker once said something pretty rude.
Another person is baffled at the boss’s logic.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a employee who airs every last grievance in his resignation letter.
It would certainly be entertaining!
Another person loved the story.
The way he talked to his boss was pretty bold. I’d really like to know how his boss reacted to being talked to that way. It doesn’t sound like OP got in any trouble, so I can only assume he wasn’t too upset about it.
Enjoyed this story?
Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.
