From hero to zero in the blink of an eye!

[Gaston]

So, one of our sales guys was suspected of leaking info to the competitors while he was on extended sick leave.
Great guy, 55 YO, kind to others, always ready to lend a helping hand and in general one of those people that make your place of work a nicer place to go to.
The type you'd never expect to do stupid shit that would ruin his life.

We noticed a large spike in downloads of confidential files and source code right before new year's (while he was on extended sick leave I'll remind you)
which he claimed to be the cause of a automated sync tool on his mac. I felt in my gut something was wrong and I phoned him up and gave him 'some advice'.
He did some things to help me out in the past and I sure as hell didn't want him to get into trouble.
I told him to trash all the company devices and claim they were stolen or lost but it was too late.

Long story short; he had returned his Macbook before our talk though he 'deleted everything on it'.
I knew then he was fucked cause he is not IT guy and merely deleting files doesn't actually delete them immediately.
I couldn't protect him anymore and it made me feel sick to my stomach. We found out that he had signed a contract with a competitor (starting in April).
Made detailed plans to steal some big clients. Already signed a lease contract. He wrote a note in which he planned out his next steps;
He wanted to get fired (and receive a large severance payment, close to €180K) due to his many years of service.
Now, he'll got nothing and he will be sued for an exorbitant amount. He probably won't be allowed to work for the competitor either.
And since we found this evidence on a work device, it will hold up in court (I'm told).
To top it off, we found out that he has had an affaire for some time...but we didn't make any mention of that in the report.

I felt (and feel) like shit about it even though it's his own damn fault. You feel helpless when you try to protect somebody yet it all goes to shit anyway.
I really hope he gets his shit together, though he's in for some rough weather.

TIP OF THE DAY: Don't EVER, EVER use a work laptop, tablet or phone for private matters that could harm you in any way.

 

[LoneSage]

The guy had the right idea but was too dumb to know how to execute it. Super common over here to do exactly what he did, except they go from zeroes to heroes.

 

[titchgamer]

I know the feeling Gaston.
The problem is you can only protect someone from their own stupidity so far otherwise you get dragged in and chewed up to.

In the instance something similar happened to me I came out fine but the guy I tried my best to help got chewed up and spat out.
Again his own fault but what pissed me off is he came shouting at me afterwards (to the point we ended up toe to toe & nose to nose!) accusing me of screwing him over etc.

So yeah.....

Tried to help the guy and he blamed everyone but himself.

 

[ratson]

No good deed goes unpunished.

 

[Lastblade]

At least you weren't collateral damage from trying to help him, as that could implicate you as well.

He was dumb and doubled down on his idiocy and deserved what he will get.

 

[fake]

Like you said, it's his own fault.

I have a few clients for whom I made demo and tutorial videos. They specialize in network monitoring for this type of stuff. One of them has software that creates profiles of all endpoint users and reports on any file transfers or access that's out of the ordinary for them. (It also knows how to filter out benign stuff so the security team doesn't waste time.) Knowing what's possible because of these clients, I'd be very hesitant to even browse folders that I don't have any need to view, and if I were to work for a big corpo that uses this type of stuff, I'd probably be more vigilant about archiving my work examples (for future interviews and whatnot) as I completed the work so I wouldn't have to download anything from the network.

I wonder if his new employer could be in trouble. He could say he did what he did under instruction of the new employer.

 

[lithy]

Who cares?

 

[NeoSneth]

Well i think you did the right thing despite the man being naive.

I've seen this happen to a few of our higher level employees.
The company legally pursued them until it drained their financials. In most cases I've seen, the former employee was asking for it.

California doesn't allow non-compete's, so it's not unusual for people to switch to competitors and shop around. However.... It's usually frowned upon if you download all the proprietary tech documents before you leave. IT had the serial number of the exact hard drive where stuff was dumped. They could tell another person went to a store and had their macbook cloned.

 

[Neo Alec]

Am I maybe misreading this? I don't understand why anyone should be sympathetic. The guy made a plan to steal company data. Doesn't sound like such a great guy in the end.

 

[egg_sanwich]

Guy was never a hero and I sure wouldn’t want him working at my company either. Once a thief always a thief.

 

[massimiliano]

agree with Alec and egg™ ...that's fraud and could have possibly damaged the company (and many of its employees) ...Gaston, absolutely not picking on you, but frankly I find naive even posting on a public forum that you helped him.

 

[Heinz]

Stealing confidential data instead of doing something else perhaps not criminal in nature to get fired for a payout. Greed really does get the better of people.

 

[LoneSage]

Am I maybe misreading this? I don't understand why anyone should be sympathetic. The guy made a plan to steal company data. Doesn't sound like such a great guy in the end.

There is no good and evil. There is only power, and those too weak to see it. - LoneSage, 2019

 

[kitkit.com]

The guy is 55 and he should have known better. He is committing a crime and being a nice guy to others is not relevant. Sorry, no sympathy.

 

[djjimmyjames]

Whenever I think of my childhood days and remember the kids that use to huff paint I can clearly understand how dumb people can be. With a population so large you will see a lot of humans with little to no common sense. Factor in moral and immoral decisions and intelligence and oh boy. Such a varying degree. Truthfully I would say screw him, he tried to fuck the man and the man got him.

 

[LoneSage]

Truthfully I would say screw him, he tried to fuck the man and the man got him.

To me, this situation evokes nature. In nature, if I saw an eagle grab some fish, I wouldn't think, "Yeah, fuck that fish!"

 

[Gaston]

agree with Alec and egg™ ...that's fraud and could have possibly damaged the company (and many of its employees) ...Gaston, absolutely not picking on you, but frankly I find naive even posting on a public forum that you helped him.

View attachment 53379

O, no I fully agree with the fact that he messed up and now has to pay the price. The guy actively tried to harm the company and there is no excuse.

Before we ran the tool and found what we found, this was a colleague that everybody appreciated highly and therefore everybody assumed that the allegations were false. Turns out he was an entirely different person.

That was my point really. When somebody you think you know betrays and disappoints everybody around you, yourself included it just feels bad. We would have had his back all the way until he did what he did. Now, he will get what's coming to him.

(As for posting this on a public forum, that's ok - I have godmode+ privileges in my place of work )

 

[lithy]

Corporate espionage is not a crime. Thus no one outside of you or your bosses should care about this. The guy was bolting for a more lucrative job, proles pulling down the proles.

I'm glad that your company (and now n-g.com) knows you're a good boy Gaston, will they be rewarding you monetarily?

Crushing someone with legal fees is not serving justice, it is exacting a punishment.

 

[Gaston]

I never told my superiors anything. Shit just happened to play out this way

 

[NeoCverA]

Yeah, I was taking a shit once and I guess I was in a hurry because apparently, I hadn’t completely dripped out all my piss. I stood up to wipe my ass and dripped a piss on my pants that were curled up around my ankles.

A piss drip from above 2ft has a splash diameter of pi*r2. Needless to say I had a pee spot on my pants where one may piss himself should he actually piss himself. Now I’m waiting for the piss to dry and using friction to help. The hot air deals are them fucking dyson blade shits so the only way to use it is to absorb the heat onto my hands and do the ol Myagi-do piss dry technique. Since that would be a public display, I stayed in the stall and just rubbed it out with intense friction likely sounding like I’m having a great time.

So yeah man, don’t get into shit if you aren’t ready and perception is reality.

 

[GutsDozer]

Corporate Espionage is bonkers. It sounds almost like a good bad movie.