Techie used remote access to take revenge on office bullies • The Register

Who, Me? How on earth is it 2026 already? The Register will ponder that existential matter after first presenting a brand new instalment of “Who, Me?” – the reader-contributed column through which we share your tales of belongings you shouldn’t do at work, and the way you escape them unscathed.

This week, meet a reader we’ll Regomize as “Patrick” who informed us about his time engaged on the tech assist staff at a UK authorities company.

“One in every of my colleagues was an 18-year-old whose whole job was resetting passwords,” Patrick informed The Register. “That is it, that’s all he did. We had numerous customers and therefore numerous numpties who usually screwed up their logins.”

Patrick described his younger colleague as “remarkably affected person” and “ lad who all of us obtained on effectively with.”

So when Patrick noticed two different members of employees shouting on the teenager, he felt protecting.

“I am unable to bear in mind what the shouting was all about, nevertheless it rapidly turned evident that this had gone manner past a telling off and became outright bullying,” he informed The Register.

The younger employee seemed decidedly uncomfortable and, as soon as the tirade ended, returned to his desk along with his head down.

Patrick hoped a staff chief would step in to supply consolation, however no one intervened.

So he determined to do one thing about it.

“Step ahead the ‘Imply Avenger’: me,” he informed The Register.

The Imply Avenger’s revenge plot began with reconnaissance.

“I walked previous the desk the bullies had been working at, and in passing took word of the asset quantity printed on a label on the PC,” Patrick wrote. He additionally noticed that the bullies had been engaged on a big and sophisticated spreadsheet.

He then returned to his desk, seemed up the PC’s asset quantity and realized it was additionally the PC’s hostname. His subsequent step was to fireplace up a command line and sort a command to close down the PC – silently, remotely, and immediately.

After which he waited till he heard the bullies communicate phrases that advised that they had completed engaged on the spreadsheet and all that remained was to press Save to protect their work.

“I counted to 5 – which ought to have been sufficient time for the save to finish – and pressed Enter to remotely shut down the PC,” Patrick confessed to The Register.

And he obtained the timing excellent, as a result of when the PC shut down the bullies assumed the save had failed, their work was misplaced. The bullies then began responsible one another for the mess with the identical horrible fervor they’d dropped at their abuse of the younger employee.

“Their argument was lengthy sufficient, and loud sufficient, to lastly get a response from administration, who arrived on the scene to calm issues down,” Patrick informed Who, Me?

All that remained was for the Imply Avenger to make his escape, which Patrick feared can be laborious as a result of log recordsdata recorded his actions.

“If anybody went digging, they’d discover a huge arrow pointing in my route,” he wrote. “However no one seemed and I obtained clear away with it.”

“I by no means informed anybody what I did, till now.”

Have you ever stepped in to save lots of the day when administration turned a blind eye to rotten office conduct? If that’s the case, do the best factor and click here to ship your story to Who, Me? We’d love to inform your story because the yr unfolds. ®