Always sucks to do this...
Posted by Obvious-Water569@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 92 comments
Having to disable accounts and delegate mailbox access for someone who died on Monday.
I've only had to do this a few times in my career but it always feels icky.
imgettingnerdchills@reddit
An employee in our company is leaving to focus on cancer treatment soon. The guy was ALWAYS extremely kind to everyone and just a great man overall. He went out of his way to make me feel appreciated on a regular basis and build me up to everyone and always loudly proclaimed all the value that I brought to the company and how much I helped all the teams when no one else has/does. When we got a new label marker he opened the box and said 'I know what to do with this!' and made a 'imgettingnerdchills rocks' sticker that I've had on my laptop ever since. I'm going to have to disable his account soon and wipe his computer and its going to be very tough. At least I got a chance to say my goodbyes before he left.
therealRustyZA@reddit
Why do bad things always happen to good people?
It sucks. :(
itishowitisanditbad@reddit
We had a raging racist asshole die of cancer last year.
Its not always good people. Sometimes you get lucky.
Had a super big asshole die a few years back too. They'd always start political fights in office every single day with anyone who talked more than 2 sentences with them.
Heart attack.
You win some and lose some.
Cold-Cap-8541@reddit
The sad thing is it's impossible to know if the person was a racist, or your just a person that calls everyone who doesn't agree with them a racist!
Since you seem to delight in other people's misfortune...your dark triad personality might be showing.
itishowitisanditbad@reddit
They used slurs straight up and kept referring to peoples nationality and saying stuff like "Typical lazy one" etc
They were racist.
I actually barely ever interacted with them and had no direct issues with them, other than overhearing their racism.
You've concocted a whole thing that never happened to then question, which is weird.
ITAdministratorHB@reddit
You seem nice.
IdidntrunIdidntrun@reddit
People don't deserve respect after they die for simply dying.
They deserve respect after they die if they were not a terrible person. And especially so if they were a stand-up person.
/u/itiswhatitisanditbad may be a bit out of line. But they aren't in the wrong for lacking sympathy for genuinely terrible humans who happen to kick the bucket.
Vill13rs@reddit
If the dead are so concerned with how we speak and think of them after they're gone, maybe they should have put more effort into being good people while they were alive.
moistpimplee@reddit
being an adult means you can pick and choose what people you want to associate with. if op doesnt want to associate with a raging racist asshole, all the more power to them
ITAdministratorHB@reddit
I think it's a little weird to dance on the graves of people you worked with day in and day out, even if they were an asshole. Seems kinda sociopathic.
Ssakaa@reddit
Nah, it's weird to dance on the graves of people you've never met over such narrowly focused things, but if you worked with someone for that long, and there weren't enough redeeming qualities for you to discover to counter it, dance away.
Blueline42@reddit
A pretty young compared to me Sysadmin who worked for years before me at my current company was just a generally good guy fun to talk to fun to be around. He had a fiance and a bright future but got killed in a car crash. I still see his name all over the place still years later at work and it always makes me reflect how precious life is and to some extent how little work matters.
Ivy1974@reddit
That isn’t bad. What is bad is those working in the medical billing department and calling family members regarding their bill even though the patient has died.
LarryInRaleigh@reddit
Think that's bad. I returned home from burying my late wife, checked the mailbox, and the cancer treatment center had seen the death notice in the newspaper and put a lien on our home that day.
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
I honestly think I'd off myself before doing that job
SPMrFantastic@reddit
But then some poor sys admin would have to disable your account. It's a vicious cycle
natefrogg1@reddit
There is a worse bad thing so therefore the first bad thing isn’t bad, seriously man? wtf
Ivy1974@reddit
You comment made absolutely no sense.
natefrogg1@reddit
You said “that isn’t bad” but it is indeed bad for those that have gone through it.
Sure people can always find something that is worse, that doesn’t make the initial thing less bad.
It’s like if I stub my toe and it hurts, then I am told about someone that broke their toe, does my stubbed toe no longer hurt because someone else had it worse?
Maybe I misread your initial comment though when you said the topic at hand is not bad.
LarryInRaleigh@reddit
An employee (nice guy) close to me was a long-distance bicyclist besides biking 10 miles to work frequently. One weekend he was 30 miles from home when the front wheel of his bicycle came off and he went under the wheels of a tractor-trailer.
I had to recover his company laptop from the family, search the drive and copy his music and personal documents (copies of driver license, insurance policies, etc.) to a memory key, and return the key to his family.
InternationalMany6@reddit
Thank you for doing it though.
One of my teams in Teams is still owned by someone who died a year ago, but for reasons, their account is still active. Always nice to see their face every morning…but weird too.
sssRealm@reddit
We have had 2 deaths in the past 2 years, both from a department of 4 positions. There are currently 2 people in the department nearing retirement, I hope the trend stops.
bukkithedd@reddit
It sucks, plain and simple, depending on who it happened to.
Don't get me wrong: someone dying before their time is always a tragedy, but in some cases I don't think about it much. If the guy is a complete asshole, I think little more about it than I need to. But in one case I got across my desk, the guy was a 26 year old recently married dude with a kid on the way that was struggeling majorly with depression. He ended up jumping into a river in the dead of winter, with the predictable result.
That was a hard day, and I've often thought about whether or not I could have done SOMETHING to help before he made the leap.
DrAculaAlucardMD@reddit
Please let this be a reminder to you that the company will continue on after you have devoted yourself to it. Missing birthdays, vacations, time with family and friends isn't worth it. Live your life and have a solid work/life balance. Hell tip the scale every so often to life.
IWASRUNNING91@reddit
My wife always tells me, "That is not your real life, this is your real life." when I get too caught up in things, or my anxiety peaks about work.
bukkithedd@reddit
Mine said something similar but also FAR more harshly and also tacked an ultimatum onto it. At the time I kind of resented her for forcing me to swap jobs, but I will honestly say that it's the best thing I've done workwise. Brought back a lot of balance in my life.
SilentSamurai@reddit
Everything Id love to do as a job wouldn't pay me enough to survive.
cs_major@reddit
The handcuffs of IT.
StoneUSA7@reddit
No one ever lays on their death bed and says, "I wish I worked more."
BadSausageFactory@reddit
as someone who has had a near-death experience, I can tell you I just didn't want my wife to be the one finding the body
ps I didn't die, it's ok
theservman@reddit
Yeah, but rule #1 is don't die at work.
(even though my insurance pays triple if I do)
Responsible_Reindeer@reddit
Good job not dying, friend.
reevesjeremy@reddit
We have over 6000 employees. It does suck to see those requests come in. It’s even worse when it’s someone you know and found out about their passing through an access request. This happened to me for the first time this year. Someone I used to directly support years ago before I took over O365. It was shocking to read the request and be taken back.
Glass_Ad_1391@reddit
Did this on Tuesday for someone that was nearing retirement. Thing I dislike the most about the job.
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
Man, that blows. Bro almost made it to the finish line. :(
Glass_Ad_1391@reddit
Very much. Reminded me to take retirement as soon as I can instead of trying to drag out a few more years when I get that age.
p8nflint@reddit
I feel like you are viewing it as a disservice to the deceased, while I think it is quite the contrary. Maybe this re-framing will make it more bearable. Hang in there brother, we're all in this together.
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
No, I don’t think I am seeing it that way. It’s just that the circumstances of me doing those jobs are sad. It’s like boxing up their belongings after they pass. It has to be done, but the reason sucks.
p8nflint@reddit
I see, I see. Well, my condolences.
OinkyConfidence@reddit
Had one years ago where a part owner had a medical event and recovered, but was mute after. He'd still come to work and send emails, but couldn't speak. He died a few years later and I had to disable/delete his account. Sad!
StiffAssedBrit@reddit
I did some contract work, on site, for one of our customers. I effectively worked on their site, with their IT guys, for several months, so I got to know them all, and the systems, pretty well.
The contract ended and I went back to my day job. A few months later I got a call to ask if I wanted to go back and help them out with their systems as their network manager had passed away suddenly, and no one knew a lot of the stuff that he did. I ended up back there, for almost two years, but my first job was to reset the old network manager's account and play "guess the password" on a lot of his stuff.
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
Yeah, I know and like all of the people whose job it would be to pick up my work if I died. So I make sure everything I do is documented. Last thing I want to do is leave them with a pile of detective work.
Rocknbob69@reddit
That isn't so bad, people die and it's a fact of life. The bad ones are when people get fired or laid off and you are the first to know about it.
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
Dying is worse than getting fired, bud. At least it is to me.
theservman@reddit
Last time this happened I just did it automatically and got yelled at by all 3 of my managers, plus the dead persons manager, and a random VP for being "cold hearted".
I no longer take any initiative.
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
I mean, you don’t have to treat it the same as if they left or got fired. They’re not gonna be logging into their account in a hurry. It’s fine to let it sit for a few days.
theservman@reddit
True, but they did have time sensitive work.
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
Trust me, it wasn’t that time sensitive.
Appropriate-Gear2567@reddit
I’ve had to do it twice this year 🥹
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
Ah shit, I’m sorry.
Aggressive_Green5436@reddit
I had a user leave the company whose son had recently passed away, she asked me to export all of the text on her work phone between the two of them.
After doing it & seeing how happy it made her, it made me appreciate that our job has the potentially to be a lot more than just password resets.
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
That’s great. Good job.
981flacht6@reddit
Try asking for their laptop back from their family. Awkward as hell.
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
I’ve never had to do that thankfully. Either HR have handled it or the family have brought it back on their own.
KickedAbyss@reddit
Had to do this for a friend in the IT department this summer.
He was married less than a year, not even 34.
It really, really sucks.
But boy did we turn out for his Wake.
BurnAnotherTime513@reddit
A high level guy in my company has been in/out with cancer treatments. We [finally] changed up our password policy but he was having so many issues with memory and cognative function, this was a big stress point to him.
3 weeks ago I got a message to his wife saying if they can get this 1 change done, they won't need to do any more changes through this and i'll help with access as needed.
He passed away the next week. I feel so weird and awkward that a guy so close to death and i'm trying to walk his family through updating his fucking password. They've probably forgotten about this with everything else going on, but it's stuck with me. I know it's just business, and I didn't realize he was doing so poorly... but shit.
I'm going through cancer treatments myself right now. Thinking about a role reversal, having to worry about a fucking password change while going through chemo is just... ugh. Nothing matters more than recovery.
Computer-Blue@reddit
I had a similar experience recently. Had to do some direct support with one of our executives who had cancer and I’m sitting in his truck (didn’t want to come inside) helping him set up Face ID. Not fun. These trivial things in their dying hours, demanding faculties they’re losing.
It’s also hard, I think, because it interferes with my better memories of the man, who was once so full of vitality. I try to remember him at those times as well.
youmeandtheempire@reddit
I know you felt weird about it, but remember that they were stuck and you helped them. It was a painful moment for everybody, but if it weren't for you, their day would have gone a little worse.
Haelios_505@reddit
Consider it less disturbing than tracing through CCTV for the final moments of someone who committed suicide on the premises. This a couple of months after my brother in law took his own life the same way.
NYCmob79@reddit
This sub is so negative. I even started hating my job over your horror stories, and yeah some personal experience. Bye.
Love.
UncleFromTheFarm@reddit
Our EU IT manager which has root password for main ESX hypervisor server with related Bios hardwares died in car accident going home.
That was really bad experience. Becasue he didnt have these password nowhere stored, and it took months to get support from vmware to get through this. We were unable to reboot or apply latest patches as it would cut off whole company infrastructure (there were no redundancy for ESX hosts that ime - 8 years back).
From that time we very strictly worked on security policy and something like black box for every "important man on the deck".
sysadmin189@reddit
Dude, if the missing password is what you took away from that experience...
ZAFJB@reddit
Read the room.
ribo911@reddit
Maybe you should.
qkdsm7@reddit
Only one I've had to do in 17 years----- was a great friend and was under 50 years old. :( Still haven't aged his account out of 365.
TraditionalTackle1@reddit
I worked at a company where 2 guys died within 6 months of each other. One died in an ATV accident, hit a tree with no helmet on and the other one who was engaged to be married and fell off of a cliff hiking. It was always weird looking at tickets they had made comments on after they died.
JustSomeGuy556@reddit
Those suck. Always.
Had a few.
Had a few accounts that got kept around for a long time past when they should have because we just couldn't bring ourselves to hit the button.
SPMrFantastic@reddit
My boss at my old job had to disable the account for his wife who committed suicide. It's a tough part of the job not many people talk about.
SquirrelGard@reddit
Worst for me was some who I first met the Friday before. They've been working here for years, but for whatever reason I didn't see them till then. I come in Monday and see the notification.
natefrogg1@reddit
Yeah that sucks, had one of the coolest coworkers die recently, had the best boss die a couple years back, it can be rough
anynonus@reddit
actually they need permission from that person to access the mail.. nevermind
Hopeful_Day782@reddit
If I had a nickel for every time a coworker died working late and alone at their desk, I would have one very sad nickel.
BeagleBackRibs@reddit
It doesn't bother me anymore. The nicest guy at work I've ever met turned out to be a pedophile and went to prison. You don't know these people outside of work.
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
That's a horribly pessimistic outlook.
I've worked somewhere that an employee turned out to be a nonce as well - a school of all places - but I don't walk around thinking the worst of everyone.
brispower@reddit
We had a manager at a site hang himself, it was pretty shocking. Just glad I wasn't the guy to find him. That shit would mess me up.
The reaper comes for all of us.
Anonymo123@reddit
My old manager who got me into IT and was my mentor hung himself at the job he moved to. Typical "no one knew" type situation.
Dizzy_Bridge_794@reddit
That’s only happened a few times to me. It really does suck.
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
Yep. I've done it loads of times for people that have been laid off or fired and they're bad enough. Deaths just hit different.
centizen24@reddit
It's even worse when they were your friend and you found out via the request. To be fair to my manager at the time though he had no way of knowing that it was my best friends wife.
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
Oh fuck. So sorry to hear that, man.
DarthJarJar242@reddit
Had a researcher kill himself in one of the research labs. Scribbled a note basically saying he left death letters in his cloud storage.
As one of the only IT guys here with an active clearance I was asked to help find the files. There were three letters, one for his parents, one for his new wife, and one for his 4yo daughter from a previous marriage.
Later found out he had lost his first wife to cancer. So that dude left his daughter with a second mom and 0 biological parents.
Due to the nature of his research we had to put everything on lit hold and I was asked to run reports multiple times for the next several months on his activity etc.
papijelly@reddit
We had to do this last week as well, right around Thanksgiving too 🥺.
Mindflux@reddit
Went through that in September. Definitely an icky feeling.
Valdaraak@reddit
Man, there was one guy we had to do that for a few years back, and that wasn't even the worst part. His wife brought back his company laptop and phone in a bag and the laptop had that whole "hospital room" smell just permeating the thing. We never re-issued that laptop to anyone else. None of us felt right doing it (and it was probably because the smell made the event hit harder).
Brad_Turnbough@reddit
I worked for a company for 7+ years. They never could figure out who was managing who..... I worked for at least 7 different managers during that 7 year tenureship. One of those managers died while I worked for him. He was one of the best managers to work for at that company. Super nice guy. Still think about him to this day.
Had another manager die a couple of years back after years and years of heavy drinking / liver failure. I had already been out of the company for 10+ years, but I think about him quite regularly as well.
GoogleDrummer@reddit
I had to do this a couple times at my last job and it was rough, extra so because cause they were young. One guy was like 19, he was co-oping with us while he was in college. The other guy guy was mid 20's, I think he'd just had a kid.
kalgore@reddit
A sysadmin that worked for me died a few years ago. I got a text at like 4am from his phone saying it was his wife and to give her a call. I hope I never have another call like that.
Was a great guy to work with. I still think about him regularly.
BatouMediocre@reddit
Did it only once so far. I just thought "the man died on the job, he never retired, he died working". That broke me for a while, still haunts me sometime.
TheMysticalDadasoar@reddit
I worked at a school and one of the most loved Teaching Assistants died over the summer holidays.
I got a phone call from the director of the school whilst on holiday to disable their account. I was the 2nd person in the organisation to find out and had to play it off for 3 weeks before the official announcement when everyone came back
That was rough
AverageMuggle99@reddit
I started a job once where the guy I replaced died.
He was a good guy. I had a 2 day hand over with him on the Thursday and Friday, texted on the Monday to say good luck at your new job and ask a question. He died on the Tuesday. I felt him like I was in a dead man’s shoes for a good while after that.
Obvious-Water569@reddit (OP)
Shit, that's rough.
In my first ever IT job, my manager died. He started having some issues with his balance and memory and went off sick. Came in a week or so later to let us know he had a brain tumour the size of an apple and he had about a year to live. His card got punched almost a year to the day after that.
The guy that took his role did the best he could but he wasn't a manager - he was more in-the-trenches sysadmin.
DapperAstronomer7632@reddit
Yeah, it sucks. Unfortunately as sysadmin you're sometimes one of the first to be handling someones life changing events. Not only death, but also divorce, termination, investigations, etc. Keep your humanity and never get used to it...