This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Illuminatus-Prime on 2025-08-30 08:44:54+00:00.
(I was gonna post this as a comment to Stemcella's "Access Removed" post; but changed my mind.)
The Setup
Maybe 90% of our activities were routine, and most everybody could handle them; but that last 10% involved critical subsystems that were complex and difficult to work on. Those were my responsibility.
Co-workers would work themselves into corners before calling on me to get them out. They would get credit for the call, and I would get bupkis. "You were not the on-call guy, so you get nothing." Fine.
Cue the MalComp
It got to the point that if I was not on-call, I would log my status as "Out of the Area" and switch off my phone. When I stopped covering for co-workers, productivity dropped.
The ungrateful and selfish on-call guys would either take an entire shift to solve a problem, or pass it along to the next on-call guy. This happened from one late Friday night to the following early Monday morning, so when I walked in the door while switching my phone back on, I could smell the panic.
They sent me out on-site right away, and even though it took a few more hours to solve the problem, I got the credit for it.
The Fallout
A coupla years later, a lay-off removed the slackers from employment, and I was left to train the remainder. From then on, we were a tight crew that handled most problems without having to call in for support, even from IT.