How Dare You Stop Data Loss - That's Not Your Job!
The Register, Monday, June 22nd, 2026
A young programmer who fixed a dangerous file-deleting batch command got reprimanded rather than praised.
In this On Call tale, Terry worked at a 1980s municipal IT facility and found a defective MOVE command that deleted files without transferring them.
After losing an hour of work he rewrote the script with error checking and safety measures.
When he submitted the fix, management summoned him to ask why he was doing someone else's job.
Despite preventing data loss he was told to stick to his assigned duties.
The rigid culture punished initiative and taught him to just do his job.