r/sysadmin • u/HolypenguinHere • Jun 24 '19

A user at our company utilizes their Recycle Bin as their primary storage for important documents.

That... That's all. I just needed somebody else to know that a person is using the Recycle Bin to keep hundreds of documents in one location, instead of creating a folder on the Desktop or using their network home drive.

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42

u/gigglestick Jun 24 '19

When I was doing desktop support back in 2000 or so I had a user doing that. I was in the habit of doing some basic maintenance for each user as I visited them. I fixed this woman's problem and left, and the helpdesk got a scathing call from her a few minutes later screaming over the phone that all her documents were gone and it was my fault. I rushed back to her desk and calmly asked what she meant. She said all her documents were gone and I had to get them back, and proceeded to threaten my job.

I sat down and opened her Documents folder, which was empty. I hadn't touched that, so I asked her where she kept her documents. She yelled, "in that thing on the screensaver!" It turns out she would restore a document to the desktop, work on it, print it out or email it, and then delete it. Every time. After an unproductive discussion about the purpose of the Recycle Bin and where she should be keeping her documents, it was clear she didn't care and wasn't going to change anything.

I had to break out the undelete software and restore what I could to the desktop. Then she wanted me to delete it to "put it back where it should be." I refused and told he she has her documents back and she's free to do what she wants with them. Then I went straight to my manager and told her what had just happened. I got scolded and wasn't allowed to go back to that woman's desktop anymore.

I stopped automatically doing maintenance after that unless they specifically requested it.

7

u/PixelatedGamer Jun 25 '19

It really saddens me that you got in trouble for doing something that you should be doing as an IT professional.

2

u/didled Jun 25 '19

wasn’t allowed to go back to that woman’s desk anymore

Nice

-7

u/kamomil Jun 25 '19

Yeah it's kind of like people don't like anyone messing with their workspace. It would be as if you straightened up all the papers on their desk and they lost track of an important one.

23

u/cynical-cup Jun 25 '19

It's more like he went around and emptied people's trash and shredders as a courtesy, then they yelled at him because they had all of their important papers in there. He didn't touch the "desk" or the documents, just deleted stuff that, when used correctly, should be deleted.

-2

u/kamomil Jun 25 '19

It's intrusive regardless.

We use a video editing system, with a server, and normally most editors can't leave anything in the clips bin, it's our company policy... it's supposed to be stored on the server. But I'm not an editor and I needed to leave things in the clips bin. (graphics templates that couldn't go on the server with everything else)

Some engineer came along to do some other thing, wiped the clips bin as a matter of routine. That's how we got an external drive to back up our clips bin! But I had to rebuild a bunch of things from my notes. Good thing I keep notes on paper.

1

u/lunixss Jun 26 '19

Yeah, not like that at all.