Guy loses job but keeps coming in and getting paid?

March 6, 2018 5:45 AM

An epic tale of a guy who lost his job but kept coming in and getting paid - where was that?

I am havign trouble searching for this, but for sure it was initially linked from Metafilter when I saw it.

I found this and this on Reddit. But the story I am looking for was I think maybe on Something Awful, and it was much longer... the guy kept his fake job for a year or more, and even found a "colleague" who had fallen through the cracks in the same reorg.

Please can you link this story?

posted by Meatbomb to Work & Money (13 answers total)

This one?
posted by Slinga at 5:57 AM on March 6, 2018

Best answer: This maybe? I found it further down in one of those reddit threads.
posted by stinkfoot at 6:02 AM on March 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

There was a Seinfeld episode where George talked about this/tried this when he was fired from his job with the Yankees.
posted by velveeta underground at 6:22 AM on March 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

In the movie Office Space, the character Milton was in this situation.
posted by adamrice at 6:38 AM on March 6, 2018 [12 favorites]

The classic fictional version of this scenario is Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street by Herman Melville. When he's fired and told to leave, he responds by saying "I would prefer not to." He just keeps hanging around lurking. Eventually the company goes out of business or moves, and even then he continues lurking in the building, telling whoever asks that he would prefer not to leave.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 7:16 AM on March 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

If it was from MeFi, was it this Ask?
posted by sardonyx at 7:27 AM on March 6, 2018

It's this one, isn't it?
posted by Mr. Fig at 8:24 AM on March 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'd heard this story about the developer who created the clock for some version of the MacOS back in the early 90s, but it's very difficult to google. "Clock macos developer" has a lot of hits.
posted by fiercekitten at 8:37 AM on March 6, 2018

I recall the MacOS story about Graphing Calculator, fiercekitten. Was that the one you were thinking of?

"I was frustrated by all the wasted effort, so I decided to uncancel my small part of the project. I had been paid to do a job, and I wanted to finish it. My electronic badge still opened Apple's doors, so I just kept showing up."
posted by Wild_Eep at 9:18 AM on March 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

Yeah, that's the one. That's much easier to google.
posted by fiercekitten at 12:21 PM on March 6, 2018

I'm 90% sure this was a BOFH (Bastard Operator From Hell) storyline, but that's pretty deep nerdery so it may not be your reference.
posted by no1hatchling at 2:51 PM on March 6, 2018

Not quite the same situation, as Milton stopped getting paid.
Eventually, but not until they "fixed the glitch".
posted by soelo at 7:52 PM on March 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: I can't access the google website from here but I am almost certain that is the one, based on my own comment in the previous Metafilter thread about it. Thank you kindly!
posted by Meatbomb at 2:38 AM on March 7, 2018