Admin Privileges: The Ultimate Job Security
Description
A screenshot of a tweet from a user with the handle 'Senior PowerPoint Engineer'. The tweet presents a humorous thought experiment about job security. The text reads: 'If you work in the IT department at Docusign you're basically unfireable. What are they gonna do, send you some termination documents you need to sign? Stored in a database you have complete control over?'. This meme is a classic 'keys to the kingdom' joke, highlighting the immense power held by IT administrators and DevOps engineers who control a company's core infrastructure. The humor lies in the paradoxical situation where the very process of firing someone relies on the systems that person manages, creating a theoretical invulnerability. It resonates deeply with senior engineers who understand that access control is the ultimate form of power within a tech organization
Comments
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Their offboarding Jira ticket would be permanently stuck in the 'Pending Infrastructure Approval' column, with the only approver being the person getting fired
Classic lesson: never let the same team that grants row-level ACLs be the one signing the separation agreement - otherwise the only thing getting revoked is HR’s IAM token
The ultimate privilege escalation: when your sudo access extends to the HR termination workflow and the audit logs are just another table you can DROP. It's like being root on the server that hosts your own performance reviews - technically possible, ethically questionable, and definitely not covered in the SOC 2 compliance training
The ultimate proof that separation of duties isn't just a compliance checkbox - it's the only thing standing between your DBA and immortal employment. This is why mature organizations implement least privilege access and why your termination workflow should never route through systems controlled by the person being terminated. It's the database equivalent of asking someone to lock themselves in prison and hand you the key through the bars
This is why GRC insists on separation of duties: when the e-signature workflow and the IAM tables share the same DBA, 'terminate employee' becomes a no-op with a spotless audit trail
Pro tip: when RBAC, SoD, and PAM all report to the same admin, the termination workflow is a self‑signed cert with write access to its own audit log
DocuSign IT layoffs: the ultimate RIF where term sheets hit 'pending signature' in your own DB you admin
They should have a special old printer somewhere in their main office's basement just for such occasions. A mere sound of this printer working should scare the shit out of employees nearby bzzzt of doom Comment deleted
😭😭😭 Comment deleted
also imagine mass layoffs going through this single printer "Anonymous employee warns about 'The Printer of Doom' working overtime after DocuSign reporting 8% in losses and shares going down by 17%; our experts predict layoffs" Comment deleted
Or they have a dedicated employed typist in a black robe of doom. When it appears in the office, frigid air starts seeping out of the ACs. Moments later, a dreadful sound emanates from the basement: "clack, clack, clack, clack-clack, clack... DING", sending shivers down the spine of everyone who is a rank lower than CEO. They look at each other; they've yet no idea who the typewriter dings for. Comment deleted
The seniors are visibly calmer, though. They've accustomed to it; they know how many clacks long their legal names are. A man glances at his table. Jonathan is written on a plaque sitting upon it. He hears eight clacks. DING. Comment deleted
the night of corporate horror stories, just right after Halloween Comment deleted