Five years after quitting a job, developer’s former boss asked for rapid tech support

Five years after leaving his job, the former boss of a developer reached out for urgent technical assistance. This account from The Register's On Call column tells the story of Wade, a programmer who in the mid-1980s made his living by using Pick, a minicomputer operating system integrated with a database. Wade built the software that managed a mail order business's operations, including order processing, purchase orders, and customer dispatches.

However, the developer left the company on less-than-friendly terms after firing the clerk responsible for maintaining the applications he had written.

In early 1990, Wade's former employer called him at home in the evening, expressing his displeasure with Wade's departure. The boss recounted that he had fired the clerk who handled the day-to-day work of the applications Wade had created. Tensions brewed between the two, with Wade recalling that the company's sudden departure was unwise.

He claimed that the clerk utilized the brief window to sabotage the system, though it was later discovered that the damage was caused by unplugging the machine while it was printing orders.

When Wade arrived to resolve the issue, he first plugged the Pick machine into a power source and then proceeded to boot it up, inspect the data, and restart the printing process. The developer's old boss was pleased with the outcome, and Wade managed to charge a fee for his services. The incident serves as a reminder that forgotten tech support requests can arise unexpectedly, and The Register encourages readers to share their own stories for potential inclusion in their weekly series.