Tired of the Lag

by Jason
(Orrville, OH, USA)

I used to work at a small non-profit organization similar to a YMCA. I worked in the "Technology Center", where my job was to monitor computer usage, teach classes, and run various programs and groups. One of the groups I ran was a youth computer-gaming league where youths competed in various LAN-based games, like StarCraft and Unreal Tournament.

For several weeks in a row the group activities were interrupted by severe network lag, which often causes StarCraft to crash during a game. I investigated the lag and found that several other employees in other parts of the building were using Kazaa and Limewire to download massive amounts of music and other garbage. Their usage of those services was against policy, and the disruption they were causing was resulting in decreasing participation in the gaming league.

I was questioned about the decreasing attendance by my supervisor, who blamed me for the decrease. I was very upset by this and my cause of anger was all the more reinforced because she was one of the people who were using Kazaa and Limewire constantly. I tried to control my anger and remain calm, and explained to her that the decrease in attendance was due to the lag that downloading music was causing. She told me I didn't know what I was talking about. She had no technical background at all, and was one of the primary people who were downloading music. She threatened to write me up for insubordination when I pointed that out to her.

The next day the league was holding the finals to a StarCraft tournament and the lag caused the game to crash several times. The participants were very angry and threatening to quit. My supervisor came in and heard some kids complaining and swearing about the issue, and wrote me up for not kicking them out for swearing. That sent me over the edge. In the fit of my anger, I used my computer to break into her computer and delete all of her music collection; then I created a denial of service situation which dropped all of the computers in the building off the network, except for the Technology Center.

At the time I felt justified. I was correct that the downloading was causing the lag. I felt like that was the way to deal with my anger, and that I was teaching her a lesson. After two days I put the network back to normal because she was starting to question why the computers in the Technology Center were still working. She still suspected I had caused the issue somehow and fired me.