Holy shit dude. Somebody tried to put the screws on me to stop using backslashes ('\') in usernames because it's "too hard". Let me explain.

All our workstations are RDS desktops on an AD domain. As the Windows sysadmins here are probably aware, the convention for usernames is often 'DomainName\UserName'.

Way back before my time, when the company was smaller, my predecessor decided to use the user's email as an alias for their username, such that a user could log in using either UserEmail@DomainName.com or DomainName\Username. The rationale being that it would be one less piece of information the users have to remember.

Some time after I took over a few years ago, I decided to stop setting this alias because it was causing confusion on a few levels. First, I was getting calls about "email not working" when what they meant, as it turned out, was that they couldn't log on for some reason. Second, as the company grew, there were more and more cases of RDS users with emails different from their login creds (e.g xgerbil\lemmiwinks uses email logistics@xgerbil.com) and this was causing confusion, especially if "lemmiwinks" suddenly switched roles and now needed his own email and didn't use "logistics" anymore.

To summarize, no more mixing apples and oranges. Email addresses are email addresses, usernames are usernames.

I didn't cancel the alias for users who already were there. Just stopped setting it up for new users, so they'd be used to this convention from the start. Due to turnover and new hires, I'd say by now about 80% of the company uses the new username convention.

Certain users, not burdened by an overabundance of schooling, cannot wrap their heads around the fact that there is, in fact, a key above the enter key that they were not aware of. People multiple years in the company who had their username defaulted on their PC would suddenly need to manually type in their username for whatever reason and would call me and need me to explain to them what 'backslash' was and where it was on the keyboard.

Roll eyes, move on. I'm paid to answer dumb questions.

The head of Purchasing, the charming character from this post (she eventually did resume regular communication, to my dismay) has a couple new hires, and they, predictably, got usernames according to the new convention. She has one of the old usernames, and was extremely irate that I had deliberately mixed eldritch symbols into her worker's usernames, just to piss her off.

'Why are these usernames so complicated? They never work right! Why aren't they like the emails?'

'I stopped doing that years ago, people were getting confused. This is how it works now'

'I don't care. I want my department to have emails as usernames!'

'You can't. This is how it works now'

'We're not programmers! The slash never works!

'It's a backslash, above your enter key'

'Change it back!! That's it, I'm calling <CEO>!'

You may notice, dear reader, that this individual does not sound entirely rational. You'd be correct. See the post I mentioned, you'll get the picture. You also may notice that I failed to inform her that I could alias her usernames however she wants. This was a matter of principle. Why the hell should I make an exception for her department over something so trivial? It's right there on the keyboard for fucks sake. What's next? Having to spell check everyone's emails? Learn to type a goddamn backslash.

I'm not just being petty. This human ass blister demands changes to the system at multiple levels regularly, and I've learned from painful experience to be extremely skeptical of the necessity or utility of what she asks. She's not always wrong, but frequently she's just frustrated and throwing a tantrum. I should mention that we are roughly equal in the organizational hierarchy, 1 or 2 degrees separated from the CEO, depending on how you look at it.

Now, the CEO is about as clueless as she is about tech, but whereas I can butt heads with her, contradicting him requires a little more nuance. And by nuance, I of course mean bullshitting. The following conversation was actually an email chain between the three of us, but I'm going to format it like a group chat. Let's call the CEO 'CEO' and the head of purchasing 'HP'.

HP: u/nowildstuff_192, I'm asking you to urgently change the usernames for my department back to the way they've always been. This new username convention is causing problems for my department.

CEO: u/nowildstuff_192, what's going on?

ME: HP is flying off the handle again. Her (and your) usernames are using an older format that I stopped using because it was causing problems. All new users since 2022 have a new kind of username that doesn't cause these problems. HP is complaining because this new format has '\' in it, which she can't find on the keyboard. 80% of the company has been using this format without any problems for three years. I've told her multiple times that this is the key above the enter key, and now she wants me to break the whole company’s logins instead of learning a new character. It's not even her account, it's her worker's account.

CEO: Can you make an exception for her department? (really, dude? You're going to even entertain this?)

ME: Nope. Won't work. Everybody would have to switch usernames (There's the bullshit)

CEO: HP, deal with it. Print a picture of the key and hang it above your desk if you have to.

I'm seriously considering framing a picture of a keyboard with the backslash highlighted and sending it to her office.

EDIT: a lot of questions from actual admins about why things are set up this way. I glossed over some details that were not relevant to the story. There's an MSP involved here, they have their own reasons for doing things the way they do. Maybe not good ones, but reasons. I have local domain admin privs but I don't provision licenses, the MSP does and we pay per license. Hence, lemmiwinks the logistics gerbil getting only his 'logistics' mailbox and not a personal one he wouldn't use.

Some commenters took my excuse to the CEO as my actual reason for not doing as I was being told. There is no technical reason why people can't log in with their emails. I decided to put a stop to it because my idiot users were conflating unrelated things and bothering me about it, and because of the issue of changing roles and mailboxes. Removing that degree of freedom from the users resulted in a net decrease in calls.

And holy shit, the mere thought of letting them log in with a username that "looks like an email" but isn't actually an email gives me heartburn. God, the confusion that would cause...

EDIT 2: Fixed the backslash thing, sorry. I only use old.reddit and couldn't see the problem.

Many years ago, I was brought onboard to run the IT department of a mid-sized, privately held company. Main application was ERP running on a midrange system (AS/400 B50 if you care). These were the green screen days, and someone had spent probably way too long to make a login screen with the company logo (2 initials) in ASCII.

The head of accounting, make that The HEAD of ACCOUNTING, had the happy habit of cancelling other departments jobs if she felt HER'S weren't running fast enough. Yep, someone/sometime gave her full system operators privileges. And she'd kill inquiries, MRP runs, reports, all without any notices.

After about the fifth time of cleaning up the wreckage in her wake, I took away her special privileges. (She had them for years before I came onboard). And a shouting match ensued. Followed by an angry march up to the president's office.

President called and I explained the situation, over his speakerphone, with her running commentary in the background. He sounded truly beaten down and told me just give it back to her. fine, fine, fine

About a month later, IT spent the weekend upgrading the base OS. Everyone was well warned and, in the process, the cutesy ASCII logo went away, replaced by factory default login screen - so everyone knew we had changed something.

And, What??? accounting head could not kill jobs anymore...Huh, must be a side effect of the OS upgrade, sorry...

No, it wasn't, we just took the opportunity of the visual change to remove her privileges.

So I was volunteered to run the in-person heldesk the other day at the office. At one point, a woman comes in with a laptop. Its an HP... Huh... weird, I thought all of those have been phased out already. Anyway,

"Hi, this is my boss' laptop and he can't log in. Fix it please."

"Well... It would be nice if he was here, otherwise how would I even try to log in to check it?"

"Oh I will call him and he can tell us his password"

ಠ_ಠ Nevermind... No point berating a hapless assistant.

"You are decidedly not supposed to do that, but whatever..."

I reach to open it up, it doesn't open. Eh, must have grabbed it in the wrong spot. I lift it up to look at it from the side and... wait... Why is the bottom panel off? Did I happen to slip my nail in and it separated when I tried to open it? ....Oh... Oooohhhh. It is so puffed up, I can fit my finger inside through the hole it made between the panels.

"Right... So you are going to take this now, and very carefully take it to the hardware folks. And if it starts getting hot or something, drop it."

The hardware folks later said that they confiscated it on the spot. And her biggest issue was that her boss would now yell at her so they should call him and tell him themselves. I would say that is still preferable to a lithium fire in your lap. Also, it wasn't even in the domain anymore, the genius boss just didn't want to hand in his old laptop and suddenly got the urge to get some files from it...

Incidentally, just a few hours later someone unrelated came in with a spicy phone as well.

LONG, Sorry -

So, years ago I took a low-paying, entry level job doing data entry for a Private Investigator agency. I was just starting my career and moving between states. So I took what I could get in a hurry. My "Official" role was entering info for time, case notes, spreadsheets tracking costs and charges to clients, etc. It was an unorganized MESS when I got there and sorely in need of an overhaul. In a few months, I'd restructured how things were organized, taken care of a week's of backlog and made it a lot easier to track info in a database system I'd setup for the business. I was doing WAY over my official title and had actually fixed a bunch of networking issues for the business as well.

Thus, as no good job goes unpunished, I became the "Unofficial" I.T. Monkey for the business and suddenly anything to do with the computers, network, printers, etc. became my responsibility. Meanwhile, I received no pay raise and was told I'm just lucky they took me on with such little actual working experience; whatever.

The business had one of those large, clunky but fairly bullet-proof HP 5Si printers (this is back in the early 90's) that did nearly ALL of the business printing. It handled abuse and ate through paper like a champ. It also had a BIG cartridge that was good for months at a time. But, eventually Toner does run out and needs replacement, just like paper. I watched for weeks as the toner level kept dropping and notified the head secretary and managers that we'd need another cartridge soon or work would stop. But what do I know, I'm only a Data Entry guy, and eventually the printer just stopped.

The head secretary (named Hilda) came in yelling at me I needed to 'fix' the printer ASAP. I had a look and confirmed the toner was low. I gave the cartridge a good shake and the last few print jobs completed. In the words of the head secretary "I'd fixed it!". Well, no, this might get you another day, or two, of printing but I needed funds to get another cartridge ASAP. Or the next time the printer stops, no amount of shaking will fix it. Whatever, what do I know, I'm just a data entry guy! I was again ignored.

Two days later, the printer again stops and Hilda tries several times to pull the cartridge, give it a shake and try printing again. Nope, the printer stubbornly refuses to work for her. So, again, I'm pulled aside by Hilda and told to 'fix' the printer; which I can't and I tell her that she needs to give me $ to go buy a cartridge and she leaves in a huff. I'm pulled into the CEOs office and I'm grilled for 20 minutes that my attitude sucks, I'm being difficult and refusing to work with the head secretary Hilda and told to just 'fix' the printer because work is now at a standstill.

I take a deep breath, calmly explaining that I'd notified the management and Hilda several weeks ago that we're low on Toner and will need a replacement. But I was told "No, that's expensive". Two days ago, the printer stopped and I again warned them that the 'fix' of shaking the cartridge was a temporary solution and we'd need a replacement, ASAP. But I was, again, told "No, that's expensive". The CEO looked at Hilda the head secretary and asked "Did that happen? Did he tell you what was needed and you told him 'no'?"

Hilda suddenly became indignant and yelled that "Yeah, he said something. But it was expensive and I thought he was exaggerating!" The CEO looked at me and asked "Did you not tell her how important this was?" I replied that, "Yes, I said that the printer would fail and work would stop. We needed a replacement ASAP. But I was again told 'No'". The CEO continued staring at me and turned again to Hilda asking "Did he freak out when you told him no?" Hilda replied, "No, he absolutely did NOT freak out so how was I supposed to know he was serious!" The CEO returned his gaze to me and asked "Well? Did you freak out like you should have done!?"

At this point, my brain is caught somewhere in the Twilight Zone and I'm trying to process the conversation that I'd witnessed. Eventually, the awkward silence is broken and I repeat "I notified you all what was going to happen and what was needed to prevent it from happening. That I needed money for a simple, printer consumable and time was running out to avoid a work stoppage. I'm at a loss as to what else I could have possibly done." There is a shared look between the CEO and Hilda and a rolling of eyes followed by a deep sigh from the CEO. Finally, the CEO responds "Y***ou could have freaked out a little more... This is on you*****!**" and Hilda the head secretary looks smug while two sets of eyes rest on me in my seat.

Now, I'm just shocked, deflated and tempted to simply walk out in protest. But rent is due next week and I still have bills. So I proffer a tepid "I'm sorry?", and the CEO looks like he just crafted a Peace Accord in the middle east and finishes with "Okay, fine. Let's get back to work!" and begins to turn away while Hilda begins to rise from her chair. I stay seated and politely cough while raising my hand, "We're >still< out of toner. Hilda can order some from our office supplier but it won't come in until next week. If you want the printer to actually...well...print, I'll need to buy a cartridge retail for more $, like today, like now. AND, I'll need a check to buy the cartridge from a shop across town."

The CEO looks to Hilda and she scowls at me asking "Can't you just shake it...?!?!" I actually did get a check and bought another cartridge that day but not without another lecture about keeping costs down and freaking out ~appropriately~.

Two weeks later, I took another job and gave a week's notice. Legend tells they're still shaking that cartridge to this day.