It’s the late 90s and I was working in IT for a small (200 employees) company.
One of my tasks was performing daily data backups, which ran for about four hours and started after everyone else had left for the day.
We had an intercom system in the building, where if you picked up your phone and dialed a specific extension, you could page someone, or make announcements so everyone could hear.
One night I was in the process of running Ethernet cable from switches on the second floor down to individual terminals on the first floor, so there was a lot walking around the building.
I like to have music when I’m working, but I didn’t have an MP3 player at the time, so I thought… “I have music on my PC and no one is around. Why don’t I just…”, and I went around and cranked the volume knob on every ceiling intercom speaker in the whole building. Then I dialed into the intercom from the phone in my office, put the handset up as close as I could to my PC speakers, and boom, music throughout the building.
Cut to a few hours later, it’s late, I’m tired, the backup is finished, so I close down the system, hit the lights, lock the doors, and go home.
The next day, I come in, not thinking about anything from the night before, and get to work. About 11:00am, the owner’s secretary got on the intercom to page someone… and blew everyone out of their seats. There was an almost collective, “What the fuck!!!” from everyone, and an “Ohhh, shiiit” from me, because of course I immediately knew what happened.
I ran around like a madman, turning the volume down on all of the speakers that I had forgotten the night before, while saying, “No idea… Yeah it’s crazy… No no, it’s fixed now…”
No one ever found out exactly why the volume was so loud that morning.
Wait, so the DEA agent essentially scolded you for NOT contributing to the problem and ordered you (well, tried to) to be part of the problem going forward? What a fucking joke. If he wanted you to participate in this super important multi-jurisdiction sting he could’ve contacted you (as he’s clearly capable to do) beforehand. The only way the agency comes out of it not looking like a clown car is if there was no sting and he was an impersonator, with falsified documents and a fake folder, looking to establish a steady drug source. It might have been worth it to report it to his boss, but maybe I’m too European to properly understand all the risks involved in doing so.
Remember, the US government secretly poisoned alcohol during Prohibition and just said, “guess you shouldn’t have drank it” when people got sick and died. Enforcement is its own end and purpose; improvement and protection of the lives of citizens is secondary at best.
Correct. He was clearly just mad that I frustrated his plans. I didn’t even consider reporting it because it wouldn’t have resulted in anything. We had a bad reputation with the DEA since we were a high volume pharmacy so we had more staff and high turnover. All that led to more than the average amount of employees stealing/selling drugs. We had some pretty sneaky ways of catching it and always reported but all that meant is more work for them and not much credibility.
That’s really weird. Is it possible that wasnt a real agent just someone impersonating one?
It was legitimate. They arrested the kid later that day and it was in the news. I did have that thought though.
Also maybe cops shouldn’t be taking drugs out of the metered and monitored supply lines