Customer horror stories: Perilous permissions
Our inSi-DED series is back! Starting this week, you’ll get to enjoy one hair-raising story daily. Leave the light on, check under your bed, or in this case, make sure the correct user permissions are enabled.
If you want to submit your own CS or community horror story, do so here. (And just like this contributor, you can choose to be completely anonymous!)
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I was a Senior Community Manager. Underpaid. Overworked. You know the drill.
Our community was insanely busy. 1.5 million visitors and 5K replies per month.
We had a group of veteran superusers, they were active nearly daily and a close-knit sub-community. These were the people who would regularly answer questions in the community – aka, cover my a**.
Now, they’d also love to gossip about other users in a secret subcategory. And that was fine, they had all signed NDAs and it’s hidden by permission anyway.
At last, another Community Manager is hired to take some of the load off me. Soon, they launch a second, apprentice superuser program with a second hidden subcategory, separated from the OG superusers.
Next, I get an offer for a less underpaid job and decide to leave the company. Woo!
About two months later, suddenly, my phone starts blowing up. Superusers are losing their sh*t everywhere. What is going on?!
Turns out, the new Community Manager did not get acquainted with user permissions and the once-secret gossip – not so secret anymore.
Oops.
Want more horror? If you think you can handle it, head over to customerhorrorstories.com.
