How I Survived 1,900 IT Tickets, a Broken Security System, and 200 Billable Hours… With Shojo Anime
Have you ever stared at a mountain of tickets so tall, you briefly considered running away to join the circus? If you work in IT, this is less a hypothetical and more a Tuesday. But for one Redditor, u/WantDebianThanks, that mountain wasn’t just tall—it was Everest after a Red Bull binge. Imagine closing 1,900 security alert tickets in two weeks, then watching another 500 pop up like some hellish game of Whac-A-Mole. Oh, and did I mention the only thing keeping them sane was a steady diet of shojo romance anime?
Welcome to the wild world of modern managed IT, where sometimes the “security solution” causes more headaches than the hackers. Buckle up, because this is a tale of technological absurdity, digital drudgery, and one tech’s quest to survive it all… with their sanity (mostly) intact.
The MSP Security “Solution” That Solved… Nothing
Let’s set the stage. Our intrepid hero works at a Managed Service Provider (MSP) with a shiny, expensive monitoring system. Its job? Sniff out passwords and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) like social security numbers, credit cards, addresses, and more. It’s supposed to keep clients safe by raising the alarm when sensitive data goes where it shouldn’t.
In reality? It’s a gigantic, ticket-spewing monster that would make Kafka proud.
- It creates tickets for users who don’t exist.
- It flags names and addresses… because John Smith’s email is john.smith@foo.com.
- It can’t be customized, scripted, or tamed.
The fix is simple—just connect it to the company’s Office 365 system to sync user info. But our hero isn’t allowed. The higher-ups say they’ll get around to it, but their definition of “soon” is, let’s say, optimistic.
When Ticket Hell Freezes Over
Now, you’d think a security system this noisy would get a little attention. But here’s the catch: these tickets go into their very own queue. And our protagonist is the only one who ever checks it. That’s right—the only thing standing between order and chaos is one anime-fueled tech who decided to peek where others fear to tread.
The result? Three weeks ago, 1,900 new tickets. That’s more than one per endpoint, and twice as many as most MSPs see in a year. And because the system is so broken, every ticket must be manually checked, merged, and closed. If you’re imagining a Sisyphean loop of:
if user.identity == nonExistent:
merge(user)
elif user.data == notActionable:
merge(user)
elif user.data == duplicate:
merge(user)
else:
user.call()
…you’re not far off. This is the IT equivalent of fighting the hydra: close one ticket, and two more pop up.
200 Hours Billed, 0 Minutes Saved
Here’s the kicker: because the MSP bills a minimum of 15 minutes per ticket—even if all you do is click “close”—this Redditor racked up over 200 billable hours in a week. That’s right. 200 hours. In one week. That’s about 27 hours a day, by the way. (Take that, linear time!)
It’s the sort of absurdity that only makes sense in tech:
- The system that’s supposed to save time creates work.
- The fix is obvious, but access is locked away.
- The only person who knows about the problem is the one person who dares to look.
The Real MVP: Shojo Romance Anime
How do you survive two weeks of mind-numbing, repetitive, soul-crushing busywork? If you’re u/WantDebianThanks, you fire up your favorite shojo romance anime on your phone and power through. Because if you can’t fix the system, you can at least watch fictional characters finally hold hands after 14 episodes.
Lessons Learned (Or Not)
What can we take away from this tale? A few hard-earned lessons:
- Automated security is only as good as its configuration. If you can’t tune false positives, you’re just generating noise.
- Gatekeeping access can cost more than it saves. Letting the right people fix the problem would save hundreds of hours (and dollars).
- If no one checks the ticket queue, does IT work actually get done? (Philosophers are still debating this.)
- Never underestimate the power of anime to get you through the dark times.
Your Turn: Survived Your Own Ticketpocalypse?
Have you ever been buried by bogus alerts, pointless tickets, or security tools that made things worse? How did you survive? Share your story in the comments—and let’s raise a glass (or a Crunchyroll subscription) to the heroes who keep clicking “merge” so the rest of us can sleep at night.
Got a wild tech tale of your own? Drop it below or send us a message—because in IT, misery loves company, and every ticket has a story.
Original Reddit Post: 200 hours, 27, honestly, what's the difference?