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Episode from the podcast Root Without Responsibility
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Episode

Admin Rights

Released Tuesday, November 10th 2026 24 min

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About this episode

Sales hasn't raised a single ticket in a week, and its IT satisfaction score has gone from forty percent to a hundred. The reason is Darren, who believes he is a domain administrator and has been going from desk to desk fixing laptops. Every fix puts a new photo of his cousin's dog on the reception screen. Graham calls it citizen IT and puts it in writing: every member of staff gets exactly the same admin rights as Darren, Friday at 4:55, no exceptions, leadership first. Fiona Hale spends four hours assessing the risk of three hundred and forty people becoming administrators of one television. Graham asks to go first at 4:54, and for the first time in four years doesn't send the email. Then Dez looks at why the tickets really stopped, and finds one line in Bronwyn's notebook. A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on. Adapted from the Root Without Responsibility ebook. Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

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Dez's wall of framed emails is now company property, fifty-two items on the fixed asset register, and Janet's asset verification policy says every one must be read aloud, checked against the original word for word, and certified in ink by its author. Graham, who wrote thirty of them, puts it in writing: the audit is done by Friday at 4:55, no exceptions, no seniority. The audit email becomes asset fifty-three. The originals of Graham's emails are four years of voice-typing audio, much of it recorded in the bath. Philippa drives up from the Cotswolds to read her own email, the chief executive certifies his crayon verdicts, and Tristan comes back to read asset one: love it, ship it. Then Janet finds the original had a rocket, and the frame doesn't. A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on. Adapted from the Root Without Responsibility ebook. Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

The No Button

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Ollie has never been able to say no, so Philippa books him on Say No and Grow, a four-day course starring Percy the Padlock in a hard hat. She puts the measurement in writing: every visit to Ollie's desk under thirty seconds counts as a no, the target is twenty by Friday at 4:55, and the results go on the reception screen. IT to measure, exactly, no exceptions. Ollie says yes to everyone. Then the coffee machine on the end of his desk turns red, decides it doesn't trust the pump Ollie fitted at midnight, and starts turning people away in nine seconds each. By Thursday the screen says 151, Philippa's blog calls it growth, and Fiona Hale comes down to watch a refusal. Then Graham asks Ollie, in writing, to override the lock before the board meets. A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on. Adapted from the Root Without Responsibility ebook. Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

The Boardroom Projector

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Nobody has worked the boardroom projector since 2017. Then Darren reads the whole wi-fi policy and finds the password on page three. Graham puts it in writing: Darren runs the board's AV, start to finish, whatever Darren puts on the projector is the board pack, and IT is not to touch it. Graham's eighty-four slides are on a memory stick. Darren's desktop is a shuffled slideshow of three thousand photos of his cousin's dog, Duchess. Graham presents the year of Digital Enablement for forty-one minutes, entirely in pictures of a Staffordshire bull terrier, and the chief executive laughs for the first time in a board meeting. Then a photo comes up that isn't a costume: Duchess in a life jacket, on a lilo, in the flooded car park, with a date stamp. Fiona Hale has nine rejected motor claims from the lake. A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on. Adapted from the Root Without Responsibility ebook. Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

The Printer That Knew Too Much

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The printer on level three has never jammed, never guessed and never helped, and everybody hates it. So Graham brings in Tristan and PrintMind, an AI print assistant with a smiling toner cartridge called Inky, and puts it in writing: every job anyone at Kestrel has ever sent to the printer must come out, no deleting, no exceptions, collected in person at the Christmas party, Friday at 4:55. IT to move the printer. Smart Recall finds 41,212 forgotten jobs from eleven years: nine thousand photos of Darren's cousin's dog, 219 of Philippa leaving reception, six hundred green crayon drawings sent from the chief executive's phone, and 340 documents held for a man who has never touched a printer in his life. The insurer says Kestrel can neither print them nor delete them. Then the oldest job in Graham's pile comes out, one page, from extension 1200. A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on. Extra-long episode. Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

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With the Harrogate claim finally paid, Janet in finance has nothing to reject on Thursdays. Graham puts it in writing: Janet audits every expense claim since 2014 against the expenses policy, word for word, no exceptions, no seniority, and anything without a receipt is paid back by Friday at 4:55. IT to give her the data, all of it. The policy turns out to be Graham's, voice-typed in the bath, and the strictest document in the company. His five lanyards are rejected as jewellery, Philippa's mileage costs 190 pounds per minute of presence, the coffee machine needs 212 signatures, and Darren's carrier bag of receipts makes him the most compliant man in the building. Then Janet reaches the board: the chief executive signs everything in green crayon, and the crayon has no receipt. A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on. Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

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