A brilliant career move, if ever

As jobs go, tech support at a university probably isn't a bad one. It probably doesn't pay a ton, but it's also probably pretty secure. I mean, students, professors, and admins will always need tech support. And, sure, the pressure's on, but maybe not the same pressures that would be in play in a business if, say, their online store was down and revenue and happy customers were at stake. Or in a hospital if patient records couldn't be accessed. (Which kidney am I removing???) Or any other scenario more crucial than a freshman who couldn't login to submit an assignment.

But university tecy support might not be all that exciting. 

And that lack of excitement might be what got to former Northeastern University tech support guy Jason Duhaime. 

Oh, Duhaime may not have been the guy helping freshmen with passwords. His title was New Technology Manager, which puts him up the food chain for a Tier One support rep. Still, after eight years in this position, and 25 years in tech support at Northeastern - thanks, Linkedin! - there must have been plenty of same-old, same-old.

Yes, he got to work around exciting new technology, but not with it. Maybe he felt more like a faker than a maker. 

So last month, Duhaime called 911, claiming that he'd been injured by an exploding storage case, the explosion seemingly the act of someone attacking a university tech center (NU's Immersive Media Lab) because, according to the letter found in the exploding storage case, he was worried about robots on campus. And/or about Mark Zuckerberg. (Ok. I'll give him the latter. Who isn't worried about Mark Zuckerberg. Just a bit. Even though that worried is eclipsed by worry about, say, Elon Musk.)

Here's part of the story Duhaime told:

“And as soon as I opened it up [the case], all this energy and, like, these things come flying out,” he told authorities, according to the affidavit. “And I had a long sleeve shirt, and they flew up underneath, basically, and hit my arm. The case went up and then it came down.” (Source: Boston Globe)

Duhaime's story ended up exploding in his face.

...investigators found no evidence of an explosion: “no small or sharp objects” were found in the case, or anywhere in the lab, according to the affidavit, and there was “no physical damage” to the case, Duhaime’s shirt, or the letter itself...

His injuries were superficial. He said the letter came from inside the exploding case, but it was found neatly folded and undamaged. Investigators later found a “word-for-word, electronic copy” of the letter stored in a backup folder on his computer, according to an FBI affidavit. 

Word-for-word, you say. Whoopsa-doopsa.

Duhaime - who's no kid: he's 45 - was arrested last week in Texas, where he was hanging out with his girlfriend. (Apparently, since he was divorced a couple of years ago, he's been dividing his time between Texas and sleeping in his office or in the lab when he had to be in Boston. Ah, the beauty of remote work!)

When this "explosion" occurred, it was plenty scary. Since the Marathon Bombing, we've been bomb-shy around here. And I have a niece who's a student at Northeastern. So, heart in mouth time there for a bit.

Happily, it turned out to be big nothing, but we sure could live without the false alarms coming from these act-out putzes who want to be in the limelight. Or whatever.

Because who knows what motivated Jason Duhaime to cook up this little plot. Boredom. Resentment. Grudge against the institution. Desire for recognition. Desire for attention. Anyway:

Duhaime is charged with conveying false information and hoaxes related to an explosive device and making material false statements to an executive branch of the US government, according to legal filings in US District Court in Boston. 

Oh, and he no longer works at Northeastern.  

Brilliant career move. 

I'm sure he'll find work somewhere, at some point, for some rate of pay likely lower than what he made at Northeastern (which probably also came with some pretty good benefits). But it'll be a while before he's managing a new technology lab at a major university. If he was bored doing that, imagine the boredom level if he ends up answering Tier One IT help calls.