IT admin people have the keys to the building and pretty much all data at the end of the day. Trust is everything and reputation is extremely important. This will not go well for the ex-admin one way or another either by lawsuit or blacklisting.

Well, assuming he doesn't change his name and fake his employment history. Or just deny it. Or threaten to sue for libel if anyone claims it was him that did it. If it was me I'd claim they screwed up (restored a backup onto the backups, something like that, happens all the time) then blamed me. Let's be honest, they're more screwed than he is.

And yet, they are often abused, underpaid, and treated as replaceable. The only surprise should be that this doesn't happen far more often.

At the core, IT people are usually seen as cost centers and not revenue generators. Not that I disagree with the business owners a lot of the time because IT is usually not the thing that makes a lot of companies money.

Often people about to get fired knew long before that axe was coming. Making sure everything is properly backed up and secure is a better option and what you should be doing anyway.

So true. A former employer continues to share google docs with me -- not just updates to docs I had been using but new docs as well. I don't read them because they're no longer any of my business, but I haven't been able to stop it from happening.

If they're being added to a folder, you can remove your own permissions from the folder. At least if you have write access.

If they're sharing them individually with you... Then clearly they're not paying attention