It's amazing what you can find on the computers at work...

[CrazedClerk]

I have a computer where I work, but I take good care to keep my activites dry and very legitimate. A lot of folks don't realize that computers are not private places at work.

Large companies maintain their right to search your machine at any time, without having to give you any reason whatsoever. Even smaller operations have IT guys and possible multiple staff members sharing a machine. Say it with me folks: NO PRIVACY.

But of course there's "don't touch" syndrome. Which means if a sign says "don't touch", you'll be all the more tempted to touch it. People simply forget they are being watched and the results can sometimes be...interesting.

A few summers ago I worked as a receptionist for a tent company (you know like tents for wedding receptions and the like). My boss had his own office and own computer and our lead salesman had his own office and own computer and then there was the computer I had in the main lobby area.

Now my boss was not very computer literate so I was basically the receptionist/computer maintenance person at this place (small operation, 10 employees).

Anyway I'm going through one day cleaning out files and I come across quite a few pornographic pictures pertaining to a certain fetish...on the MAIN computer

I'm pretty sure my boss was the culprit and let me just say I'll never look at him the same way again

Anyone else got hard drive harror stories?

[ContraCorriente]

Not quite hard drive related, but I caught the assistant manager browsing teenage girl mySpace profiles once.

[Antisocial_Worker]

I'm the culprit in a situation like that, unfortunately.

See, I'm writing a horror novel, and one of the things I do when I'm writing is I insert people I don't like into bad situations. There's a particular friend of my ex-boyfriend who I cannot tolerate. He is an honest-to-God porn star, and when describing him in the story, I wanted to make sure I was describing him accurately. So, I looked up his porn name, found pictures and clips, and voila, there it was for the other third shift person to find when deleting all the info and doing a disk cleanup apparently didn't work. Thankfully, the other third shifter knows what I'm doing and we had a good chuckle about it.

[draftermatt]

I don't even want to start with what's on my bosses computer. He knows how to get rid of History, but not cookies or the like.

And the former owner, hah, he kept his porn collection in plain sight in his office.

[Sientara]

As an IT person, of course I have stories:

One shared computer had some vids on it with explicit names. (Note to self: do not open clips titled "Wifey c**shots" in the future.)

Another was being used to surf after hours and the kleenex box kept being emptied

For the third, we use remote control software and don't always warn the user before we pop in. Caught the guy at a wholesale lingerie site looking for a gift for his girlfriend. He was instantly reported to his supervisor.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

Got a story from the opposite side.

When I first moved out to Portland I didnt have a computer. My little brother had just graduated from college so he gave me his old one. Now this computer had spent 5 years sitting in the living room of a fraternity house. They used it to get on the internet. I can only imagine what kind of stuff must have been on it.

When I got the computer, I couldn't do anything with it. I took it into a computer place to get it working again. They plugged it in and told me it was chock full of spyware and adware and all sorts of stuff, so I left it for a coupla days so they could get it working. I told them it hadnt been my computer so I had no idea what was on there, and didnt need any of it, anyway.

So several days later I go back to pick up the computer and the guys pull it out and look at me kind of funny. They're giving each other little looks and stuff. I was now really curious about what was on that computer, so I explained to them it was in my brother's fraternity house and stuff, and I'm sure there was probably porn on there.

One of the guys leans over to me and goes "yeah, there was some porn on there. there was also---"

I said "There was also what?"

"Um...well...hmm."

Now I'm really curious. "What? I assure you, I know my brother. Whatever is on there wouldn't surprise me, but for amusement sake, I'd like to know. What did you guys find?"

All three guys behind the counter stop and look at me. Finally one of them says "There was a bunch of home video of guys drunkenly jacking each other off."

I busted out laughing and said" Thanks! I got blackmail material now."

They go "We ended up having to erase everything to get the whole thing rebooted and working again."

I said "That's fine! I don't have any desire to see it, just now I can give my little brother a hard time!"

We all had a good laugh over it.

But I'm wondering what they were thinking about me when I came in to get it.

[Shironu-Akaineko]

Didn't happen at work, but still a bit disturbing... in an effort to save money, the school got sum second hand computers for the kids to use.

MAYBE they should have checked them first.

First thing I found was homemade porn of a guy showing off... well, trying to show of a teeny tiny weeny.

And all I did was double click on "My documents"!

[Format C]

When I was a real estate agent, floor time would be boring. Fortunately, there was internet access. The branch manager was not impressed with seeing BioWare (game developer for the "Baldur's Gate" series), Red Hot Pawn (Play by e-mail chess site) in the browser history but I saw saw some shopping sites in the history. Talk about hypocrisy.

The lead technician of that brokerage also said that one of the computers in another office had a serious spyware infestation. The agent in question apparently let boredom get the best of him during floor time.

I also work with some people who do in-store tech support. The stories I overhear are amazing. Users fall for fake security software. One guy saved $110 by not going with a security software package that could have prevented a $330 system restore job the next day.

[blas]

The supervisors at my work tend to spend most of the shift in the office on the computer. With our new clock-in system, they have to be sure no one missed a punch.....but there are some who abuse the right of being in charge and getting to sit in the office...

A coworker of mine used to work my exes' shift. When she went into the supervisor's office to get her shift-switch documentation signed by her supervisor, her supervisor was on break, and my ex was sitting at the computer playing VIDEO GAMES on the internet! Instead of making sure everyone was doing their jobs and making sure product was moving along (because as a technician, that's his JOB)......he was playing video games. And his portable game system (I'm not with the times on the newest hand held video game systems but whatever the newest ones are) was sitting right on the desk next to him.

Yeah, we made sure to try and put an end to that. That would explain why nothing ever gets done on Friday and Saturday nights. Yes, there's some bad blood between him and I.....but that is just not fair. At all.

[protege]

When I worked in the college labs, we'd find all sorts of interesting things on the computers. Most of it was pretty nasty--women getting um, "friendly" with various objects...and animals Several times, idiots would set that crap as their wallpaper At least we were allowed to throw people out of the labs for looking at that crap. Excuse me while I hurl again

Things at the bank were pretty tame--most of the unauthorized crap on machines was games. There was no internet (locally) at the time, so most of it was games. However, one of the loan officers got into some hot water for some of the content on his computer....since the higher-ups were *not* too happy about it. That, and possibly opening up the company to a sexual harassment lawsuit...

[Spiffy McMoron]

My old roommate works at a Staples, and is good friends with the computer technician. Naturally, there are a bunch of stories about finding metic piles of virii and spyware on computers because of porn sites. Old story.

New story: My buddy R took a laptop computer into the shop from a lady who was about 40 years old. R puts it on the ""to do" list, and the tech gets around to it. A couple hours later, tech gets to it, and immediently calls R to the tech office. Tech opens the laptop to show R the wallpaper...

...which was a picture of this lady, nude, and spread eagled. And according to all of the reports, let's just say that the lady not not easy on the eyes...

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

First thing I found was homemade porn of a guy showing off... well, trying to show of a teeny tiny weeny.

And all I did was double click on "My documents"!

Wonder if the previous owner ended up Perverted Justice or Dateline NBC.

[Jack7957]

Two stories, no porn involved in either though...

1) Years ago doing contract work at an air conditioner manufacturing site, got a report that a user on the production floor had a problem with their monitor. Go and check it out, and what happened is he loaded and was playing "Deer Hunter" during the 3rd shift, which changed his resolution settings and he didn't know how to change them back. Deleted the game, changed the settings and warned him if he did it again, I'd have to report him to his supervisor. Two weeks later, same guy, same situation, delete, change settings, and did report him. Never had another call about him again.

2) *MOD EDIT: we don't condone theft.*

[Tria]

Anyway I'm going through one day cleaning out files and I come across quite a few pornographic pictures pertaining to a certain fetish...on the MAIN computer

What was it?

[Tria]

Another was being used to surf after hours and the kleenex box kept being emptied

Knuckle children!