Not Being the Nice Guy (split from Random Rants OA)

[Hygro]

Plenty of people with mortgages are in bad financial shape. You are aware that the US had a crazy high number of home foreclosures just a few years ago, right?

None of them at that time were employed at the firm as the guy in question.

 

[The_J]

IMHO Leaving your computer unlocked while being away for a longer time is a absolute no go in security sensitive areas, which are all departments containing one of the following: production parameters, research data, customer data, HR data or financial data => so nearly all of them
the prank with the email was perhaps not the best as it exposed the issue to third persons - at university they would usually make an screenshot of your desktop, hide all icons and the command bar and replace the wallpaper with the screenshot => everything looks normal but clicking anywhere won't do no good.
It's still an issue for the victim but it can still learn it's lesson without the notice of others/superiors. (Obviously deleting items saved on the desktop directly can be an issue...)

Yeah, I think that's a more sensible version.
It doesn't directly expose you.

In my old department, some people would just go and replace your wallpaper with a gay couple kissing.
Would sure serve as a good reminder .

 

[Arakhor]

There is nothing wrong with Comic Sans MS.

It's one of my favorite fonts and we don't have it here...

It's also highly overused by people who don't know anything about design/layout other than just opening up MS Word and plonking down some rainbow-coloured text to make a quick poster.

 

[cardgame]

Everything is wrong with Comic Sans

 

[Arakhor]

That is really horrendous.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Shows you what can happen when the untalented develop a passion, doesn't it?

 

[metatron]

Everything is wrong with Comic Sans

https://forums.civfanatics.com/attachments/graphic-design-jpg.490281/

That is really horrendous.

Oh, aw, ow.
I really braced for the hit there.
And it was still bad.

Edit: I want to be able to like that post twice.

 

[Takhisis]

You can unlike it, then like it again!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

That is really horrendous.

I'll say. The sentence doesn't start with a capital, the cat has no eyebrows, and why is the cat in a white box?

 

[Arakhor]

It's not a white box - it's an image which hasn't been set to have transparency, so the background shows up as white.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

There's a risk in a prank that can potentially cost someone money, because you don't know their financial situation. Imagine this co-worker is under lot of stress because they're struggling to make their mortgage payments. Then someone comes along and attempts to oblige them to fork out probably $20 (or depending on types of donuts and office size, maybe much more), on the basis that they've made some dumb but relatively routine mistake. They'll lose face if if they don't go along with it, but that puts them in a tight financial spot, and no-one at the office knows or cares about that.

It's understandable in that situation for the person to get upset, and if whoever sent the email knew the full situation when they sent it, they probably wouldn't have done it.

So there can be good reasons for not pranking someone in a manner where money is involved.

Also, not logging out/locking when you leave your desk is a security issue? That seems extreme in a normal office environment.

I am pretty sure I put this in the original post but 90% of the people who get donuted don't follow through with the donuts and that's totally fine. It's more of a joke/security reminder than an actual obligation to buy donuts.

This is also an especially contrived situation for most professional environments. The chances that a $20 loss are going to ruin someone at my job are so remote as to be irrelevant.

Locking your computer is not extreme in a normal office environment where the design and fabrication of satellites occurs.

Dude works for SpaceX. At the very least I would imagine corporate espionage would be a concern

I actually don't work there anymore, I left for greener pastures. I design satellites at a smaller firm now but the same security concerns apply. I would have thought by now that all the rockets I worked on would have been retired by now but they keep re-launching them. I do think Falcon Heavy was the last one I worked on that they will launch, I'm pretty sure the rest have been retired/wound up in the ocean (they are now expending the old block 3 boosters even when they could recover them because they are running out of hangar space and block 4/5 boosters will be much more economical to refurbish).

Sometimes the need to lock computers is imposed from outside the company. I used to work in customer service for a mail order clothing company. We were required to lock our stations every time we got up from our seat no matter where we were going. This was required by the payment processors who handle your credit credit transactions. If we were to be audited and found to have a high number of associates who weren't locking their work stations then the company could have potentially lost the ability to accept major credit cards.

Yes, the government and customers require this from us.

This is the importance of learning company culture. Personally, my approach would be a gentle reminder at first.

Oh we're way past reminders. And the donuting thing was well received by everyone - including the guy who yelled up until it happened to him.

No!
I'm saying that what you and Owen are saying is all fine and well, but that doesn't change that persons responsibility.
They can cough up the donuts.
They can refuse to and sulk.
Shouting at hobbs is not a justifiable option.

Or, you know, just be honest:
"Look, i'm not doing this, i can't have things like this in my life. So either you pay for the damn donuts yourself or there will be drama."
I'm confident Hobbs would have yielded and paid for the donuts.

But stacking these multiple irresponsibilities and then resolving the situation by shouting down the other person is the height of privilege.

This is it really. He's entitled. That's all that the freakout was about. I am firmly convinced he doesn't even think what he did was wrong on any level.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Sure, you can't practically demand/ask for an apology.

I'm just saying, if you do something sucky, and then you don't apologize, I'm going to think less of you, and it's going to affect how I treat you in the future. In a professional setting, if you're enough of a jerk, I stop being friendly, and treat you as a cog in the process - I give you inputs according to the procedures, and I expect appropriate outputs. Everything by the book.

This is exactly what I'm doing now.

Eh, I have to be really careful that I don't slip into passive-aggressive jerk territory with this. Your approach here is what I'm going for but I have to police myself to make sure I'm not being a jerk.

 

[Zelig]

I think you're missing the point. It's easy to set a computer to default to sleep mode, or screen saver mode, or whatever mode, after a defined period of time. The reason secured computers don't do that in 30 seconds is that under normal usage there's any number of reasons why someone using a computer may not touch it for 10 minutes, even if they are sitting right there.

That does not account at all for people getting up and leaving their station. Once someone is out of eyesight of their station, if it is not locked, for any period of time, then it is not secure. Because even at 9:59 someone just has to touch the mouse to extend the time. So one the designated user is out of sight of it, it is effectively unsecured forever. Someone waiting for that opportunity now has it.

The solution to this is to train your users to always secure the computer every time that they walk away from it, and then enforce that requirement! Which is to say, punish anyone who fails to do so. This can't be solved with software. It has to be solved with user procedure. So if you really want computer security, your people have to act to make it happen. And you have to make them do so.

This can be solved with software.

Lock your Windows 10 PC automatically when you step away from it

 

[warpus]

I would never use somebody's computer to email people, that could come back to bite me. Yeah, everyone should lock their machine before heading out, and I have worked in places where security was important, and I hate people who are dumbarses, but most places have rules in place against that sort of thing and it could come back to bite you big time. So I just don't do it. Not my monkeys, not my circus.

If it were my job to make sure people weren't doing this, I would write them up. If it isn't my job, I don't worry about it

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I'm definitely not doing it anymore.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Okay, that's hilarious.

On the e-mail front, a solution that doesn't involve anyone else:

Use their computer to send yourself an e-mail offering sex. Then go to your own computer and reply.

And then immediately get fired if your colleague is female of course

 

[Arakhor]

I imagine that would be a disciplinary offence, no matter your respective sexes.

 

[Lexicus]

And then immediately get fired if your colleague is female of course

Those darn women, always getting people fired for harmless jokes

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Note that by all indications they sent the first e-mail, and when they say "I left my computer and..."
there is no evidence, or even an indication, or who sent it in their place. You are the one who has a harassment case, not them.

 

[civvver]

Also, not logging out/locking when you leave your desk is a security issue? That seems extreme in a normal office environment.

Dude works for SpaceX. At the very least I would imagine corporate espionage would be a concern

It seems extreme and I wouldn't want to work in a place where I can't trust my co-workers to basically not steal my work. Also even if you can't trust all of them, wouldn't other co-workers notice if someone was doing something unscrupulous on your pc? I guess maybe you work in really private offices or cubicles? But with that said if it's a customer requirement or you have a bunch of outside visitors it makes sense.

I have had people do this same thing before at my work. First time was like ok haha very funny, but then the guy did it again and I was getting mad. Cus we don't work in a high security environment nor do we have any mandated requirement to lock our pcs, and he was really just being a jerk cus he thought it was funny.

Anyway the guy probably reacted that way because he realized it was his fault but blamed someone outwardly. Sadly I do this a lot at home. The kids will be like yelling in my ear and I'll break something and say hey if you hadn't been distracting me I wouldn't have done that! It's not nice, it's an outward venting of frustration. Just saying maybe that's why he did it. Or it's possible this has happened to him before or he's already getting bad reports for his performance or something and this was like the last straw.

I would just consider him kind of dramatic and not worry about it.