A couple weeks ago, my work computer went completely tits up because of a virus and I had to call in our building’s IT professional to unbork my computer. While I admit that I had been surfing the internet a little too much, I wasn’t looking at anything more damning than Deadspin or even (gasp) Slate.com. So when the IT lady gave me kind of a stern warning about “certain” websites and that she’d clean it up this one time, I was a little bit confused but didn’t really think too much about it - in fact, I just shrugged and chuckled about it. I just figured she was warning me about Twitter or Facebook.
So when I needed to track a package for work the following week and found that my internet still wasn’t working – I have taken to using my iPhone for any personal surfing needs – I called the IT lady again. She couldn’t figure out what was wrong so she contacted another IT person that wasn’t in our building. She didn’t have his number, so she sent an email from my account to have him call her at my extension. A little while later, I was looking to see if I had sent an another email and ran across her email that she sent. What follows is that email and the series of mortifying emails that followed…
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From: Brandon
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 11:36 AM
To: Jeff
Subject: hey call me it (IT lady)
Hey im at that porn virus computer. Iv done everything but its still there call 1360xxxxxxx
From: Brandon
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 1:12 PM
To: (IT lady)
Subject: FW: hey call me it (IT lady)
(IT lady),
I hope you don’t think I was looking at porn on my computer, that wasn’t the case. Worst website I visited on a regular basis was Twitter or sometimes Deadspin – a sports blog. Mainly it was online radio and newspapers.
-Brandon
From: (IT Lady)
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 1:35 PM
To: Brandon
Subject: RE: hey call me it (IT lady)
Well yeah, actually I did. When I first was cleaning up that virus all it kept doing was popping up this one porn site. I had to actually log off because it keep popping up well hummm lets say pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!. That’s why I first asked you was there anyone else that uses your machine? And when I said, there are “certain” sites that give viruses more than others. And when I talked to you the second time. I said “just so we were clear I would clean it up this time. But I cant do it again” what did you think I was talking about? There was quite of few sites in the history that were quite damaging. Like I said I would clean it that time. If your worried about what I said to Jeff in that email. don’t worry about it. we talked about it and decided that was (if you will) that was 1
(IT Lady)
From: Brandon
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 2:06 PM
To: (IT lady)
Subject: RE: hey call me it (IT lady)
That’s crazy because I definitely never went to any porn sites, swear to god. I know that might be hard to believe considering that you found damaging sites in history and I probably can’t convince you, but you have to take me at my word. I may have a web surfing problem, but I’m not stupid enough to look at porn at work. I was just thinking that I wasn’t supposed to be using Facebook or Twitter or whatever…serious time wasters that management usually is not fond of people using.
Now you have me wondering if anybody else does use my computer. We do have a night crew. Since I have a strike one on me, I’m telling you now that I’m not using my internet for anything but the intranet, UPS.com, Conway Freight, Yellow Freight and maybe a few other totally work related sites. If porn sites end up in my history or I get another porn related virus, I don’t want to be blamed because it wasn’t me.
Totally mortified,
Brandon
From: (IT lady)
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 2:30 PM
To: Brandon
Subject: RE: hey call me it (IT lady)
Do you lock your computer up when you leave? Lock up as in hitting control / alt / delete / lock computer? You remember when I asked you if anyone else uses your computer? Ya know, I thought to my self, WOW he handled him self quite well. I was completely impressed how you just said OK. If fact I was telling some friends of mine, (outside of work) how well you carried your self considering you got caught for watching porn at work.
From: Brandon
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 3:32 PM
To: (IT lady)
Subject: RE: hey call me it (IT lady)
GAH! You must’ve thought I was a sociopath or something. That doesn’t make me feel better, it makes me feel like I came off as CRAZY. If I would’ve got caught watching porn, I think I would’ve just walked out of the building and never come back. Just thinking that you think I was watching porn makes me want to walk out the building and never come back.
Anyway, I almost always log off of my profile or even turn off the computer when I leave, so I don’t know what the deal is. I’ll try locking it down from here on out.
Still totally and completely mortified,
Brandon
From: (IT lady)
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 3:35 PM
To: Brandon
Subject: RE: hey call me it (IT lady)
No no I didn’t mean to make you feel worse. Gezzz I was just saying you handled your self very professional. That all. Its no biggy really. I didn’t tell anyone. Just jeff and he didn’t tell anyone. Its all good.
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Well, thank god it’s “all good”. If I would’ve been fired for looking at porn when I wasn’t actually looking at porn, that would’ve been a hard one to swallow. And though it is “all good”, I have a hard time facing the IT lady that found porn all over my computer and now assumes that I am a guy that just sat back here jerking it all day who then shows no remorse or concern when caught red handed.
On a related note: thank god for the iPhone....
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Hey, it's Brandon!
About Me
I'm a 32 year-old dude who is happily married to his best friend in the whole world and just welcomed a beautiful little girl into our happy family. I love playing softball, basketball and soccer despite my amazing suckiness at all sports. I'm a shining example of what one can accomplish after six years of college without earning a degree.
6 comments:
I completely understand your mortification, but this is cracking me up. We had a guy get fired for porn at work. We wasn't actually looking at it at work, but he was using his work computer for it at home and had downloaded videos or something that ended up getting backed up to the shared drive.
As the main IT person here at my work that gets requests to monitor people's internet usage, we rarely find anyone that visits porn sites here at work. Mostly Facebook or MySpace that are the time wasters. I've been here 7 years and only 2 people had something resembling porn in their history (gorillamask.com was one of the sites).
This IT person has a giant stick up her ass and she needs to be more reasonable in her accusation. If she was smart, she would do history searches by login profile. Unless you gave your login and password to another user, someone else has been turning on your computer and logging in with their account.
I would still clear my history every week, just to make sure there is nothing there. Some IT people can't be trusted. I know. I've worked with a ton of them over the years.
I'm an IT Lady (I don't call myself, that sounds silly) and I don't bat an eyelash if I see porn in people's histories. I just clean the computer and say "dude, watch where you go and don't let anybody else use your computer because if I have to go back I'm forcing you to watch it in front of me while I throw tomatoes at you and call you a pervert."
Seems to work.
Next time, share your porn with her and you'll be fine.
Heh - my captcha is "test ram".
PM - That's still pretty stupid. Porn and anything work related should never mix.
Marty - I don't think she's a particularly good IT person. For one thing, she said the virus would make a porn site pop up whenever she would open a window, so I'm thinking that what she saw in the history was probably somehow generated by the virus. Or, what wouldn't suprise me is that she saw a site like Ustream in my history or something else she didn't know and assumed it was porn. Perhaps I even went to my blog and she thought it was porn. I don't know.
Poppy - I didn't even watch porn and I basically got the same spiel. Just thinking she thought I watched porn scared me off. I don't need any tomatoes lobbed at me.
Avitable - Considering she didn't seem that skeeved out about it either, perhaps that would've worked.
A) That's pretty funny.
B) That's pretty horrifying
C) Stop looking at pron
D) Perhaps renaming your blog, considering this IT debacle, would be good. At least as it appears in your history haha.
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