Healthy Workplace

We live in a modern world where computers are used in pretty much any business. If you’ve got a reasonable job, you’re more than likely working in front of a PC.

But computers also offer temptations of their own that can get you into serious trouble – a bit like those solid fudge bars on the office trolley that tempt you every morning. But you are more likely to be able to hide those extra kilos than porn site addresses in your browser's history.

It’s simple. Your work computer exists for work, and that’s that. Using this machine for personal pleasure can land you in serious trouble with the powers that be. In fact, it could cost you your job more quickly than you can say "Seedy-ROM."

Here’s how to avoid the most important piece of hardware in your life turning on you.

Download if you dare
Just because you recently had ADSL installed at home, and you’ve been downloading movies and music in demon-like fashion all night long, doesn’t mean you can do the same thing at work.

Most companies will have some sort of data transfer manager, and this person will alert the bosses to any large transfers happening on the server.

That means while you might be getting the latest episodes of South Park during your lunch hour, you could be packing your bags and heading home before the traffic even picks up.

Remember that anything you get off the internet is downloaded. This includes MP3s, streaming videos, music or radio, and even pictures.

Downloading pornography is a definite one-way ticket to a new job. Just because no one is around, doesn’t mean the server isn’t watching.

Downloading porn will not only waste your companies’ valuable bandwidth, but will also put the server at risk of contracting a serious virus or worm that could put the company out of action for weeks. Expect an instant dismissal.

Downloading anything over 10MBytes will probably raise suspicion, so rather wait to get home before you ‘save target as’.

Email abuse
Email traffic is also very often monitored, and a high exchange of personal email in your inbox could land you in hot water.

At work, your inbox has been set up for you to receive and send email that is work- related only – not to send your colleague a dirty slideshow, or a joke chain mail you just received from your friend in London.

Remember too, that some companies may enforce the right to read employee email. Therefore, writing anything nasty about your boss or fellow colleagues could backfire horribly, and result in some unwanted disciplinary action.

Avoid jokes or chain mails containing racist, unethical or derogatory content. You might find it hilarious, but your colleague just might find it offensive, and forward it to your boss with the subject line, ‘Guess who sent me this?’

Never leave your workstation without locking it or turning it off. Leaving your email open could lead to a sabotage of your career by someone forwarding your boss a particularly nasty email directly from your PC.

Email chain letters are also a great way for spammers to get a list of your colleagues' email addresses. Don't hit "Reply to all" on these mails and don't fall for the "If you are number 50, please send me a copy or Bill Gates will kill a puppy" schtick. 

Keeping it hush-hush
Confidential documents that make their way to your inbox are your responsibility. Try keeping these documents in a separate folder, and don’t keep them in your inbox if you don’t need them anymore.

Accidentally sending confidential documents to your Auntie in Brakpan won’t bode well with the boss.

If you are going to save important documents and information, rather put it onto disk, and make sure that you always keep the disk in a safe place.

If you are travelling with the information – whether it be on your laptop or DVD – make backups at home in case of damage or loss. And remember to password protect these files. Things such as ZIP archives and various.Office documents can be password-protected in a few clicks.

Try to keep business-related emails and content production to the office. It might be great to chomp down a juicy Burger and work on the year-end budget results at the same time, but you never know who could be peering over your shoulder, absorbing important and confidential company information.

Change the password on your work PC and your laptop regularly. This will further prevent any unwanted visitors penetrating your most confidential files, and possibly jeopardising your career.

Time is money
You may tell everyone that all the money you have is hard-earned, but do you really work at work, or do you play?

If you spend your time playing Farmville or Mafia Wars, or surfing the web to find your next set of wheels, you are wasting your company's time and money. This could be another reason for dismissal.

Be careful how much time you waste on personal things such as emails. You could end up giving your boss a bad impression of your work ethic. This will not get you any closer to that increase you so desperately need.

Just because you have free access to the web, doesn’t mean you can visit any site you want. Try to keep non-work related browsing to a minimum, and avoid any ‘Career’ sites.

If your boss catches you looking for a new job, he may just help you take the first step by showing you the door. And you can forget about a good reference. 

Protect your personals
Though you may work in front of a ‘personal computer’ everyday, it still belongs to the company and not you, so keep your personal stuff off its drives. How would you feel if your boss came to your house and did boss-y stuff on your home computer?

If you have to save personal files on your work computer, make sure to save them in an obscure folder so that potential saboteurs will struggle to find them in the unlikely event of them acquiring unauthorised access to your computer.

Make sure that any personal information you save on your work computer is of a ‘safe’ nature, and features no reference to how much you might hate your boss, or your plans to topple management by the end of the year.

Better yet, save this information on a CD, DVD or even your flash-drive or Cellular phone’s memory card. This ensures your own personal confidentiality, and keeps all the family pics and letters off your work computer's already clogged-up hard drive.

The science of ethics
If you could easily get away with plagiarising entire essays at university and get the marks for it, don’t think that the same applies at work.

Plagiarism is a big issue in the working world. Copying information from the internet without permission could result in your company having to fork out vast sums of money in legal fees and costs, not to mention having to remove you quietly from the payroll.

Before using images or quotes, make sure you are up to speed with the copyright status of that material, and do not under any circumstances use the stuff if it is!

You’ve been working with your loudmouth colleague for half a decade, and nothing would be more pleasurable for you than to get onto his computer and delete his files.

Don’t do it. If you are caught in the act, you could probably kiss goodbye the privilege of ever working in front of a computer ever again.

You’ve watched ‘Hackers’ and you think you can get into your server. Not a good idea. Your company's IT personel have probably also seen it and could counter those 1337 skills of yours in their sleep. 

Data transfer monitors will be tracking your every move, and though you may stumble over the CEO’s porn collection somewhere deep on the server, you’ll probably be clearing your desk within the hour for breaching company policy.

Chat your job away
So you spent the whole night chatting to SexyGirl117 on the net, and you’ve decided she’s your soulmate. You then spend your whole day chatting to your virtual bronzed beauty, forgetting entirely about the annual report you’re supposed to hand in before five o’ clock.

Although online communications have become a part of our modern world, spending hours online chatting during work could land you in some serious trouble. Sitting on chat sites all day is no different than going for coffee with a mate and coming back three hours later.

Chat programmes and websites also consume bandwidth, something your employer may not be too happy about. Your picture stash of SexyGirl117 in her new polka dot bikini may also get you in trouble when IT comes around for their annual random hard drive check.

 (Warren Vonk, Health24.com, updated November 2010)

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