Sixty second hypothetical.

[rivka]

Your boss lets her nine-year-old son hang out in your office sometimes, when she's working in the evening or on weekends. When he's here, he uses your computer. (And never puts the mouse back on the left side, but that's beside the point.)

You have Internet Explorer set up to clear the history file every day, but IE also keeps track of URLs which have been directly typed in - you can access them from the address bar. One of the ways you can tell that your boss's son has been using your computer is that sites like cartoonnetwork.com and nickelodeon.com appear in the address bar menu. Okay. But one morning, nakedladys.com is right in there with the addresses for cartoon websites. You click on the link to make sure it's not an ironically-named site for kids. It's not.

You have no idea whether your institution monitors Internet usage for porn viewing, although it's pretty obvious that no one is checking to see how much time you spend on non-work-related sites in general.

Do you tell your boss? And if so, what do you tell her?

Comments

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

If it were me and my office and my computer, I'd have a problem with the whole concept of the boss using it as part of her family space. It sounds like either you don't mind, or you are so far from having a choice about it that you're just dealing. (Private client files? Research data without backup? Bored nine-year-old? Aaarrgh.)

If you see the kid, one option would be to mention to him directly that you can see what he accesses and that it's not polite to leave tracks to "embarrassing" material on other people's computers. If he doesn't seem to know what you're talking about, mention the "nakedladys". If you're talking to him directly, you could also point out that it's not appropriate for him to rearrange the way you have your workstation set up.


I wouldn't tell the boss for the purposes of "telling on" her kid that he might be accessing porn. You would likely get into hearing all the defensive explanations about the friend who told him to try that address bla bla, which will make unnecessary awkwardness between you. But I might use it as an excuse to make a roundabout approach to whether it's appropriate for him to be using my computer.

I also like rmjwell's idea of adding a login, and telling the boss it's because of someone - maybe the cleaners - accessing porn, and/or because of realizing the potential damage to research data and/or client privacy. If diplomacy in your work environment warrants it, you could even offer to set up a separate userid for her son, to make the point with both of them that using your computer is a privilege that he needs to respect.