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

[saoba.livejournal.com]

I'd go for 'factual and concerned'.

As in: '*boss's name*, I've found out that someone used my computer to look at *name of site* while I was not here. (pause to insert explanation of how you can find it, if needed/wanted).'

'Naturally, since I have patient data/research/other needful information on my computer, I am concerned.'

'In order to prevent this from happening again/ keep from getting blamed for inappropriate use/ protect myself from rains of frogs, I intend to institute the following measures.'

Now, I believe you are right and it was indeed her kid. Very likely, if you can give her the time frame, she'll know it too. But I'd approach it from the proessional angle, this is your work machine and keeping random folks with access to the clinic out of your data is a Good Thing.

As an aside, her keeping her kid off of other people's work machines would be a Good Thing, too and more professional.