Working long hours in the office can sometimes blur the line between your personal and work stuff. For example, the photos you’ve taken of your child’s graduation may end up on your work computer because you still had to come to the office after the event.
Although graduation pictures on your work computer wouldn’t warrant a visit to the HR’s office, there are some things you should avoid keeping there. Don’t let the items below be stored by an archiving system software used by your company. Otherwise, you’ll run the risk of getting into an embarrassing situation.
Moonlighting jobs
Many individuals these days have another job on top of their first job. Since it’s getting harder to pay the bills, it’s quite normal to see an accounting clerk hold a part-time work as a bookkeeper for a small business.
Some companies even encourage their best employees to moonlight in another job not just for financial reasons. Some say that employees who hold part-time jobs are more productive or creative in their primary work.
However, even if you’re working on a part-time job, you should avoid storing any information about that other job on your computer. Perhaps your primary employer doesn’t look too kindly on employees holding two jobs, or maybe the part-time job you’re working at is in direct competition with your primary job.
Whatever the reason may be, store it on your personal computer and only access it after you end your shift at your primary job.
Lewd jokes and stories
Toilet humor has no place on the work computer. Ideally, it should have no place on any computer. If one of your officemates send you a lewd joke or share a lewd story about one of their dates, don’t store that on your computer. Delete it right away and inform your colleague to refrain using work computers in sharing stuff like that.
Confidential data
Any confidential data about your company should be stored on servers that only authorized personnel can access. If one of your coworkers send you highly confidential documents, you should send those files to the appropriate servers and ask your colleague to delete their copy immediately.
Also, educate your employees to treat confidential documents and information with extra care and not send it through emails without a go-signal from their direct superiors. Many people have lost their jobs because of handling confidential information as if they were sending funny emails to other employees.
Video games, movies, and other non-work-related materials
You shouldn’t be playing a video game or watching a movie while you’re in the office, so you really shouldn’t be storing any of this stuff on your computer. Besides, it’s illegal to download these. If you do, you could expose your company’s system to malware and viruses.
Be responsible when using your computer at work. Always remind yourself that it isn’t your property and instead belongs to the company you’re working for. So, anything that you personally own shouldn’t be in your work computer.
