Even in companies that have toxic employees, peers, and bosses, walking away from your computer to pee or go to a meeting is a fact of life. All people who do not have an obsessive compulsive nature forget to secure their computer a dangerous number of times per year (even the one time can be disastrous). Each time you leave it open leaves an opportunity for someone to hop on the computer and steal data or misrepresent you, as happened to our friend, Anderson.
Andy, a desktop support manager, stepped away from his computer to go to a meeting. While he was in the meeting he had one of his employees step in to perform a software install. While his worker was on the system, just for fun, he went into Andy’s open email and sent a message to another one of Andy’s employees, “Hey Nacho, you freaking Puerto Rican, what’s your project status?” This was an ongoing joke between these two employees. And, even though this employee’s name was not Nacho, and he was not Puerto Rican (he was from Portugal), he saw an opportunity to make a play for Andy’s job and contacted HR complaining that Andy was oppressing him with a hostile, racist, work environment. All of the managers and all of the employees were called in for weeks of grueling interviews. One of the last people they interviewed was the employee who wrote the email in Andy’s name. He was furious, and explained he’d written it, and that he and ‘Nacho’ had laughed about it only moments later when ‘Nacho’ burst into Andy’s office to see what was going on.
In the entire time I worked with Andy, I never saw him leave his screen unlocked. This is the only time he left it open. And it was intentional. So, even though it was intentional, look how much corporate spending and good achievement time and energy went into dealing with something that turned out to be a practical joke. Unlike Andy’s employee, people who physically breech corporate computers obviously have no interest in joking around.
So, pee in peace using these cool StopWatch tricks:
TRIGGERS:
- Webcam: Point the camera where you’ll walk by it on the way out of your office but not where it will see movements you don’t care about.
- Idle timer 3 minutes or less (if you forget to plug in your webcam or it gets bumped and is pointing the wrong way, you’re still protected after 3 or less minutes)
ACTIONS:
- Lock screen
- Mute Speakers: If you’ve been watching movies or listening to music…
IDLE TIME TEST
Wait the number of minutes you set the idle time for to experience what it’s like when the 5-second-warning StopWatch animation pops up.
Did this test help you feel more confident in of how StopWatch will behave? Adjust the timing until it feels right.
WEBCAM TEST:
Turn your screen so you can see it from where your camera is pointing. Walk through the target area.
Did StopWatch quickly lock your screen? If you want more speed, increase the trigger motion detection speed and decrease the object size.
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