Printing private letter at work

buglawton

Quick poll at this point - is this the biggest storm in the smallest teacup seen in MSE this year?

cookie365

buglawton wrote: »

Quick poll at this point - is this the biggest storm in the smallest teacup seen in MSE this year?

There's the one where someone was complaining about a power cable being cut off something he'd put out for scrap.

londonTiger

do to the volume of printing and confidentiality issues, there are two issues:

1) there will be gazillions of prints and will be far too much to monitor
2) employess will print commercially sensitive data, new mergers and acquisitions, payroll reports, staff performance, bonus earnings, confidential HR related information etc. So power to view what is being printed would be reserved for very senior staff who probably don't have time to trawl through all the records.

If they do not disclose the fact they monitor your computer use they probably cant then do so without disclosing and use the information to fire you.

If it's a micro business all bets are off - a friend of mine had a 2 employee business and he spied on one of his employees computer and found out she was spending long periods of time on facebook and online shopping she was looking for another job and going to interviews and claiming sick leave. He fired her due to poor performance after finding that out.

He used a keylogger on the computer, found out all her passwords and accessed her email to find that she was badmouthing him to her friends. Saying how much she hates working for him, her plan to extract as much money as possible doing as little work as possible etc.

But for any SME+ size business these print monitoring activities (if any) will need to be disclosed to staff either signposted or in the employment contract.

Lastly, no reasonable employer is going to sack you for using a one off printer for personal use. Even the taxman would not consider this as a benefit in kind because it's so insignificant.

londonTiger

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Good point.

For a small amount of printing, a cheap laser would be ideal.

Something like THIS for (£50 from Rymans) would be ideal.

laser printers are always on freecycle. Albeit not one of these modern "toy" printers like this. Most of the stuff is handmedowns from businesses and require tlc. I got one with was a proper print, scan, copy colour printer. The drum and imaging unit needed servicing but once done it was very useful.

onomatopoeia99

londonTiger wrote: »

If it's a micro business all bets are off - a friend of mine had a 2 employee business and he spied on on of his employees computer and found out she was spending long periods of time on facebook and online shopping she was looking for another job and going to interviews and claiming sick leave. He fired her due to poor performance after finding that out.

He used a keylogger on the computer, found out all her passwords and accessed her email to find that she was badmouthing him to her friends. Saying how much she hates working for him etc.

The employer must disclose that they are or may be monitoring. Covert monitoring of employees is very rarely legal in the UK and checking up on an employee taking sick days isn't a valid reason.

londonTiger

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

The employer must disclose that they are or may be monitoring. Covert monitoring of employees is very rarely legal in the UK and checking up on an employee taking sick days isn't a valid reason.

yes I know, I stated that in my very post. But just saying that if it's a micro business you can throw the law book out of the window because they're unlikely to follow it.

Also an employer can sack an employee within thei first 2 years of their employment very easily. My guy I know just used a !!!!!!!! "performance" excuse to fire her.

JesseJames_2

Corporate systems invariably just records the filename, user, copies, etc, not the contents.
Rename the file to a work related type name.

cinderfella

There is a 29.99 GBX laser mono printer on HUKdeals today.I like to travel light so avoiding bulky purchases is important to me. (Dell printer at Ebuyer- save GBX 36.00)
The library is the first port of call.
How does a tablet do under a photocopy machine ?
Any typewriters available - to be found in skips.
Email the document to a friend.
Go into a number of shops & offer 50p
I always use an Internet cafe, but those are a bit thin on the ground in the UK excepting London.
Suggest to the HR dept that private printing should be allowed for a fee - they could always set up a standalone machine connected to an old printer.
or 'Just do it' - print it.:j

IronWolf

I never think twice about printing things at work

I work in a big office though, there is far too much printing going on for someone to actually monitor it all, and most people will hardly print anything out for personal use, its so small that employers tend to just allow it in my experience.

gjchester

JesseJames wrote: »

Corporate systems invariably just records the filename, user, copies, etc, not the contents.
Rename the file to a work related type name.

Thinking about it there's many places the file content may be stored and later read, on the device, on the print server, or as many printers have, on the printers hard drive.

Would they is another matter, probably not unless they have other reasons to investigate someone.