[Closed] Bosses kids using my work computer in the evenings - HELP!

Password protect it ?

take the keyboard home

can you take the power cable home with you?

Do you have a lockable drawer you could put the keyboard and mouse in? Or if they are the wireless type with the wee usb thing take that home.

Speak to your boss....
And get another job.

Change the admin password and don't tell your boss.

Hopefully he doesn't know how to reset it without knowing it.

Working from home, I can see the appeal of that, working from someone else's not at all.

Really the only option you have is an overwhelming retaliatory attack. Do you have any revolting brats of your own or can you borrow some?

Curl one out on the keyboard before you leave in the eve.

Thanks for the responses so far.

I cannot simply hide the keyboard and/or mouse as this would not go down well, I know that to be a fact. I have expressed my displeasure with my boss, but these are his kids and it is his home after we all leave at the end of the day, so its a sensitive topic.

I'm more looking for -
a: Reassurance I'm not being petty
b: Ideas of how I can prevent the kids using the machine. For instance, is there some secret covert app that can block them out and 'confuse' them for a few days, as I think after a few days of not being able to log on they'll just pick a different machine...

Thanks again.

Take a photo of the home screen, get it printed up to the size of the monitor then stick it on the front of the screen.

It’ll confuse them for 20seconds which will buy you enough time to get lemon zest squirted into their eyes.

Or put a rattle snake behind the desk, when they come in and start pissing about it’ll wake it up and probably attack em’

It possibly is a bit petty but that would drive me nuts.

It's also braindead installing games of unknown provenance on work machine. The risk of getting ransomware or other malware is real, even on a mac. Look up 'keranger' for example.

Download some specialist material. Blame it on the kids.

https://lifehacker.com/set-an-animated-gif-as-your-macs-wallpaper-1756859302

+

Tell the boss to buy the kids their own frickin computer! He can still claim whatever tax rebate VAT dodge as a work computer, but won't piss his employees off!

https://www.medisupplies.co.uk/Cleaning-Infection-Control/Medical-Wipes/Clinell-Alcohol-Wipes

tbh, I'd probably just take in my own keyboard/mouse and lock them away at the end of the day.

Can you but a cheap usb keyboard and mouse, put yours away and leave those plugged in? That would at least keep some of the stickiness away. If you want to put them off then the mouse could have a dodgy button and the keyboard missing a few letters if that helps. Or be a euro/us spec one with a slightly different layout.

, but these are his kids and it is his home after we all leave at the end of the day, so its a sensitive topic.

It's your workplace. Some health and safety standard must apply. He is probably taking the writedown from the device for the business, which he should reduce if it doubles as a personal device. Suggest to him that when his kids do something which loses some work product from the device it will cause serious business disruption. Then make sure it happens.

Yeh, just send random Peppa Pig/fortnite memes to your entire mailing list and blame the kids.

It seems a bit petty to me. its not your computer, its the bosses companies computer, he can choose to let his kids play on it.

I get the frustration at having the desktop/tabs messed with, and how that interferes with work, cant you just set the kids up with a different user account so they mess that one up instead of the account you use for work?

Regarding the keyboard/mouse issues, I suspect the on;y way round this one is to buy your own keyboard and mouse and use these and take them home at night, leaving the snotty keyboard and mouse for the kids.

Or, you could graciously offer to give your super powerful mac to someone else in the office and you put up with a slower one.

I get in in the morning and there are snotty tissues on my desk

I really hope it is snot...

Spill pop all over it and blame them. Alternatively leave an angry bear under your desk at the end of the day. I’ve done this and the only small downside was having to leave the country, grow a beard, never seeing my family again and having to change my name.

Report your boss to the council for running a business from a domestic abode, he will have to relocate it to a proper premise far from the snotty germ ridden kids; problem solved.

Alternatively, make the Clown ^^ your screen saver

It seems a bit petty to me. its not your computer, its the bosses companies computer, he can choose to let his kids play on it.

Bollocks, you should have the expectation of a reasonable professional work environment, your boss wants to save cash and base you from his house he should provide a workplace not a creche.

My Bosses kids do the same thing with mine. They’re nice kids and clean so I don’t mind. (The cleaner ****s my desk up anyway).

Separate log-ins is a must, otherwise they ruin the save point on my games 😉

a: Reassurance I’m not being petty

It's a business machine. It's a massive security risk and wholly irresponsible. Will you take the fall when a virus takes down the building?

b: Ideas of how I can prevent the kids using the machine.

Isn't that what passwords are for?

... or better yet, infect it with a virus yourself and then go "I told you so!" (-:

Tell your boss that GDPR will eat him and his kids when it all goes wrong.

Can you run somethin like seti@home (if it still exists) in an aggressive mode overnight. If you use all the system resources up it'll be too slow for gaming and they won't use it.

Password?

For those asking about passwords I have actually set up a user profile for them, which they have started using, but the issue of the machine being loaded full of malware etc remains.

The SETI@home thing appeals - are there any similar things out there that would render the computer unsatisfactory to a rude little 8 year old gamer shitbag child, for a few hours at least?

It would need to be low key.

OK I am using PC so might be different.

I have password to lock the entire computer.

i'd be looking for another job, unprofessional doesn't even cover it.

Kids will just force reboot the machine if it's too slow for them.

Kids (generally) might be stupid, but they are not idiots.

I would spent 20 minutes each morning cleaning the keyboard and generally huffing and puffing about not being able to start on time.

a: Reassurance I’m not being petty

Not petty at all imo. Not even my partner is allowed to touch my work machine - I'd sooner share my toothbrush!

Open a load of browser frames with all sorts of really interesting stuff (Peppa Pig on YouTube or whatever), screenshot it then use the screenshot as a background picture.

When you finish for the night, ensure all tabs are closed and they will go on and see all this stuff but none of it wil work because it is just the background picture. They will assume it is broken and go off and bother someone else's bit of kit.

For those asking about passwords I have actually set up a user profile for them

Whatever for? That's just capitulating to the little shits. Delete that and set a password on your own account FFS.

What's your backup policy like? What if they were to delete some 'useless files' to make space for their games?

Is there anything confidential on there? Customer data? GDPR issues?

Kids will just force reboot the machine if it’s too slow for them.

That's what startup jobs are for. Preferably sensitive to time of day. No idea how to do it on a Mac unfortunately, don't suppose they have systemd do they, cron perhaps?

Or maybe edit their game shortcuts to a script that runs a fork bomb!

Could you find an app that throttles the CPU in some power save mode, or disable the graphics card driver so it defaults to crappy on board graphics. Or a program that throttles the internet connection to a crawl? Even better, set up a remote desktop and keep killing their game or rebooting the PC so they lose interest...they'll soon move to the next PC!

Or maybe edit their game shortcuts to a script that runs a fork bomb! Pornhub.

Let's face it, there's any number of ways you could knobble the machine. But why should you?

Just say no, password-protect the machine, don't tell anyone the password, and walk away. That's what passwords are for. Tell him to buy them a $%^&ing iPad.

It's a business machine, every PC / Mac in the building should be locked when not in use as standard practice. What would your customers think if they knew it was going on? That's not an environment I'd want a business partner to have, I'd be paranoid that any design / whatever sent out might have some trojan embedded in it which could take down my network. A company in Norway got hit the other day, it's cost them something like £30 million to put right so far. Google "Hydro ransomware attack."

Because ultimately what's the boss going to do? Sack you for not letting his kids play with a work computer? HR will be all over that like a tramp on chips.

What Cougar says

Don’t tell us, the office is on the same network as his house too?

Password protection with a really long, complicated password that’s only known to you.
As others have said, allowing the miserable little wretches free reign on a work computer is just irresponsible, and I’d take every step I could to stop them.
Or else find some virus that emails garbage to everyone on the mailbox contact list and blame it on the brats when customers get shitty about their mailboxes filling up with crap.

You're not being petty nor unreasonable, but your being a bit daft setting up an account for them to use. Delete that account lock down the computer on Monday.

Go and speak to your boss directly about it. Tell him why firstly, don't let the kids tell him what you've done, cause that'll just turn into a drama.

If your boss goes against you, quietly go and find yourself another job.

It would piss me off, and I'm not that possessive over my office space. I have some colleagues who would actually combust if they came into that every day. Some folk are very particular (and maybe rightly so) about hygiene, tidiness and IT security so this sort of thing would cause massive stress. Presumably your boss likes working from his home as he feels it's an informal and productive environment for him. If it's causing stress to his employees then that's surely not what he wants?

Oh and another couple for the passive agressive retaliation list would be report to HMRC that IT hardware is being bought on company pound for home use. All the better that it's a mega top spec. Also set up to record the browsing history and leave in a brown envelope for the kids to find the next night, but I'm sure it'll all be homework reasearch...

I get in in the morning and there are snotty tissues on my desk, the mouse and keyboard are greasy and all of my stuff has been moved.

I know for a FACT that his feral children are filthy as they never flush the toilet, so they’re definitely not washing their hands either. They then spend all evening touching the keyboard and mouse and its freaking me out.

And you really think adults are any cleaner ?

Make the screensaver an image of your antivirus in full-on alert mode

Because ultimately what’s the boss going to do? Sack you for not letting his kids play with a work computer? HR will be all over that like a tramp on chips.

I’m not sure that businesses on this scale have meaningful HR people! Nor am I convinced that the average customer of such businesses gives a shit until the virus or problem happens.

Try talking to your boss about it without framing it as "your kids did this". Don't even mention the kids. Tell him when you get to work and find your desk is disgusting, tell him if your work from the previous day was closed, anything that's directly affecting you and your working environment.

If you're complaining about his kids he'll get defensive. If you present it as a work issue you might have more luck finding a solution.

A lot of the suggestions in this thread are going to come across as petty to your boss, which is what matters if you want to keep working here, or leave with a good reference. Dangers of working in his house.

Not flushing, yellow they may be trying to conserve water and you should take this as a positive, brown they are dirty little shits. This would be pivotal for the approach to sorting the problem.

Make a big deal about finding snot on your desk and turds in the toilet and then sign off sick for the next week with some sort of infection, go to your doctor about the stress of it all.

Talk directly to your boss about the security implications, you could even waste a couple of days making a creative presentation in preparation... lock down the machine and offer to use an older machine until the problem is resolved.

Or
Just go talk to your boss about it, and use another machine being as it's not "your" device and I'm sure someone else wouldn't mind putting up with the detritus from the kids.

GDPR fines are the higher of €20 million or 4% of annual global turnover. Bearing in mind that it wouldn't be an accidental breach, as you and your boss know that people outside the business have unrestricted access to the data.

I'd be mentioning this to him and explaining that you're uncomfortable using the computer for work-related stuff until he can guarantee the security. The only way to do this is to either get you or his kids another computer.

FFS! Just tell your boss you'll not be in until he guarantees your work tools will not be disturbed when you're not there.

break it.

blame them.

Start looking for a new job or speak to your boss. He may get upset about it, but that’s even more reason to find another job, or he may fix the situation.

Unless this one pays more than the market rate, it sounds like a pain in the arse.

A bit passive-aggressive, but it might be worth investing in a bunch of cleaning products, antibacterial sprays and wipes, etc, and leaving them close to your work station. And use them regularly, with all of the detritus left by the brats in a bin for the boss to see.

Underclock the CPU or GPU and I'll make gaming rubbish for them. Hard to work out what's going on for them. Easy for you to switch on and off end of day.

You can also throttle the bandwidth for that machine. You can even do it per application so just throttle the speed on their game (fortnight I'm guessing). They'll never know.

Just two of hundreds of way you can hobble a machine without being detected. TBH i'd just delete a really key piece of work. The next morning ask innocently if anyone was on the machine the night before. The moment your boss is at risk of losing money is the moment he'll buy them their own PC.

fortnight I’m guessing

Fortnite FFS

If/when porn/viruses are found on the machine, you're going to be arguing with your boss as to whether it was you or his children who put it there.

Can you get close to the “office” after hours?

If so, plug a wireless mouse dongle into the machine, come back in the evening and randomly move the mouse about whilst they are playing.

Sceenshot the desktop, set as wallpaper and hide taskbars. Computer looks normal but no icons work

am I the first to suggest you send the boss and link to this thread? 🙂

In any professional situation 'the boss's kids' are a ****ing nightmare. (actually I'm not sure which is worse - the kids -  or the boss's husband/wife being given a low grade job in the organisation - its like working under an opinionated CCTV camera.).

If you're in any sort of senior role and involve your children in anything work related other than social occasions then there are people having this exact kind of conversation about you.

The boss might be lovely, the kids might be lovely but mix them up with work / employee relations and it can be pretty toxic no matter how innocuous someone thinks that involvement is.

I used to work in public art galleries and museums and one of the things I had to do was organise kids workshops, clubs etc. The boss would sign his kids up for them all - apparently to 'help make up the numbers' even though everything we offered was over-subscribed. In any other situation they were probably nice enough kids but the entitlement of being the bosses kids just made them a surly, disruptive handful. I got fed up with having to apologise about them to staff and parents.

In the end, without telling him I'd made the decision, I just stopped organising them -  filled the diary with other stuff and just told him there would be more workshops 'soon' if he asked.

Back in my childhood days my dad worked in teacher training. I didn't know until I went to his leaving do that many of the student teachers I'd had throughout my school years were his pupils. He distanced himself completely from anything that involved my school - he didn't get involved in assessments of those students, didn't visit the school during their placements, never mentioned or asked me about anyone. And by the same measure non of them knew I was his son. It wasn't til I was at the buffet with a dozen or so of my former teachers that it even occurred to me that there'd even be any likelihood of him having any involvement in my school.

I don't think you're being petty at all, what you describe would annoy the crap out of me. Not sure what you can do though as sounds like you've already tried the reasonable approach. I have to stop myself freaking out if someone touches the screen on any of my monitors (no really, I could see what you were pointing out without you having to leave a greasy finger-print there...)

Is there a company firewall you can use to block access to the gaming sites?

If not, then a good free one you can install locally on your Mac would be something like this - https://forticlient.com/downloads - which has web filtering based on categories such as business, social media, gaming, etc. Locked down they shouldn't be able to override it and download anything you don't like.

To me ( working in a totally different world where all computers are shared) the stuff about mucky keyboard and mouse and snotty nosed kids sounds very petty indeed.

However the IT security side of it is potentially very serious. YOu can stop them directly buggering up your work with different user accounts but if they get the machine infected with viruses / malware etc this is potentially serious

Can the computer be locked down to prevent any downloads that are not authorised by you ( I am also IT illiterate) Ie you have administrator tights, they have only user rights and only the admin can download anything ( our work computers are like this)

I think my tack with your boss would be to ignore the (nonsensical) germ issues - thats your issue but put in writing to your boss your fears over IT security which to me is a real issue with potentially very serious consequences.

Can you access the WiFi network settings and disable your machine out of hours?

Change the password for their account. It'll confuse them enough to force them to use a different machine. Or just remove all their games and take away admin access. (hoping they don't have admin access already).

Can the computer be locked down to prevent any downloads that are not authorised by you ( I am also IT illiterate)

Yes, In the account setting in system preferences just untick 'Allow user administrate this computer'

Though if they know Macs well, and File Vault has not been enabled they might know how to reset the password without knowing it:

Restart the Mac holding 'Command + R'
Open Terminal from the Utilities menu.
Type 'reset password'
Select the desired account and type in your new password

However the IT security side of it is potentially very serious.

It is. We have annual IT training which uses giving your work computer to your kids to play on as a specific example of risk and malpractice. Your boss needs IT security training.

Buy a Russian keyboard for night-time activities.

They are installing apps in their own sandbox? Surely you can set up their account with limited privileges at the least - and start to lock down those accounts.

Would drive me mad.

Am I the only person thinking of TJ in his "administrator tights"

Letting seven year olds (did I get that right) loose on crucial office kit with the attendant security and financial risk is complete looney tunes. What other shenanigans are going on with the company stuff?

Best of luck getting it sorted, but I can't help feeling that if your boss is this complacent about the priciest bit of desktop kit in the room then you have a bit of a mountain to climb.

I'd be getting the CV polished up and looking around for somewhere else more professional.

If you can touch type and the bosses kids can't...

Thanks for all the responses. Essentially the problem is that my boss has allowed the kids to do this and the first and only time I have publically
made any noise about this in front of him he told me I should be closing my tabs and shutting the machine down anyway, which was totally not the point. I mentioned security, we even had some suspicious internal finance request emails that looked legit but had tiny mistakes and links to phishing sites a few months ago, and he has clearly not taken it on board.

I set up the separate kids user account as a means to at least keep them away from my projects, and their user profile is limited, but of course their dad has logged into the admin user account and enabled their web access and authorised their game apps etc.

We’ve got a good relationship but I can’t afford to be seen to be making waves and I don’t want to tackle this issue myself. I’ve mentioned it to the HR guy but this is a 6 person team and he’s got the same eggshells. Plus he’s currently trying to brown nose the boss. Politics

Help!

Why does your boss know your password? Change it.

Do your research, plan your car and take it to him as a friend. You don't have to be stabbing him in the back, just be open about it. It's poor IT practice, it's dangerous and against the principles of good governance.

Imagine how he'd feel if he knew that your suppliers had lax security policies regarding your data? Did you sign a usage policy document? Do you have one? If not, how would your clients feel about the fact that there are kids with admin privileges on the machines that with their data! Do you do due diligence with your clients? Imagine having to tell them that kids have admin access to your machines!

The more I hear the more outrageous I think this is. Its pretty much a resign on principle matter if the boss will not protect the IT security. If and it seems possible to this Luddite the kids do something that compromises the projects you are working on how will that reflect on you?

Back up all your work to an off box location then write a script to erase the contents of the SSD and set it to trigger at a time you can be sure that the brat is using the computer.

Next morning you cannot work and need to fix the Mac but no long term damage. Kid is blamed and banned from work machines.

If too drstic search for pranking Mac users - lots of suggestions that could stop the brats causing mischief. Setting a timed script to invert screen colours might work.

Enable FileVault with a 15 character or more password known only to you. When boss grizzles tell him you are protecting his financial position from harm. As above GDPR and PCI penalties are swinging (PCI if relevant starts at £10k per set of card details leaked).

I'd already be looking for a job elsewhere. Already sounds like he doesn't take your opinion/concerns for the situation seriously, which makes him a bit of a cockwomble. I'd be worried about what else hes being so lax about.

There's no way the boss will let him have a secret, only know to him password. If he up's and leaves, falls ill or similar the computer, and any work on it is completely inaccessible.

There’s no way the boss will let him have a secret, only know to him password. If he up’s and leaves, falls ill or similar the computer, and any work on it is completely inaccessible.

I am *required* to have a secret, only known to me, password. Further, it must have a sufficient level of complexity.