Porn Tab Fiasco Highlights Why You Should Get Better Acquainted With Your Work Computer

Earlier this week, a US politician running for Congress posted a screenshot on his campaign’s Facebook page. Normally, this wouldn’t raise an eyebrow, but his screenshot was of his web browser which clearly showed opened tabs for “IVONE SEXY AMATEUR” and “LAYLA RIVERA TIGHT BOOTY”. Take a wild guess on what kind of content he was looking at.

Screenshot from Gawker

Putting aside his hilarious/bizarre excuse as to why he was surfing pornographic content, he has demonstrated that he is probably not that computer savvy. There is an important lesson here: learn how to use the technology you utilise for work if you want to avoid embarrassments that will come back to haunt you.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: there is nothing wrong with looking at porn. What we are calling out here is that Mike Webb, the politician in question, probably a) shouldn’t have done it on a computer he uses for work, b) should have just closed the damn tabs on his browser and c) … why didn’t he just use a cropping tool to cut out the tabs?

Look, people stuff up all the time in their professional lives. It’s perfectly fine to make mistakes. But there’s always that one person in the office who just scrapes by with the most basic computer skills and refuses to learn how to do anything else on their PC beyond opening a Word document, launching a web browser and sending emails. They don’t want to know their work device intimately and only call upon it for a narrow range of functions.

It is these people who are more prone to cock-ups with technology, like the one that Webb experienced. Sending group emails to people using CC instead of BCC, falling victim to malware, accidental leakage of confidential corporate information; we’ve all seen or heard stories about these incidents.

Again, I’m not saying tech savvy employees are infallible (believe me, I’ve screwed up big time in the past), but they are less likely to make silly — and sometimes costly — mistakes through technology or are at least more careful when dealing with their tech devices.

Getting to know your work computer intimately and understanding all the programs you use professionally with more depth not only helps minimise the chance of technological screw-ups, it can also help you become more productive. I recently sat in on a Microsoft Excel session that a co-worker hosted at the office and picked up new tricks to help me do things faster and better with the spreadsheet program.

These little things matter and burying your head in the sad and falling back on the excuse of “Oh, it’s just too hard to understand how computers work” simply doesn’t cut it in our digitally connected world.

It’s never too late to start becoming better acquainted with your computer.

Have you formed a close bond with your work computer? Let us know in the comments.


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