The Sometimes Catastrophic, but Mostly Just Embarrassing Consequences of Screen Sharing at Work

I work 100% remote for a global company, IT has set us up so that if we’re presenting all pop-ups automatically disable. We’ve also all been asked to start all messaging with a simple “Hi” and wait for the same response from the recipient just to be sure our message won’t be inadvertently shared with a client. Because I’m home and on my own internet server I don’t have to worry about using company internet, I also don’t have to worry about using my company-issued laptop for personal use since, well, I’m home, I can use my own computer/iPad/phone for personal use. And yes, I have a personal phone and a work phone, I have had the same phone number since 1998, I have not had the same job since 1998, jobs come and go, phone numbers (it would seem) can be forever. I enjoy that small separation between my work life and my personal life (especially since I wander in and out of my office all the time for various reasons since it is in my house). Learn how to mute all incoming services when you are presenting or just shut down anything you wouldn’t want to share, but, really, in the interest of your mental health, create a separation between your work and personal lives.

When someone boots up their laptop and then shares their screen, commencing with their desktop, generally it tells me all I need to know about that individual. Is the desktop in a state of clutter or is it highly organized. Is it minimalist? Don't even get me started on what they use as the desktop background. Is it a picture of their dog? Nice. Their family stuffing their faces with junk food at a theme park? Good going sport, how much did that set you back? A stunning shot of a waterfall in an exotic locale? If you took it then you're adventurous and may be a risk taker. A folder titled "Great XXXpectations?" Come into my office - right after I call HR.

The real solution is not having friends so dumb and shallow that they feel the need to share their toilet use with you.

I work with human beings. In fact, now I think about it, I am a human being. So sometimes, our human quirks are going to leak out at work. I have myself IM'd an unflattering comment about a client executive onto a colleague's screen while she was presenting to that client's executive team. I have been called an idiot in an IM by a vendor CEO while his sales exec was presenting to me and my team. Years ago I sent a salacious IM - not pornographic, but definitely grist for a harassment case - to a colleague whose first name is the same as my wife's (yes, we were using a public IM service at that small company for corporate communications, and no, I didn't tell my wife to change her "handle" to something other than her first name). Everyone who works for me knows that as a matter of policy and of fact, what they do on their corporate devices is monitored by software, and may be seen by other employees either accidentally or by design (during a support incident, e.g.). They still put embarrassing and personal stuff on them. They know that the cute-at-home, but oh-so-embarrassing-at-work ringtone that signals a call from their grade schooler will eventually go off in a meeting room full of people discussing $25M contract bids, or deadly serious issues with clinical systems. They still have them. They - we - carry the personal, mildly salacious, and slightly insulting into these situations where they WILL eventually embarrass us anyway. They - we - are human, after alł.

Why not quit all applications except PowerPoint? Nobody even wants to see pop ups of emails you receive while you are doing a presentation. You might interrupt your presentation for some minutes to read an important email or what’s the idea? This is ridiculous unprofessional.

That illustration by Shawn Kuruneru is fantastic.

I thought bathroom talk loses its appeal somewhere between 1st and 3rd grade.

Why would you ever use your work computer or work phone for personal reasons? Lunch break or not. They belong to your employer. And why would you ever post anything anywhere that you don't want to be public? Some professional decorum and self-restraint are in order. Stop living online.

Thank God it was only text. What if the friend had accidentally placed a facetime call instead? Here's another easy rule to observe: never let your hands touch your phone when you're in a bathroom.

I was cracking up out loud as I read this, and enjoyed it so much that I read it three times. Thank you for this great humor! I am eternally paranoid that something will pop up for public view -- we all know it could happen to the best of us. Some of the commenters seem downright ornery and judgey about this. Pooh! Take a breather.

Why would anyone past the age of 5 tell anyone else about bathroom activity?

No. Not. Ever. Never use your work devices for personal stuff, otherwise this or something like it WILL happen to you.

Let's not forget the integrated ad serving enabled by Facebook, in which that order you placed on your home computer for basic lingerie results in semi-naked Victoria's Secrets ads showing up on your work computer, even though you'd used an incognito browser. Even worse, when you surf on behalf of your parents on your home computer, you start to see adds for retirement homes on your work computer, which get spotted by your boss when you're collaborating on a project: "Um, no, not thinking of leaving my job!"

In a variation of this theme, I remember being a graduate student back in the mid 90s. I had arrived early for class and sat in a seat and waited for the professor to arrive. Students filtered in, and as they did, we heard noises coming over the room’s ceiling speakers. We heard voices come and go. We heard shuffling and the occasional sound of paper being moved about. When didn’t think much of it until several minutes later we heard the unmistakeable sound of a loud toilet flush. Our professor had apparently failed to turn off her wireless microphone between classes.

"After the meeting, Ms. Kolokathis learned how to share only one window of her desktop (like a PowerPoint), rather than broadcast her entire screen." Or just don't set up your work computer to get personal notifications. Or...any computer to get text and social media notifications, for that matter. Why is that even a thing? Are people so addicted to their devices and to instant gratification that the four seconds it would normally take to get your phone out is so unbearable that you have to get notifications on your computer as well?

Easy solution: have a separate account on your laptop for giving presentations. This account is stripped down, empty desktop, no email connectivity, no messaging, no Skype. Just your presentation, and maybe a web browser.

My husband and I worked in the same federal agency before retiring in 2016. We never used private email at work because it wasn't appropriate. We also decided not to use office functions to contact each other (are you ready to leave yet?) after I got involved in a training program that made extensive use of screen sharing. While this training was going on in the office, we were also dealing with a couple of trying personal situations that occasionally triggered great frustration. Rarely, rarely would one of us ever go to the other's office. Our solution was to communicate either by phone (sometimes) or by text (more likely.)

A sign of our times: oversharing about dump angst in the public airwaves. No wonder notions of personal privacy are disregarded by the telecom mavens. We've given them license by giving it away.

I was on a team call/screen share once as our director broke the news that there would be no bonus due to short revenue - and just then an outlook email notice dropped down from his email notifying him of the executive bonus approval and payout dates. Very very uncomfortable

I once worked at a place where there was literally an all company email thread about how laptops need breathalyzers before permitting email login. Following was one employee's completely incoherent daily update from China where, yes, clearly the employee was intoxicated. No one got upset about it. There was more than enough email ammunition floating around to roast the operations director to cinders. Enough said. On the other end of the spectrum, I once worked in a public government office. My job seemed fairly innocuous. However, I would receive information requests from reporters anyway. You operated under the base assumption that everything that takes place on your work computer is public information. My solution was to install a puppy version of linux on a personal thumb drive and run that off my work computer using virtual box. I could literally switch computers like you would switch between web browsers. Granted, both computers were technically using the same IP address but I thought I had adequately distinguished the work/personal boundary. If I needed to give a presentation, I simply unplug the personal computer. Cell phones are more annoying. Employers expect you to use a personal cellphone to conduct what is technically professional business. They'll give you a phone if you ask but who wants to carry around two phones? I'm experimenting with voip as a solution but I haven't found a silver bullet yet.

One time I got mad at my employer's constant demands to change my numerous office passwords. In a fit of ire I changed my main password to an obscenity. Shortly after, I was giving a presentation in front of my entire department and the corporate officers. I had linked my desk computer to the presentation computer to project my PowerPoint deck. I did not realize when I entered my password that it was visible to everyone in the audience on three different wall-sized screens! Fortunately my bosses had a sense of humor about it and I wasn't fired. Lesson learned.

Isn't it pretty simple to close out your email or other messaging while presenting? I am tired of millennials who want to say us older folks can't keep up with computers, yet honestly it seems like some of them really don't understand how the internet works, or email. Why would you EVER write about your bathroom habits while at work?

I remember once at a university I worked at an associate dean wrote a very unflattering email about her dean, but instead of sending it to her friend, the email went to a university-wide email list.

I have a standing iPhone message thread with a group of friends who enjoy a weekly mountain bike ride. One week one of our cycling regulars bowed out our Friday morning ride because he'd recently had a plantar wart removed from his foot. I jokingly replied to the thread that his excuse would not be accepted without photographic proof. Two hours later my friend's reply was delivered to my desktop screen--and also to the 80-inch conference room screen 200 miles away where my largest client had a group of five assembled for my screenshare presentation. Needless to say I had a lot of explaining to do about the vile image of my friend's foot... and fortunately the group I was presenting to had a sense of humor... we all had a good laugh. Lesson learned... the hard way!

I am surprised that Jarryd Mandy didn't tell the executive, "Um, no one every needs to know that you have a pantyhose fetish...so long as I get the job." Of course, if Jarryd is like me, I never can think of a snappy comeback until at least 24 hours after it will do me any good. On the other hand, maybe Jarryd ought to call the company and inquire of that executive if he finally got help for his issues. (SMILE)

Here’s an idea to solve the author’s problem: use the “Do not disturb” feature on your Mac. With just a click, you remove any risk (and the need for this article).

Is it so unusual to have a bowel movement during the work day? When you have to go, you have to go. But spare your friends the play-by-play, whether they're making a presentation or not!

In the long run, this is not about privacy, but competence. If employers choose to fire highly competent employees for personal use of business hardware and networks (like what I'm doing right now, though technically it's lunch hour, but on the other hand I'm prolly gonna work through lunch today), then those employers will on average wind up with a less competent and productive workforce, and on average will fall behind the employers who subsequently hire said workers. The cases illustrated could be great opportunities to fire incompetent employees, or learning opportunities for the otherwise competent (don't let it happen twice). But in general, freaking out over the whole subject is a lot like freaking out about bodily functions [yawns].

And people still ask me why I have two mobile phones - one company issued and one personal. Folks are often shocked when I remind them that, according to the terms of our VPN and work related applications, accessing work items from their personal computers means that the company retains the right to check everything on that computer.

So the bathroom status update texts continue? Thank god for technology. We are all so much closer.

This piece is worthy of the NYT? I think not.

cool stories but yeah, a blunderous lack of technological awareness often goes hand in hand with lack of attention to detail. Funny how these kinds of things usually happen to people who aren't very good at their jobs.

Think twice before sharing your browser page at work or using a social media site for demonstration. Thanks to ad retargeting we'll learn as much as other marketers about you. While you may need to view or demonstrate a web site at work, we the audience may find out that; you are shopping for home lighting, are thinking of traveling to Hawaii, need new eyeglasses, are looking for retirement housing for your parents, or who knows what else?

Does anybody else think it's bizarre to text a friend about your bathroom habits? Talk about oversharing!

If you are really worried about this, here is an option that may help IF your company has the IT support for it. It's called Hosted Virtual Desktop or some variation of it. You can install a client (like VM ware Horizon) on a PERSONAL laptop. You access your work environment through the client and it pretty much isolates your personal environment from your work environment. You can also effortlessly switch to your personal environment. This has the additional benefit of avoiding any potential issue with using a company issued laptop for personal business. Of course, if the IT department does a poor job of engineering the virtual environment the performance can be horrible!

Someone needed "support" while using the employee restroom? She claims to be "shy" but then text messages a description of everything she is doing? Something is wrong.

Well written, and really funny. But anyone who puts their screen on a projector needs to know how to turn off notifications! These incidents, while funny, also betray an underlying lack of preparation, technical understanding, and/or boundaries between work and personal time. They can certainly break tension, but they inevitably raise doubts about the "victim" and how they spend the rest of their day.

A friend of mine tells the story of giving a presentation about his charitable organization to a group of potential donors on a cruise ship. For some reason, the computer that was to be used for the presentation was not working, so a computer was borrowed from one of the crew. Unfortunately, what popped up on the screen was one of the crew member's pornographic videos. Needless to say, my friend quickly re-scheduled the presentation for a later time, but first made it very clear to the audience that he was using someone else's computer, not his own.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is using Facebook while on the job. Companies may not block it but that doesn't mean people should do extensive posting while at work. The time at work is supposed to be for work, not Facebook. Even if you schedule time at work to do this it's wrong. Imagine how you'd feel if your supervisor walked in and saw you posting less than complimentary things on Facebook about him/her or anyone else. I have told people who sent me things at work not to. I've told them that if they continue to send me certain things I will make sure to block them at work because work is not the place I want to receive ads, political information, etc. The assumption we all need to make is that everything we do at work is monitored, period. Anyone assuming otherwise deserves to be caught, embarrassed and, if they are violating rules, fired or reprimanded.

Every year I would tell my teachers and classified employees that the Dept. of Ed. owns the information highway and all of their classroom computers and the email software ergo, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. Every year there would be at least one clown who would ignore the warning. "I didn't know that you could watch me when I went to those sites." or "Why can't I use the department email to advertise for my garage sale or political candidate?"

Regarding the first example, what’s the reason for “pooping at work” phobia? We’re all human. Living beings. It has to happen (and must, for our health). Maybe work restrooms nationwide should display a copy of Taro Gomi’s children’s book “Everyone Poops”!

Now THAT'S how you write for a laugh. Well done, Linsay!

Many years ago, had a presentation given to a roomful of ad buyers for a local Cable company. At that time current tech was a Power Mac 660AV - direct video and audio RCA ports built in, easy to connect up to a projector - maybe too easy. Set up the Mac before the presentation and wandered off for coffee. Returned 10 minutes later when the Bloom County screensaver kicked in. Larger than life Bill the Cat, in a Tarzan loincloth, was swinging on a jungle vine back and forth across the screen - hah! Those in the room busted up, and I let it run a few minutes more for funsies. IIRC we sold a lot of spots on that promotion!

My public library has Windows computers available to anyone. One time I connected a USB flash drive to one of the computers, intending to save a file to the drive, but unintentionally opened an image file on the drive instead. The library computers do not have privacy screens, and they are not in carrels, so anyone could see what was on the display. Worse, I don't ordinarily use Windows, so I couldn't immediately figure out how to close the image viewing app. The image was innocuous, but now I am careful to clean up the USB flash drive before using it at the library. BTW, connecting a USB flash drive to a publicly accessible computer is generally a big security risk, but the library uses special software that cleans up when a user logs out.

I laughed so hard i had tears coming out of my eyes. Thanks for this story!