The shop in which I work is in a rather "gay friendly" town. Which is fine with me, because I find our gay customers typically have more money to spend, love to download porn which often results in spyware/virus infections for us to clean and they're always very nice and polite.
I'm not gay myself. <seinfield> Not that there's anything wrong with it. </seinfeld>
On multiple occasions we've done data recovery jobs for our customers. Now, we actually go out of our way to NOT look at our customer's data. It's partially respect for their privacy but it's also to avoid any legal entanglements. But, sometimes the way data is displayed (especially when it's set up to display in thumbnail mode) we can't help but see some of the pictures on the computers.
1. Does the cat know this?
Buddy comes in needing data recovered from a crashed drive. During the process we catch sight of *someone* jerking off onto a cat (guy was standing, cat was laying on the floor) that is sleeping.
We never bothered to find out who it was, nor did we inquire if that cat had a problem with it.
2. There be pirates in Vermont!
Buddy comes in needing data recovered after getting a crippling virus. The other technician is working on it and calls me over.
"T?"
"Yes."
"Is this the guy who owns this computer?"
He is pointing to a picture of the computer owner and about five other guys, standing outside, naked, in the snow and swordfighting - aka: having a circle jerk.
"Yes, that's him."
"Oh, okay."
Seems the guy would go to a rather exclusive resort in Vermont to, er, *hang out* with other guys.
3. Ladies, I have good news and bad news...
Buddy and his friend have been coming to us for computer service since the shop opened. Very nice couple of fellows. The one is middle-aged, tattooed and a musician. The other is a dark-skinned Puerto Rican fellow in his late 20's/early 30's. The Puerto Rican guy brings in his laptop with a crippling virus infection. While backing it up, I spot something. The good news, ladies, is that it was ten inches MINIMUM. The bad news is this guy wouldn't change teams if you paid him David Beckham's salary.
4. Do you REALLY want to know what your kid is up to?
This one I still have an internal debate about. I made a judgement call and I may have been right or wrong. I feel I did the right thing.
Guy brings in his kid's computer with various spyware, etc. Kid has been using Limewire to download music and porn, nothing new there. But in backing up his Limewire folder I notice the first couple of movies have titles like "13 year old getting f*cked" and the like. Some distributors of porn will pass off Max Harcore/Evil Angel/etc., videos with that sort of title (using girls who are legal but look underage) so again - this is nothing new. But the preview picture for the movie had a girl that LOOKED 13 in it.
I now have to make a judgement call. Do I alert authorities to bust a 16-year old kid for having a couple of underage porn movies, potentially dooming him to serving time in juvenile hall, or do I tell him father about it?
After conversing with CW's I decide to talk to dad. Dad seemed like a good guy... level-headed, friendly, etc. I told him what junior had done (we had already nuked the entire Limewire folder, to be safe) and fortunately he was very good about it. He was well aware that there had been plenty of this sort of thing going on in the news recently, as we all were. So he went home to talk to junior about it and we finished the job. In a subsequent conversation dad said that he talked to junior about it and was setting him up with a therapist.
That was the first time in my five years here (it happened about a year ago) that I ever had to deal with something like that. I hope it's the only time.
I'm not gay myself. <seinfield> Not that there's anything wrong with it. </seinfeld>
On multiple occasions we've done data recovery jobs for our customers. Now, we actually go out of our way to NOT look at our customer's data. It's partially respect for their privacy but it's also to avoid any legal entanglements. But, sometimes the way data is displayed (especially when it's set up to display in thumbnail mode) we can't help but see some of the pictures on the computers.
1. Does the cat know this?
Buddy comes in needing data recovered from a crashed drive. During the process we catch sight of *someone* jerking off onto a cat (guy was standing, cat was laying on the floor) that is sleeping.
We never bothered to find out who it was, nor did we inquire if that cat had a problem with it.2. There be pirates in Vermont!
Buddy comes in needing data recovered after getting a crippling virus. The other technician is working on it and calls me over.
"T?"
"Yes."
"Is this the guy who owns this computer?"
He is pointing to a picture of the computer owner and about five other guys, standing outside, naked, in the snow and swordfighting - aka: having a circle jerk.

"Yes, that's him."
"Oh, okay."
Seems the guy would go to a rather exclusive resort in Vermont to, er, *hang out* with other guys.
3. Ladies, I have good news and bad news...
Buddy and his friend have been coming to us for computer service since the shop opened. Very nice couple of fellows. The one is middle-aged, tattooed and a musician. The other is a dark-skinned Puerto Rican fellow in his late 20's/early 30's. The Puerto Rican guy brings in his laptop with a crippling virus infection. While backing it up, I spot something. The good news, ladies, is that it was ten inches MINIMUM. The bad news is this guy wouldn't change teams if you paid him David Beckham's salary.

4. Do you REALLY want to know what your kid is up to?
This one I still have an internal debate about. I made a judgement call and I may have been right or wrong. I feel I did the right thing.
Guy brings in his kid's computer with various spyware, etc. Kid has been using Limewire to download music and porn, nothing new there. But in backing up his Limewire folder I notice the first couple of movies have titles like "13 year old getting f*cked" and the like. Some distributors of porn will pass off Max Harcore/Evil Angel/etc., videos with that sort of title (using girls who are legal but look underage) so again - this is nothing new. But the preview picture for the movie had a girl that LOOKED 13 in it.

I now have to make a judgement call. Do I alert authorities to bust a 16-year old kid for having a couple of underage porn movies, potentially dooming him to serving time in juvenile hall, or do I tell him father about it?
After conversing with CW's I decide to talk to dad. Dad seemed like a good guy... level-headed, friendly, etc. I told him what junior had done (we had already nuked the entire Limewire folder, to be safe) and fortunately he was very good about it. He was well aware that there had been plenty of this sort of thing going on in the news recently, as we all were. So he went home to talk to junior about it and we finished the job. In a subsequent conversation dad said that he talked to junior about it and was setting him up with a therapist.
That was the first time in my five years here (it happened about a year ago) that I ever had to deal with something like that. I hope it's the only time.




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