Putting that kind of stuff on your work laptop is just unthinkably weird to me. Why would anyone do that?
Sure, if you flat-out ask someone if they'd be comfortable posting their bank statements on Facebook, they'd say no, of course not. But even if people know that their employer can snoop on the contents of their work laptop (I imagine some people don't realize), it's a hypothetical threat. And often people have some sort of implicit trust in their employer, anyway, for some strange reason.
In my experience, most people put personal things on their work laptop, and don't think twice about it. Unfortunately you're actually the "weird" one, even though I totally agree with you.
Because of convenience. It is an easy mistake to make. If you have to print something like a rent agreement, do you use your office printer or go through the hassle of sending it to FedEx to print? Also, when you have home office setups configured for your work, it can be a pain to switch everything to your personal laptop, if you even have one.
One of these times was during a layoff that I was a part of.
(But also, people are lazy, and personal stuff ends up on work machines.)
I try to avoid it as much as possible, but its unavoidable in at least some cases. I am not going to take a day off of work just because I have to call about a billing issue and need to login to my account to give the details to a service representative.
I guess my experience must not match others', fair enough.
At least you can admit it. Things I've needed a printer for in recent months, off the top of my head:
- Filing a reimbursement claim for going to an out-of-network healthcare provider.
- Filing a reimbursement claim for contact lenses.
- Filing legal paperwork with the county clerk.
- Getting a certified death certificate.
- Change of address without paying a fee.
- Letter to the local postmaster.
- Paperwork for claiming an inheritance through a probate court.
- Printing a shipping label.
- Filing a zoning application.
- Life insurance forms.
The more you adult, the more you discover that you still need paper.
It would be ideal to have two computers, but I don’t feel like committing to such an expense (it would have to be about equally powerful) in this economy and all that.
Unless they want to fire you and then they still could remove those 3 months and give you some money instead. It would be stupid of them to give me a free salary for 3 months: either they fire me properly, or they give me a computer.
Would in any case be kind of obvious that the employee thad violated the company policy when their desktop doesn’t look like the Mac or Windows one.
You never know when that bank statement, or rent agreement or whatever will suddenly become inaccessible.
Edit: I know we're not supposed to mix personal data with work. But who hasn't downloaded some docs because you need them filled or printed or something.