Question from Kerry: My company has about 30 employees working together in one large open room.
We each have mini-offices set up in separate cubicles.
Although there’s very little privacy on our floor I have a corner cubicle that gives me a lot more privacy than my coworkers.
I’m pretty fast at my work so I always get done a couple of hours before everyone else.
That means I have a couple of hours to kill every day so I recently started watching YouTube videos to pass the time.
My question is will the people I work with on my floor be able to tell when I’m watching videos since we’re all connected to the same network?
Our company has a strict policy against watching videos or using social media while on the clock and I’d probably get fired if anyone found out.
If anyone finds out I’m sure they’ll report me, but it’s so dang boring when there’s nothing to do!
Rick’s answer: Kerry, the short answer to your question is no.
The coworkers in the other cubicles won’t be able to tell you’re watching a video unless they happen to hear the audio or walk by and see the video playing on your screen.
However, your company’s IT personnel will almost certainly find out because they probably keep a fairly close eye on their network traffic to see where it originates from.
Most any company that has a strict policy against those types of activities will have methods in place for catching those who break them.
My suggestion is to stop watching YouTube videos immediately and hope your company’s IT personnel haven’t been paying all that much attention since you started watching them.
Please don’t take this advice as criticism because I don’t mean it that way. I’m just trying to help you protect your job.
Of course depending on your priorities, you might well decide to chance it and keep on watching the videos, and that’s certainly your call to make.
Just be aware that if you do it’s quite possible that you’ll eventually end up losing your job.
I hope this helps, Kerry. All the best, and good luck!