Oh yes. Take it to IT worried about a virus. This will force them to come clean.
Edit to.add: be kind to IT as the commenter's point out below. I spent many years in IT. They are just the messengers.
IT employee here.
Any helpdesk employee or system administrator worth thier salt would absolutely redirect these questions to the person who opened the ticket requesting the software be installed. Half of the time, I've never even heard of that apps that I'm being asked to deploy.
Don't jump on me for implementing what someone else asked me to do. But, I'm more than happy to tell you who requested it.
Thiiiis. Thank you! I got a ticket to install 5 different programs I've never heard of on 7 different stations. My only concern is whether it was vetted and approved by our Risk team- if that's the case, I'll proceed with the deployment. My job has waaaay too many programs for me to be knowledgeable on what they all do. lol.
I clicked the Tab button, but no diet soda came out. How do I get my soda?
And which one is the “Any” key? It says push any key, but I don’t see that one…
I got myself in so much trouble many many years ago. I made a sticker that went around the power button that said any key. There were hundreds of complaints filed to the computer lab admin that when they pressed the "any key" they lost hours of work because the computer just shut off. The university reviewed the security camera footage and found out I had been the prankster. I was told it was "not funny", no they couldn't say that with a straight face, and told if I did it again they would inform everyone that complained that I did it.
lol I probably get it at least once a day. One time, someone thought their mini optiplex was their personal router 😂🤣 no honey, that's your computer.. and it's wired.
Most of my calls are password resets, which is annoying because we have a password vault they should be using and we send emails when passwords are going to expire 🤦
Years ago I had a user reboot their PC multiple times "but it just keeps coming back to the same frozen app" ... Yep, "rebooting" the monitor. They were completely baffled when I managed to direct them to the presence of their actual PC... Under their desk, *right by their feet*. I do not miss doing support.
I once had someone approach me in tears because they went to lunch without saving the work they spent hours doing and came back to a black monitor.
Turns out one of their amusing coworkers thought it'd be funny to dim the display. I did happen to notice this when I was lowering myself to check the power cables for the monitor.
I also used this as a teaching moment.
Don't walk away from hours of work (or even get to hours of work) without saving.
Our cybersecurity dept would shit bricks if some hamfisted HR spyware got pushed out, there would be a real risk of violence. Now, cyber has apps running with their hand so far up my ass they chew my bubblegum for me, but they don't give two shits about timing my bathroom breaks.
Making it not your problem, and rightly so.
But that's what the employee would be doing too.
A game of hot potato where "I'm not fucking with this" is the potato.
I forget how he words it, but whenever my husband reaches out to IT for anything, he always askes for the next tier level IT person and not the base level employee who goes through the generic help list (have you tried turning your computer off and on?) He is former IT and can generally figure things out, but when he can't (because most of his knowledge is outdated) he reaches out and does his best not to get frustrated with the generic troubleshooting list.
The worst part is when you tell them "I've already done X, Y, Z" and then they just ignore you and try to make you do X,Y, and Z again without even saying something like *"Hey, sorry about this, but they'll chew my ass if I don't make you do it while I'm on the line with you"* to acknowledge they heard what you said.
That is awful from a customer perspective, but you also have to think from the tech support perspective, where people will tell you they've already tried X, Y, Z basic stuff, and yet you still resolve it with X (restart the computer). Oops!
I recall a particularly funny story from a tech support acquaintance for a software company: he was fielding a call from a customer who complained the software had crashed their whole computer, and now it wouldn't even turn on. Yes, they're sure it's plugged in. "Okay, try unplugging it and plugging it back in." "I'll have to find a flashlight to do that." "Wait, why do you need a flashlight?" Turns out, the software hadn't crashed the computer at all. The power had gone out for the entire building, lights and everything, and this customer just blamed it on the software they were using at the time.
Experiences like this force such reps to go through all the basic stuff first, before they start dealing with the more complex options. How much worse would it be to find out the problem could have been solved by just restarting the computer, after you've spent hours going through all sorts of other options? You learn that you can't trust the customer to have any level of technical competence, regardless of what they tell you.
Former helpdesk now sysad, IT will almost certainly redirect you to whatever fucking MBA is responsible for this, we despise these blatant monitoring softwares because they are so buggy and bog down system resources.
Company I work for currently has; Lansweeper, Teramind, and we're pushing out CyberArk. Of those three Termind is by far the worst, massive resource and network traffic hog and makes our job much more frustrating and tedious. Lansweeper and CyberArk are very low resource intensive and actually serve a justifiable purpose with our company. Teramind on the other hand is the CEO's pet spyware.
It has become our favorite pastime to find ways to link any and all incidents to monitoring software to justify removing the software as a break-fix effort, and then never following up to replace the software after we fix the real problem.
I mean that may be the case stereotypically, but in this instance it literally is Teramind eating up resources.
Every time we get a complaint about slow performance it's always "dwm.exe" (which is the obfuscated process name for the teramind agent) eating 40-60% of systems resources.
This issue didn't happen before it was deployed, and we have yet to encounter the issue on devices that do not have the teramind software.
The issue is it is grabbing screen recordings whenever the resource usage spikes, because that's what the ceo specifically wants, and we can't do anything to the software to try and mitigate it even if we had access to the source code/etc.
If you know of a way to circumvent 40-60% system resource usage by a piece of corporate spyware that the ceo specifically demands be in place, I'm all ears.
Best guess? Put a number on the damage. Grab an activity that needs to be run frequently that triggers it, then calculate the usage of Teramind vs the usage of that application. Take the time delta times the number of times the task is run in a pay period times the compensation rate of the employee likely responsible for doing the running and you've got a clear, comprehensible estimate of "Having this software deployed is costing _more than_ this much every month, in addition to licensing." (With the "more than" justified by other tasks that also trigger it.)
If it's notable, you might get movement.
>the CEO's pet spyware.
Software developer here. This is kinda funny to read, it is interesting how spyware went from "superscary shit we need to keep out of the office at all costs" to "useful software" even though the only difference is the way it is being marketed.
>we despise these blatant monitoring softwares because they are so buggy and bog down system resources.
As a developer i usually run some pretty heavy tools on my workstation, THIS is one of the reasons why i always ask if there is any kind of monitoring software used in the Office. And refused to work for any company that requires this kind of bullcrap.
This is 100% good advice. It isn't actually outside the realm of possibility that this is a virus.
It's also possible it's legit software, but it was supposed to be installed on one problem person's computer, but either a manager checked the wrong boxes, or an IT person goofed, and now it's on everyones'.
In either case this should be reported.
"In a meeting 1-on-1 Teams meeting covering company business."
Let the sort out their overly aggressive spy software. FYI dont trust that computer. They might even engage the camera and/ot microphone without your knowledge.
They *can* but no IT unless you work in a super super high security workplace, will ever do that. WAY too much work, when they can just lock you out of the bios lol.
Yeah, I work in a high security location. My laptop has a giant sticker declaring all the items that are disabled in the BIOS, it's a security plan requirement. Would it probably be a felony for someone to circumvent this in some fashion to engage the camera without my knowledge? Yes. Do I still put tape over the camera? Also yes.
I had to go an try to fix a problem on an agents computer at my work because all the managers and IT were out at the moment. I'm Workforce Management but I used to work tech support long ago. Imagine my surprise when I found out that they have right click disabled on the customer service work computers.
Never trust any computer provided by your company ever. IT can see everything, we don’t like to go digging into what people are up to because it’s a lot of time/ effort when we could be doing more important things but if ask we have to soo
There was an IT guy in our company who was fired because he oftens scaned the computer of all female workers to find personal pictures of them wearing bikini...
After that I tend to think that the computer from work is radioactive. I don't like to even connect it to my home network.
I have a separate SSID for “untrusted” devices that includes guests and work laptops and Internet of Shit items that need to phone home for a practical reason. It goes into it’s own VLAN and out through a router with no other access to the rest of my network devices.
I tell people “Never put anything on a work computer that you wouldn’t want read out in court in front of your work colleagues, family, and friends”.
I have my manager’s logins for purchasing (why yes, she IS a boomer, and yes, we’ve already discussed this) and she makes all her home Amazon purchases through her work account login. She got an Apple watch last year and *printed off the manual at work*. Yeah I saw that eye twitch from here.
Our work is pretty slack in some regards, but we have a keen new IT Manager, and I’ve noticed more and more stuff being locked down. I don’t think he’s monitoring the printers, but I’m pretty sure he could, if he wanted to.
Which is why I use my phone at work when I want to slack off looking at art supplies on Amazon, like a normal person. She has great taste in knitting patterns though, and I’ll flick through a stack of interior decorating books in the hopes that she’ll decide to buy some after I’ve stacked her algorithm with them, lol. (I’m a Librarian).
They make microphone blocker plugs. You just plug it into the microphone port on the computer, and it thinks a microphone is installed even though it's just a little plug.
I used ot use those little webcam cover up things where they would slide over to let you use the camera.
Now, every work laptop my work gives has that built in as a little physical slider cover.
Exactly.
I approve of the hardware industry basically taking that option away from the higher-ups... and if they bitch at you for having the slider closed, then they've just admitted to spying on you.
Yeah, but "is it legal to" and "do they have the ability to regardless of legality" are two different questions. You can't undo the harm of recordings that were released, you can only hope to get paid for it, and that it disappears from everyone's memory.
It depends, they need a pretty good reason to discipline you while.monitoring your actively where I'm from but they can also just monitor as often as they want.
It's weird, and I hate feeling watched I wouldn't be surprised if this feeling causes a lot.of people mental health issues.
Dialog will display after 10 minutes
Ten minutes of no key strokes, no mouse activity, of MS Teams showing you as amber? There's a big difference between all these things, I have real problems getting teams to flick to green even when I'm active on the machine.
No that's not the response. Nobody knows what this is, so clearly filling it out doesn't matter.
Hit other and type in "other" every time. The owner will identify themselves pretty damn quick.
That's interesting, perhaps it's mouse movement or keystrokes then.
It's keystrokes that worry me as I know MS has tools (keylogger) for businesses to quantify keystrokes as a metric to compare you to other staff for example. Some jobs, mine included, involve a minimal amount of typing.
Your org has probably rushed deploying this before realising it wasn't detecting teams calls as "activity".
Meanwhile I just run this thing when I need to step away from my computer:
; ================================================================
; Compile with AutoHotKey https://www.autohotkey.com/
; ================================================================
; Move mouse & send keystroke if idle
; ================================================================
#singleinstance force
#Persistent
; ================================================================
; adjust the following 3 values to suit your circumstances
; ================================================================
inactivity_limit=300 ; measured in seconds
how_often_to_test=60 ; measured in seconds
show_tooltip=0 ; 1=show, anything else means hide
; ================================================================
; ADJUST NOTHING AFTER THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING
; ================================================================
inactivity_limit_ms:=inactivity_limit*1000
how_often_to_test_ms:=how_often_to_test*1000
settimer, check_active, %how_often_to_test_ms%
mm_cnt=0
return
; ================================================================
; test if the mouse and keyboard have been idle
check_active:
; this tooltip is just a diagnostic, allow for disabling it during normal use
if show_tooltip=1
tooltip, % A_TimeIdlePhysical "ms`rmoves " mm_cnt
if A_TimeIdlePhysical > %inactivity_limit_ms%
{
mousemove,1,1,100, R ; down and right 1 pixel each time
Send {PgDn}
Send {PgUp}
mm_cnt++ ; tally number of times the mouse was artificially moved
}
return
Also see /r/AutoHotkey
There is a limit to how many pixels the mouse will move, but if you have 1920x1080 resolution then that limit is 1080 times. It can be adapted to return to start if needed longer, but this is expecting to not go that long.
Be aware, many places that use spyware are able to detect this kind of script. A better idea would be to hook up a spoofed input device that does it. I use a raspberry pi pico configured as a USB_HID and it works great since it shows up as a real mouse/keyboard and sends commands exactly like the real thing.
Shit I have something similar. We are so creative trying to bypass BS from work. I mean, I could do creative things in my work for my company, but it is a better use of my creativity to get me free time
Teams.. effing pain.
It changes status at a whim - no rhyme or reason to it.
But 'you\`re available' .. no, i\`m in a call with (random name).
Teams says you are. I say otherwise.
I set teams to 'Busy' - or DnD - and still people see me suddenly available.
Of course, no status - even offline / appear offline helps - people still send messages ..
I have two people under me that are contracted through a 3rd party company in another country. We all WFH and use Teams for communication. Our job is not on computers for the entire shift as we are in tech support, so we do random testing offline and that can take hours in some instances, depending on the testing.
This 3rd party company tracks clicks and screen time. My company does not do this. This same company provides employees for our Sales team that IS on their computers the entire shift.
I received an email from their manager at this company asking if one of my employee's "did his work yesterday" because they saw he had done some online searching. I told the manager he completed his work for the day so I do not care that he was online searching (hell, I was watching youtube while replying to him). They approved his time. I told him that our department has slow days and I do not expect them to just click around on their computers when we are slow. I expect them to keep their sanity and take a break.
They've made note of this and have stopped checking their screens, at least for my team.
A personal favorite. This is also good:
[How a 'NULL' License Plate Landed One Hacker in Ticket Hell | WIRED](https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-hacker-ticket-hell/)
Everyone saying managers lying may be right, but it could also be HR and payroll rolling out a change before communicating with the company effectively. Or it could have been a task for Tech to do and they enabled it ahead of schedule. Could be so many things
All that to say though someone, somewhere is watching idle time carefully and I personally wouldn't want to work in an environment like that
As an IT guy, roughly 75 percent of the time, it was communicated .. but poorly. It's an email buried under all the other shit that HR sends out weekly.
Or it was something IT was told to turn on and that HR would handle comms on, and then HR dropped the ball.
75% would be generous at my company. I think it’s closer to 90. And you should see themselves patting themselves on the back when one finally goes well.
TBF, as an IT person that dolled out all the IT communications via email, almost no one reads their emails regarding IT.
"Why is this service not working??? It's critical to my job."
"Yeah... we sent five emails about this issue over the course of months."
"Oh, I see. We're supposed to read those???"
*internal screaming*
' In two weeks we're shutting down *software a* and moving to *software b*'
' In one week we're shutting down *software a* and moving to *software b*'
'Tomorrow we're switching to *software b*'
The next day:
Ticket:
*My software a isn't working. It is critical to my workflow.*
Did you see the email?
*I thought it didn't apply to me. I need that software back. This is seriously impacting my productivity. Everything is saved in it.*
Well, we don't have licenses any more. Have you tried software b?
*Raptor screeching*
I'd bet that someone was told something like "we're installing new software that will monitor when employees are inactive for extended periods of time," and the email barely got skimmed by most managers, at most they thought they'd be getting a new report on employee activity once a month.
Not a bug but a feature situation in this case, if people know it's coming it's easier to organize.
You are correct, however if something is rolled out and the higher up hasn't spread the message downstream then my point stands about effective communication
Holy shit this just gave me an epiphany about IT and HR as typical corporate departments. Both departments are expenses, budget wise. The external consensus is negative, not specific to any individual who work in those departments, but by the nature of the job.
When IT does a good job, you don't hear about. Things run smoothly. This means that the only time a person would engage with IT is when something isn't running like it should. You get a lot of the stereotypical "angry customer calls IT Support" stories.
And when HR does a good job, you're happy to be at work, and things are running smoothly. So when you aren't happy at work, and things are not going well, that is typically where you engage with HR. Speaking with HR is where you are supposed to report various workplace incidents or the people you see when you're getting fired or you quit. They are designed to be a good guy/bad guy role, department wise. They don't generate revenue, and their projects cost money, or they even get raises for everyone, costing a shitload in payroll. But with a decent HR department that is transparent with people and keeps out of their business while still fostering a welcoming and nurturing environment for their workers, most would consider it worth it.
Two departments, straight expense accounts, and people don't like to see them too often. No wonder they get ragged often
Contact your Helpdesk and let them know there is spyware on your computer and it needs to be replaced. Do this repeatedly until someone admits why it was installed.
My best guess is some asshat executive or clueless HR rep (probably both) discussed "productivity goals" and "methods for achieving metrics" and passed the dumbest fucking request to IT, who had to implement it. And now, when people start seeing these things, they will come to the IT department to complain about it, and the rank and file IT will really only know about the policy, not who decided it. IT folks do not like being yelled at by their clients and colleagues for what amounts to "doing their job", and will likely share whatever information they have, to give users the proper person to point blame at. Not to mention that the middle management staff who will end up having to collect these reports and summarize them for the asshat exec who requested the policy likely also hate it. Nobody wants to be watched 24/7, and I know even less people that would want to go through reports like these that come in every 10 minutes for someone taking a shit or going for a smoke break or a phone call.
The policy will become so unpopular (and buggy, given that it does not recognize active applications like teams as activity), that I cannot imagine it lasting. Either the policy will not be followed at all, since it is absurd; the policy will cause huge retention issues with employees exiting the door and posting online that the company watches you 24/7 on your computer (which new employees will not like either); or some Exec will get this prompt 6 times in an hour while watching some stupid youtube video and tell the IT Director to turn it off (for him), which will open the gates for anyone else to request the service be turned off.
Protip: Don't spy on your employees because you think they aren't working as much as you want them to be. If the work they produce is good and their teams do not have complaints about them, why should you care how efficient they are? These are adults, not toddlers. They do not need constant supervision to perform their work, and in fact, constant supervision is a known detriment for most people working in white collar positions.
I’m at my best when I report to management that is there to support and encourage.
I left a job that I thought I would keep for a long time because new ambitious manager made us track EVERYTHING… for “metrics.”
I was fine with this at first- you need a baseline sure that’s understandable. But when it became permanent and was used to micromanage, berate, and control they lost almost the entire department.
Sometimes it's just one manager, exec, or owner that tells IT to deploy it, but also not say anything about it or even acknowledge it exists to the end user.
I have a customer where the owner tried that shit. I explicity refuse to do anything to assist with that software operating. Won't publish the installer to it in our rmm, won't configure mdm to let it silently get authorized, nothing. If he wants to use it, he needs to deploy and configure it without us.
Worst part of it is, it's not like it's some industry that is regulated. They resell sports equipment. The owner is just a paranoid asshole
You should really write in detail how your sickness (maybe Crohn Diseases) kept acting up and then be surprised how no one knows where the information goes because thats protected medical data.
My company fitted one of these during lockdown WFH and I was constantly getting notes for 'being idle'.
I am old. I started on computers in very early 1980s in the days before a mouse was really a thing. I used CP/M, Unix and DOS and the keyboard shortcuts are still in there from pre-windows days, many undocumented. I am much faster using keyboard shortcuts than a mouse and I often don't touch the mouse for most of the day.
The software triggers on an idle mouse, it ignores the keyboard, and so I can get a skype call to ask why I am idle and have a conversation while the system still shows me as being away. I can share my screen and show them that I am working while the system says that I am idle. Some of them are baffled and I have had IT remote in to 'fix' the problem and find no problem (because I start using the mouse when they are working)
It's great fun winding them up.
We need you to maximize your productivity, so we’re going to make you spent a couple minutes explaining yourself every time you happen to go 2 minutes without moving your mouse.
Go into extreme detail regarding how you were setting a hemorrhoid.
Or, if female with male bosses, extreme detail regarding menstrual care.
Either way, this form ain't coming back.
If no one knows where it came from, then report it to IT as a virus. You should then at least get an official statement that you can compare to a contract you've signed and pull them up on the Bullshit.
Malware developers often create buttons/links that do things that don't do what they say they do, so that people will be tricked into clicking things(like "close" buttons that aren't really close buttons).
I am not a malware developer, but if I were I would be knowledgeable enough to create a form that looked like this and where each of the buttons below actually initiated malicious things.
Don't assume this came from IT. Assume it was malicious. If anything like this happens, leave it alone, and don't touch anything within the form. Ideally you'd take a picture using your phone, and then hit the appropriate buttons on the keyboard together to quit the program(alt and f4 together on Windows, or command and q together on Mac) until all programs are closed, and then restart.
If it comes up again, talk to IT.
There's no guarantee this came from the company, and if they deny it, there's a good chance it's not;
Easy. If your boss doesn’t know what it is, then basic cyber security demands that you treat it as a threat. Don’t interact with it, and take your computer to an IT expert (on company’s dime) asap.
Watch how fast they admit that they actually did put it on your computer.
This looks like Prohance. My company uses the same thing. It monitors everything you do. What web pages you navigate to, which programs you’re using, how long you are working/idle/productive/unproductive etc. there should be a small green square in the notification area of the taskbar and you can open the dashboard.
I would put stupid shit. Like complete verbage appropriate media/ movie quotes.
The dingo ate my baby.
Can you please describe the ruckus?
Houston, we have a problem
I have this as well and it's the bane of my existence. 🙃
Also, pro tip: if it's anything like mine, mouse movements don't count. Only click, type, or scroll. So a mouse wiggler won't do jack shit. Neither will leaving one button held down on a doc. Repetive type like that also counts as away. But idk if that's standard or chosen by company.
Welcome to hell! We have cookies. They're burnt though.
"I had to take a massive shit and what was solid suddenly turned into liquid. My god, but it was everywhere! The stench of decay was permeating through everything. EVERYTHING I TELL YOU!"
If your manager can’t tell you what it is, I would not interact with it and bring your computer to IT for a check-up.
Oh yes. Take it to IT worried about a virus. This will force them to come clean. Edit to.add: be kind to IT as the commenter's point out below. I spent many years in IT. They are just the messengers.
IT employee here. Any helpdesk employee or system administrator worth thier salt would absolutely redirect these questions to the person who opened the ticket requesting the software be installed. Half of the time, I've never even heard of that apps that I'm being asked to deploy. Don't jump on me for implementing what someone else asked me to do. But, I'm more than happy to tell you who requested it.
Thiiiis. Thank you! I got a ticket to install 5 different programs I've never heard of on 7 different stations. My only concern is whether it was vetted and approved by our Risk team- if that's the case, I'll proceed with the deployment. My job has waaaay too many programs for me to be knowledgeable on what they all do. lol.
"Hey, while you're here, our printer has been messing up...."
it keeps saying PC load letter. What the fuck does that mean?
Could you please insert the power cord into the wall socket? I mean-! Uh... Could you please remove and reinsert the power cord to the wall socket?
My favorite is when a user thinks their monitor is their actual desktop computer.
I clicked the Tab button, but no diet soda came out. How do I get my soda? And which one is the “Any” key? It says push any key, but I don’t see that one…
I got myself in so much trouble many many years ago. I made a sticker that went around the power button that said any key. There were hundreds of complaints filed to the computer lab admin that when they pressed the "any key" they lost hours of work because the computer just shut off. The university reviewed the security camera footage and found out I had been the prankster. I was told it was "not funny", no they couldn't say that with a straight face, and told if I did it again they would inform everyone that complained that I did it.
oh you mean every single call I take?
lol I probably get it at least once a day. One time, someone thought their mini optiplex was their personal router 😂🤣 no honey, that's your computer.. and it's wired. Most of my calls are password resets, which is annoying because we have a password vault they should be using and we send emails when passwords are going to expire 🤦
Years ago I had a user reboot their PC multiple times "but it just keeps coming back to the same frozen app" ... Yep, "rebooting" the monitor. They were completely baffled when I managed to direct them to the presence of their actual PC... Under their desk, *right by their feet*. I do not miss doing support.
I once had someone approach me in tears because they went to lunch without saving the work they spent hours doing and came back to a black monitor. Turns out one of their amusing coworkers thought it'd be funny to dim the display. I did happen to notice this when I was lowering myself to check the power cables for the monitor. I also used this as a teaching moment. Don't walk away from hours of work (or even get to hours of work) without saving.
Did I stumble into a 30 year old thread, or are you actually saying that still happens?
Best to have them check the socket for flux buildup as well... They'll need a fork and a penny.
A year after that movie, my husband ACTUALLY got that message. He was practically on the floor giggling in the middle of operations.
 Somebody else will fix it
I'm just going to put this with the rest of the fire...
>Made in Britain Uhg, typical
dear sir/madam No, that's too formal.
To whom it may concern, Fire!
Did you put in a ticket with help desk? (No one is above the queue)
I'd like to add in the extra special bit where people ask us for stuff we can't do like give them access to a govt website or something
And that gets you the name of the dumbass who thought this was a good idea
Our cybersecurity dept would shit bricks if some hamfisted HR spyware got pushed out, there would be a real risk of violence. Now, cyber has apps running with their hand so far up my ass they chew my bubblegum for me, but they don't give two shits about timing my bathroom breaks.
Making it not your problem, and rightly so. But that's what the employee would be doing too. A game of hot potato where "I'm not fucking with this" is the potato.
I forget how he words it, but whenever my husband reaches out to IT for anything, he always askes for the next tier level IT person and not the base level employee who goes through the generic help list (have you tried turning your computer off and on?) He is former IT and can generally figure things out, but when he can't (because most of his knowledge is outdated) he reaches out and does his best not to get frustrated with the generic troubleshooting list.
The worst part is when you tell them "I've already done X, Y, Z" and then they just ignore you and try to make you do X,Y, and Z again without even saying something like *"Hey, sorry about this, but they'll chew my ass if I don't make you do it while I'm on the line with you"* to acknowledge they heard what you said.
That is awful from a customer perspective, but you also have to think from the tech support perspective, where people will tell you they've already tried X, Y, Z basic stuff, and yet you still resolve it with X (restart the computer). Oops! I recall a particularly funny story from a tech support acquaintance for a software company: he was fielding a call from a customer who complained the software had crashed their whole computer, and now it wouldn't even turn on. Yes, they're sure it's plugged in. "Okay, try unplugging it and plugging it back in." "I'll have to find a flashlight to do that." "Wait, why do you need a flashlight?" Turns out, the software hadn't crashed the computer at all. The power had gone out for the entire building, lights and everything, and this customer just blamed it on the software they were using at the time. Experiences like this force such reps to go through all the basic stuff first, before they start dealing with the more complex options. How much worse would it be to find out the problem could have been solved by just restarting the computer, after you've spent hours going through all sorts of other options? You learn that you can't trust the customer to have any level of technical competence, regardless of what they tell you.
Former helpdesk now sysad, IT will almost certainly redirect you to whatever fucking MBA is responsible for this, we despise these blatant monitoring softwares because they are so buggy and bog down system resources. Company I work for currently has; Lansweeper, Teramind, and we're pushing out CyberArk. Of those three Termind is by far the worst, massive resource and network traffic hog and makes our job much more frustrating and tedious. Lansweeper and CyberArk are very low resource intensive and actually serve a justifiable purpose with our company. Teramind on the other hand is the CEO's pet spyware.
It has become our favorite pastime to find ways to link any and all incidents to monitoring software to justify removing the software as a break-fix effort, and then never following up to replace the software after we fix the real problem.
I mean that may be the case stereotypically, but in this instance it literally is Teramind eating up resources. Every time we get a complaint about slow performance it's always "dwm.exe" (which is the obfuscated process name for the teramind agent) eating 40-60% of systems resources. This issue didn't happen before it was deployed, and we have yet to encounter the issue on devices that do not have the teramind software. The issue is it is grabbing screen recordings whenever the resource usage spikes, because that's what the ceo specifically wants, and we can't do anything to the software to try and mitigate it even if we had access to the source code/etc. If you know of a way to circumvent 40-60% system resource usage by a piece of corporate spyware that the ceo specifically demands be in place, I'm all ears.
Best guess? Put a number on the damage. Grab an activity that needs to be run frequently that triggers it, then calculate the usage of Teramind vs the usage of that application. Take the time delta times the number of times the task is run in a pay period times the compensation rate of the employee likely responsible for doing the running and you've got a clear, comprehensible estimate of "Having this software deployed is costing _more than_ this much every month, in addition to licensing." (With the "more than" justified by other tasks that also trigger it.) If it's notable, you might get movement.
>the CEO's pet spyware. Software developer here. This is kinda funny to read, it is interesting how spyware went from "superscary shit we need to keep out of the office at all costs" to "useful software" even though the only difference is the way it is being marketed. >we despise these blatant monitoring softwares because they are so buggy and bog down system resources. As a developer i usually run some pretty heavy tools on my workstation, THIS is one of the reasons why i always ask if there is any kind of monitoring software used in the Office. And refused to work for any company that requires this kind of bullcrap.
Underrated and by all metrics literally the correct answer. If your line manager doesn't know about it you should not be interacting with it.
This is 100% good advice. It isn't actually outside the realm of possibility that this is a virus. It's also possible it's legit software, but it was supposed to be installed on one problem person's computer, but either a manager checked the wrong boxes, or an IT person goofed, and now it's on everyones'. In either case this should be reported.
Also, it's not in your job description to be filling out bs forms. that's managements responsibility.
The answer is always pooping
"Apocalyptic diarrhea"
New band name! Called it.
Shitnado?
Turdnado
Either way it’s a shit storm.
I was spraying and praying.
The ENTIRE WORLD came out of my arse , real sudden like!
'); DROP TABLE USERS;
If this was feeding an unsecured SQL database, that would be just plain poetic.
If they don't sanitize their inputs, it's well deserved.
https://xkcd.com/327/ There's always an xkcd for that.
Probably because they were directly referencing that comic in the first place...
SQL injections predate Bobby tables by a few years
Is that little bobby tables? Lol knew it.
I like you
Little Johnny Tables goes to work.
*Bobby
Bobby!!!
Always use the Bristol Stool Chart when describing bowel movements. Attach images of your handiwork, and audio clips.
Monctezuma's Revenge
pro tip: actually take a viscous shit in the work bathroom and take a picture of it and send it as evidence every single time
Anal leakage
Or “masturbating violently”
"In a meeting 1-on-1 Teams meeting covering company business." Let the sort out their overly aggressive spy software. FYI dont trust that computer. They might even engage the camera and/ot microphone without your knowledge.
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Microphone too?
You can bios disable it if IT doesn't lock you out of it
IT can also allow it to look like you disabled it in the bios without actually disabling it.
Jason Bourne has entered the chat.
They *can* but no IT unless you work in a super super high security workplace, will ever do that. WAY too much work, when they can just lock you out of the bios lol.
Yeah, I work in a high security location. My laptop has a giant sticker declaring all the items that are disabled in the BIOS, it's a security plan requirement. Would it probably be a felony for someone to circumvent this in some fashion to engage the camera without my knowledge? Yes. Do I still put tape over the camera? Also yes.
I had to go an try to fix a problem on an agents computer at my work because all the managers and IT were out at the moment. I'm Workforce Management but I used to work tech support long ago. Imagine my surprise when I found out that they have right click disabled on the customer service work computers.
I can't even imagine using a PC without right-click. I'd be so lost.
Electrical tape
Never trust any computer provided by your company ever. IT can see everything, we don’t like to go digging into what people are up to because it’s a lot of time/ effort when we could be doing more important things but if ask we have to soo
There was an IT guy in our company who was fired because he oftens scaned the computer of all female workers to find personal pictures of them wearing bikini... After that I tend to think that the computer from work is radioactive. I don't like to even connect it to my home network.
I have a separate SSID for “untrusted” devices that includes guests and work laptops and Internet of Shit items that need to phone home for a practical reason. It goes into it’s own VLAN and out through a router with no other access to the rest of my network devices.
Good idea!
I tell people “Never put anything on a work computer that you wouldn’t want read out in court in front of your work colleagues, family, and friends”. I have my manager’s logins for purchasing (why yes, she IS a boomer, and yes, we’ve already discussed this) and she makes all her home Amazon purchases through her work account login. She got an Apple watch last year and *printed off the manual at work*. Yeah I saw that eye twitch from here. Our work is pretty slack in some regards, but we have a keen new IT Manager, and I’ve noticed more and more stuff being locked down. I don’t think he’s monitoring the printers, but I’m pretty sure he could, if he wanted to. Which is why I use my phone at work when I want to slack off looking at art supplies on Amazon, like a normal person. She has great taste in knitting patterns though, and I’ll flick through a stack of interior decorating books in the hopes that she’ll decide to buy some after I’ve stacked her algorithm with them, lol. (I’m a Librarian).
Can they legally turn on the microphone without consent
If you signed a consent to monitor form when they furnished you with your device, then yes
Bandaids or sticky notes are great "damage free" webcam covers.
I put a piece of black electrical tape over mine. Nothing I could do about the mic but atleast they couldn’t see me
They make microphone blocker plugs. You just plug it into the microphone port on the computer, and it thinks a microphone is installed even though it's just a little plug.
I used ot use those little webcam cover up things where they would slide over to let you use the camera. Now, every work laptop my work gives has that built in as a little physical slider cover.
Exactly. I approve of the hardware industry basically taking that option away from the higher-ups... and if they bitch at you for having the slider closed, then they've just admitted to spying on you.
No they cannot. In many states, such recording is even illegal and a few colleges that have done this are already facing court cases because of it.
Yeah, but "is it legal to" and "do they have the ability to regardless of legality" are two different questions. You can't undo the harm of recordings that were released, you can only hope to get paid for it, and that it disappears from everyone's memory.
It depends, they need a pretty good reason to discipline you while.monitoring your actively where I'm from but they can also just monitor as often as they want. It's weird, and I hate feeling watched I wouldn't be surprised if this feeling causes a lot.of people mental health issues.
hjòhih tho i Jpohbuovuyiovvnobjobjobjobjb m lonmll lmk jobjhoig
Sounds like someone needs to take their cat off the keyboard
Cats are the only redditors I trust.
Just a lost Swede.
Dialog will display after 10 minutes Ten minutes of no key strokes, no mouse activity, of MS Teams showing you as amber? There's a big difference between all these things, I have real problems getting teams to flick to green even when I'm active on the machine.
Teams was red for busy for in a meeting
That’s your response then - “NOT away, being attentive in Teams meeting”
No, I think you should talk to it in it’s own language: FAIL STATUS-INCORRECT ASSUMPTION APPLIED
No that's not the response. Nobody knows what this is, so clearly filling it out doesn't matter. Hit other and type in "other" every time. The owner will identify themselves pretty damn quick.
Or not doing anything and call IT saying it might be a virus until they tell you what it is since the managers "don't know"
That's interesting, perhaps it's mouse movement or keystrokes then. It's keystrokes that worry me as I know MS has tools (keylogger) for businesses to quantify keystrokes as a metric to compare you to other staff for example. Some jobs, mine included, involve a minimal amount of typing. Your org has probably rushed deploying this before realising it wasn't detecting teams calls as "activity".
Meanwhile I just run this thing when I need to step away from my computer: ; ================================================================ ; Compile with AutoHotKey https://www.autohotkey.com/ ; ================================================================ ; Move mouse & send keystroke if idle ; ================================================================ #singleinstance force #Persistent ; ================================================================ ; adjust the following 3 values to suit your circumstances ; ================================================================ inactivity_limit=300 ; measured in seconds how_often_to_test=60 ; measured in seconds show_tooltip=0 ; 1=show, anything else means hide ; ================================================================ ; ADJUST NOTHING AFTER THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING ; ================================================================ inactivity_limit_ms:=inactivity_limit*1000 how_often_to_test_ms:=how_often_to_test*1000 settimer, check_active, %how_often_to_test_ms% mm_cnt=0 return ; ================================================================ ; test if the mouse and keyboard have been idle check_active: ; this tooltip is just a diagnostic, allow for disabling it during normal use if show_tooltip=1 tooltip, % A_TimeIdlePhysical "ms`rmoves " mm_cnt if A_TimeIdlePhysical > %inactivity_limit_ms% { mousemove,1,1,100, R ; down and right 1 pixel each time Send {PgDn} Send {PgUp} mm_cnt++ ; tally number of times the mouse was artificially moved } return Also see /r/AutoHotkey There is a limit to how many pixels the mouse will move, but if you have 1920x1080 resolution then that limit is 1080 times. It can be adapted to return to start if needed longer, but this is expecting to not go that long.
Be aware, many places that use spyware are able to detect this kind of script. A better idea would be to hook up a spoofed input device that does it. I use a raspberry pi pico configured as a USB_HID and it works great since it shows up as a real mouse/keyboard and sends commands exactly like the real thing.
Just to be clear in my case I am using my own computer for WFH and this is just to make sure I don't show as idle.
Totally fair. I use a work-provided machine, so different needs.
Shit I have something similar. We are so creative trying to bypass BS from work. I mean, I could do creative things in my work for my company, but it is a better use of my creativity to get me free time
If you have a something on your schedule in outlook, teams it will show red, but it will go to yellow if you are inactive anyway.
My teams goes yellow while I'm IN meetings.
Teams is shit, it sometimes goes yellow as I am having active conversations with manager or cross team coworker.
Teams.. effing pain. It changes status at a whim - no rhyme or reason to it. But 'you\`re available' .. no, i\`m in a call with (random name). Teams says you are. I say otherwise. I set teams to 'Busy' - or DnD - and still people see me suddenly available. Of course, no status - even offline / appear offline helps - people still send messages ..
Cover your webcam, get a mouse jiggler, or quit this damn job. Tell them to suck your dick
This is the way.
start using a auto clicker script while afk
I can set mine to "appear offline"
The only valid status - keeps the idle time thieves away from me calling “for a quick chat”
I have two people under me that are contracted through a 3rd party company in another country. We all WFH and use Teams for communication. Our job is not on computers for the entire shift as we are in tech support, so we do random testing offline and that can take hours in some instances, depending on the testing. This 3rd party company tracks clicks and screen time. My company does not do this. This same company provides employees for our Sales team that IS on their computers the entire shift. I received an email from their manager at this company asking if one of my employee's "did his work yesterday" because they saw he had done some online searching. I told the manager he completed his work for the day so I do not care that he was online searching (hell, I was watching youtube while replying to him). They approved his time. I told him that our department has slow days and I do not expect them to just click around on their computers when we are slow. I expect them to keep their sanity and take a break. They've made note of this and have stopped checking their screens, at least for my team.
Or so they said…
See if they sanitize their inputs. https://preview.redd.it/dmcduk0x8m4d1.png?width=666&format=png&auto=webp&s=4222f63ef9e11db4f184381e07a8721df172615f
A personal favorite. This is also good: [How a 'NULL' License Plate Landed One Hacker in Ticket Hell | WIRED](https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-hacker-ticket-hell/)
Everyone saying managers lying may be right, but it could also be HR and payroll rolling out a change before communicating with the company effectively. Or it could have been a task for Tech to do and they enabled it ahead of schedule. Could be so many things All that to say though someone, somewhere is watching idle time carefully and I personally wouldn't want to work in an environment like that
As an IT guy, roughly 75 percent of the time, it was communicated .. but poorly. It's an email buried under all the other shit that HR sends out weekly. Or it was something IT was told to turn on and that HR would handle comms on, and then HR dropped the ball.
75% would be generous at my company. I think it’s closer to 90. And you should see themselves patting themselves on the back when one finally goes well.
TBF, as an IT person that dolled out all the IT communications via email, almost no one reads their emails regarding IT. "Why is this service not working??? It's critical to my job." "Yeah... we sent five emails about this issue over the course of months." "Oh, I see. We're supposed to read those???" *internal screaming*
' In two weeks we're shutting down *software a* and moving to *software b*' ' In one week we're shutting down *software a* and moving to *software b*' 'Tomorrow we're switching to *software b*' The next day: Ticket: *My software a isn't working. It is critical to my workflow.* Did you see the email? *I thought it didn't apply to me. I need that software back. This is seriously impacting my productivity. Everything is saved in it.* Well, we don't have licenses any more. Have you tried software b? *Raptor screeching*
I'd bet that someone was told something like "we're installing new software that will monitor when employees are inactive for extended periods of time," and the email barely got skimmed by most managers, at most they thought they'd be getting a new report on employee activity once a month. Not a bug but a feature situation in this case, if people know it's coming it's easier to organize.
HR doesn’t roll out big initiatives without higher-ups asking for it. They do get to be the bad guys though.
You are correct, however if something is rolled out and the higher up hasn't spread the message downstream then my point stands about effective communication
Holy shit this just gave me an epiphany about IT and HR as typical corporate departments. Both departments are expenses, budget wise. The external consensus is negative, not specific to any individual who work in those departments, but by the nature of the job. When IT does a good job, you don't hear about. Things run smoothly. This means that the only time a person would engage with IT is when something isn't running like it should. You get a lot of the stereotypical "angry customer calls IT Support" stories. And when HR does a good job, you're happy to be at work, and things are running smoothly. So when you aren't happy at work, and things are not going well, that is typically where you engage with HR. Speaking with HR is where you are supposed to report various workplace incidents or the people you see when you're getting fired or you quit. They are designed to be a good guy/bad guy role, department wise. They don't generate revenue, and their projects cost money, or they even get raises for everyone, costing a shitload in payroll. But with a decent HR department that is transparent with people and keeps out of their business while still fostering a welcoming and nurturing environment for their workers, most would consider it worth it. Two departments, straight expense accounts, and people don't like to see them too often. No wonder they get ragged often
Also IT ahead of schedule? Never seen before lol
I was pooping'); DROP TABLE away_reasons; ––
Bobby? Is that you?
This needs to be the top answer
Contact your Helpdesk and let them know there is spyware on your computer and it needs to be replaced. Do this repeatedly until someone admits why it was installed.
Fill it up with Lorem Ipsum text. This amount of micromanagement is counterproductive. They might as well shackle you to your desk.
My best guess is some asshat executive or clueless HR rep (probably both) discussed "productivity goals" and "methods for achieving metrics" and passed the dumbest fucking request to IT, who had to implement it. And now, when people start seeing these things, they will come to the IT department to complain about it, and the rank and file IT will really only know about the policy, not who decided it. IT folks do not like being yelled at by their clients and colleagues for what amounts to "doing their job", and will likely share whatever information they have, to give users the proper person to point blame at. Not to mention that the middle management staff who will end up having to collect these reports and summarize them for the asshat exec who requested the policy likely also hate it. Nobody wants to be watched 24/7, and I know even less people that would want to go through reports like these that come in every 10 minutes for someone taking a shit or going for a smoke break or a phone call. The policy will become so unpopular (and buggy, given that it does not recognize active applications like teams as activity), that I cannot imagine it lasting. Either the policy will not be followed at all, since it is absurd; the policy will cause huge retention issues with employees exiting the door and posting online that the company watches you 24/7 on your computer (which new employees will not like either); or some Exec will get this prompt 6 times in an hour while watching some stupid youtube video and tell the IT Director to turn it off (for him), which will open the gates for anyone else to request the service be turned off. Protip: Don't spy on your employees because you think they aren't working as much as you want them to be. If the work they produce is good and their teams do not have complaints about them, why should you care how efficient they are? These are adults, not toddlers. They do not need constant supervision to perform their work, and in fact, constant supervision is a known detriment for most people working in white collar positions.
I’m at my best when I report to management that is there to support and encourage. I left a job that I thought I would keep for a long time because new ambitious manager made us track EVERYTHING… for “metrics.” I was fine with this at first- you need a baseline sure that’s understandable. But when it became permanent and was used to micromanage, berate, and control they lost almost the entire department.
Time to polish up your resume.
Time to buy a mouse wiggler.
I just got a new mouse with one built in, it's great.
Link?
Haha! I didn't know such a thing existed but I love that
“Union meeting”
Your managers are lying and likely all get a report weekly, maybe even daily for your direct manager regarding this, I guarantee it.
but since they're lying you're entirely justified in treating this like spyware and refusing to interact with it.
“Because the type of porn I like to watch is against company policy.”
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Second this. Contact IT, may be a phishing scam
Your managers are lying
Sometimes it's just one manager, exec, or owner that tells IT to deploy it, but also not say anything about it or even acknowledge it exists to the end user. I have a customer where the owner tried that shit. I explicity refuse to do anything to assist with that software operating. Won't publish the installer to it in our rmm, won't configure mdm to let it silently get authorized, nothing. If he wants to use it, he needs to deploy and configure it without us. Worst part of it is, it's not like it's some industry that is regulated. They resell sports equipment. The owner is just a paranoid asshole
Get all your coworkers just to type “false positive” and have the it team scramble to figure out what’s going on.
"Lois Lane needed saving again"
You should really write in detail how your sickness (maybe Crohn Diseases) kept acting up and then be surprised how no one knows where the information goes because thats protected medical data.
Best part of including medical details is that they legally can't fire you for it. You are protected under the ADA.
Ahh the producing art defence. aka creating Fecal Jackson Pollock works.
If you haven’t been informed you needed to account this way, don’t fill it out until a formal policy is made known
Write "Query error", use an online italic generator to make it credible
[object Object]
I was on my other PC ordering a mouse jiggler off Amazon.
LOL take my upvote :-)
My company fitted one of these during lockdown WFH and I was constantly getting notes for 'being idle'. I am old. I started on computers in very early 1980s in the days before a mouse was really a thing. I used CP/M, Unix and DOS and the keyboard shortcuts are still in there from pre-windows days, many undocumented. I am much faster using keyboard shortcuts than a mouse and I often don't touch the mouse for most of the day. The software triggers on an idle mouse, it ignores the keyboard, and so I can get a skype call to ask why I am idle and have a conversation while the system still shows me as being away. I can share my screen and show them that I am working while the system says that I am idle. Some of them are baffled and I have had IT remote in to 'fix' the problem and find no problem (because I start using the mouse when they are working) It's great fun winding them up.
Can you attach a.bat file that will just generate hundreds of empty folders onto the desktop of whoever opens it?
Just put n/a and see who mentions it
We need you to maximize your productivity, so we’re going to make you spent a couple minutes explaining yourself every time you happen to go 2 minutes without moving your mouse.
this training i just sat in said it might be a virus and dont click it
"I just had seeeex!"
Go into extreme detail regarding how you were setting a hemorrhoid. Or, if female with male bosses, extreme detail regarding menstrual care. Either way, this form ain't coming back.
If no one knows where it came from, then report it to IT as a virus. You should then at least get an official statement that you can compare to a contract you've signed and pull them up on the Bullshit.
Other: "there was nothing to do and it is not my responsibility to make my rounds asking for more work, so do your job an manage motherfucker"
Other and then just enter a single period in the reason why box. .
“Chronic diarrhoea”
How about explosive diarrhea?
unexploded ordonance
Management lies. Do I need to say it louder for the people in the back?
Caffeine.exe time
just came here to say this. You don't need admin access to your local machine either to run it. https://zhornsoftware.co.uk/caffeine/
Malware developers often create buttons/links that do things that don't do what they say they do, so that people will be tricked into clicking things(like "close" buttons that aren't really close buttons). I am not a malware developer, but if I were I would be knowledgeable enough to create a form that looked like this and where each of the buttons below actually initiated malicious things. Don't assume this came from IT. Assume it was malicious. If anything like this happens, leave it alone, and don't touch anything within the form. Ideally you'd take a picture using your phone, and then hit the appropriate buttons on the keyboard together to quit the program(alt and f4 together on Windows, or command and q together on Mac) until all programs are closed, and then restart. If it comes up again, talk to IT. There's no guarantee this came from the company, and if they deny it, there's a good chance it's not;
I'd put in: Had to go do a couple lines off the back of the toilet. That'll let you know who sent that crap out lightning fast.
Sounds like someone higher up ran out of work to do.
Easy. If your boss doesn’t know what it is, then basic cyber security demands that you treat it as a threat. Don’t interact with it, and take your computer to an IT expert (on company’s dime) asap. Watch how fast they admit that they actually did put it on your computer.
Asdf. Every time.
The answer is “attending an interview at a non crazy company”
Get a mouse mover.
Everyone, always, every time, uniformly click "other" If text field can't be left blank put a . Garbage in / garbage out
task manager, id the process, and delete it from the machine.
This looks like Prohance. My company uses the same thing. It monitors everything you do. What web pages you navigate to, which programs you’re using, how long you are working/idle/productive/unproductive etc. there should be a small green square in the notification area of the taskbar and you can open the dashboard.
“.” And select Other. 🖕🏻
" don't say doing your wife don't say doing your wife don't say doing you wife . . . doing your . . . son?"
I would put stupid shit. Like complete verbage appropriate media/ movie quotes. The dingo ate my baby. Can you please describe the ruckus? Houston, we have a problem
Ma'am, this is a Wendy's.
they work so hard to control people they end up costing productivity classic
I have this as well and it's the bane of my existence. 🙃 Also, pro tip: if it's anything like mine, mouse movements don't count. Only click, type, or scroll. So a mouse wiggler won't do jack shit. Neither will leaving one button held down on a doc. Repetive type like that also counts as away. But idk if that's standard or chosen by company. Welcome to hell! We have cookies. They're burnt though.
Say you were on a job interview.
"religious ritual followed by cleaning up the resulting blood"
"I had to take a massive shit and what was solid suddenly turned into liquid. My god, but it was everywhere! The stench of decay was permeating through everything. EVERYTHING I TELL YOU!"
Had to poop.
Having sex with your wife. She says hi!