How To Hang Yourself With a Hobby

Phew!

Well, I'm glad that's over!

To what am I referring? Oh yes, of course, I forgot to include my other reason for withdrawing from "the other place". I had meant to post something about this during the week but had little or no opportunity to get round to it. Some of you that I have talked to directly over the past week will already know a little bit about it.

Last Thursday at work, I had dropped into my lap a rather comprehensive folder relating to my breaching the electronic communication and web browsing, and the Equality and Diversity policies. I had apparently forwarded tasteless material, undertook trivial non-work related exchanges with colleagues and external contacts and was involved with e-mails that contained abusive language or swearing whilst using work related e-mail and Internet systems.

This came as quite a shock, as I'm sure you can understand. As I have a number of former colleagues subscribed to the blog at "the other place" I decided that it was only sensible that I withdraw from that particular space for now, along with a bunch of other reasons I may or may not have already bored you with previously.

So I was notified that I was to attend an investigatory interview. This interview took place earlier today. I have since, spent the past week shitting the proverbial brick as to the possible outcome of this interview.

Having attended and gone through the various points raised, I feel that I have given a fair representation of myself and have, wherever possible given good justification or defence relating to some of the charges that were laid against me.

I had decided within seconds of reading the document that there was no point in denying the charges or even attempting to plead not guilty. After all, the evidence gathered by the IT security team was pretty comprehensive and from my perspective made for some pretty gruesome reading when it was laid out before me in black and white.

In reality the evidence provided was simply a list of items from my work's e-mail In and Out boxes. There were actually only 9 mails contained within my Inbox, none of which I had requested and the majority of which had been forwarded by my (not so) good lady. These were mostly silly jokes or funny picture attachments, most of which get largely ignored by me and ultimately deleted. I had however neglected to delete these mails quickly enough and so they remained there as so much electronical data file carcass for the eager IT Vultures to devour.

There were 11 mails contained within my Outbox. One of these mails contained a PowerPoint presentation spoofed desktop item. This I had forwarded to three colleagues. The other ten? Well, they were all word documents containing blogs in progress. These were the attachments that contained the abusive language and swearing. I should point out that every single one of them were only ever sent to my home e-mail address and not issued to any colleagues or other external contacts. They were for my eyes only.

Thankfully, the majority of these mails were sent during lunch or prior to working hours. I was also able to explain that I had created the documents myself and had never considered that I was violating the IT policy as they were contained attachments issued only to myself.

However, this doesn't detract from the fact that they were dredged up by this investigation and subsequently read by my area manager making the entire experience all the more uncomfortable. All those silly little ramblings, writings, observations and clever little turns of phrase certainly don't seem all that clever when being held under scrutiny in respect of such a matter. The worst example being the blog bollock one, described in the report thus:

Word Document containing a transcript of a weblog written by Mr X (Yup, that's me) which contains:

• inappropriate language
• html links to three external sites
  
• inappropriate photo image of naked male genitalia

...those of you that may know to which this image refers will hopefully realise that this is not actually as bad as it reads. I am however, fully aware of exactly how badly it reads, and know all too well that it may be my ultimate undoing, depending upon the outcome of the decision based upon today's findings. So a truly monumental bollock dropped there then. I still can't believe that I left that particular image pasted onto that word document!

There was also a report into my web usage. At the Top of the Pops was "the other place" with a staggering 40+ hours since the turn of the year. I then made assurances that this time had largely been accumulated at my old office, as I very regularly arrived at work 20-30 minutes before work commenced and I also often used to access the Internet on my lunch hour too. I also know that this can be verified by my supervisors at both offices.

As it transpired, this entire investigation has been triggered by initial concerns that were raised almost upon arrival at my new office. A report had been made by a concerned colleague that I was potentially accessing unsuitable material whilst at work. I knew that this concern was most probably largely in relation to a particular default image. At the time I had apologised for the concern this had caused and immediately removed the offending image and had advised my new manager of this at the time. I had hoped and thought that that was the end of it all.

Not so, it would seem. And my final undoing appears to have been selecting to discuss my hobby as part of a presentation skills course, electing as I did to take along a handout containing blog promotional banners and an assortment of images used throughout my blogs. Although the presentation went well, I was reminded that much of the image content contained within my handout was deeply inappropriate for any future based work presentations and could be regarded as offensive to the eyes of some people. I can recall that exact moment most clearly, for in that moment, my stomach sank to the floor and a sense of foreboding washed over me instantly. Of course, there and then I had apologised profusely to the entire group, stating that it had never been my intention to cause offense and that it was down to a complete lack of forethought on my behalf.

I still to this day do not consider that handout to have contained anything out rightly offensive, but I am now all too aware that views of this nature are entirely subjective and I will never place myself in such a precarious position again.

As I said at the beginning, I feel I have represented myself well and accounted for the charges brought against me and was sure to apologise for making such an investigation necessary. If common sense prevails, hopefully I will receive just a written or even final warning and get to keep this poorly paid job, that whilst being poorly paid, still pays the bills nonetheless.

All I know is, this past week has been personal hell for me, and has had a subtle but quite profound effect upon me and my family, even my daughter appears to have picked up on the tension and has been very much not herself as a result of all this. I hope that whoever felt it was their duty to air their concerns originally did not do this out of malice as frankly, I wouldn't wish this unnecessary anxiety on anyone who didn't truly deserve it.

I will most probably have to wait for up to another week to ten days before I know the ultimate decision and may even yet be subject to a suspension and a further disciplinary hearing. I can only hope it doesn't come down to this.

Although many of the mistakes have undoubtedly been my own doing, much of it is simply down to a series of misunderstandings. I guess, to an extent soured the experience of blogging for me, but I know, once this sorry debacle is all over, I'll dust myself down and get right back on the old blogging mule and ride it into an hilarity fuelled sunset.

Years from now, I'll look back on all this and laugh...