I am the perfect employee for soul sucking American jobs. I tie my self worth to my job, I have an extreme fear of “getting in trouble”, I have zero boundaries, I’m a workaholic, and I think (or I guess thought) it was important to make genuine friendships at work. So the perfect employee in the corporate hellhole of a society we live in. Up to this point, this has worked out as you would expect – I’m taken advantage of and burnt out and my personal life is struggling, but hey, I’m “succeeding” at work under terrible conditions so that means something right?
Well, I’ve been radicalized. Sometime last week I don’t know what happened but my computer got flagged for a harmful file. Our out of office IT quarantined my computer and have been analyzing it while cutting me off from everything for the past 4 work days. I’ve been coming into the office with no ETA to literally do nothing but wait and try to find alternate things to do – like help set up for a party – because, get this, I actually felt guilty I was getting paid when I couldn’t do any work. And I didn’t even have enough boundaries to tell mu boss hey I’m leaving call me when this is resolved. So yesterday (after 3 full work days of doing nothing) I finally ask if I can get like an admin log in and a loaner computer until they can figure whatever it is out they’re doing and at this point in response my boss calls me in and basically tells me that IT said the file only got on my computer if I plugged in something like a bad usb or intentionally put it on my computer. Then asks me point blank if I’m a malicious actor who put a file on my computer to take down their system. Of course, I deny this because what the actual fuck, I did not intentionally put malware on my work computer. My boss is basically like okay…and then we run down anything I’ve ever plugged in which includes my mouse, hdmi and charger. Then my boss says ok well I need to talk to the ceo and I’ll find you later. I’m like so the only way this could’ve happened is from an external source? And boss says “or you did it.”
At this point I’m like in a full panic like how am I actually under suspicion of putting something on my computer like that? A couple hour later boss comes and is like well I talked to CEO and IT and they trust you enough you can have a loaner. And at this point mentions since CEO “vouched” for me, IT now thinks it was accidental download from a bad website. Which I guess was an option all along but not one my boss presented when I was being accused of what is an actual crime in some places. I’ve never been so emotionally detached so quickly from something I cared about so deeply and it is just a lesson that even if you’re the “perfect” employee and follow all the rules, you aren’t safe. Years of unfettered loyalty, passion and dedication mean nothing and when a chance comes along to show you whether your employer has an ounce of trust in you, don’t expect anything. I guess it’s good in a way bc it’s taught me a hard lesson but when ppl here say do not trust your workplace, believe them. And don’t be a clown like me