Discovering the company payroll on your work pc

Rabidlamb

Well in my case there's not much discovering required.
Our accounts actually have an unprotected folder called wages on the company server :eek:
There's a load of P35 Micropay files but these can be opened using Wordpad or Notepad.
Makes very interesting reading, I'm happy as I'm on a par with or ahead of some senior colleagues.
Most interesting is how some of my more gifted colleagues seem to make peanuts in comparison to their peers, obviously they're not good in pay review situations.
Anyway, I keep all this knowledge as my little secret & just consult it once a year to keep them honest.

Have you ever stumbled upon this most sacred of company documents & what has been the result ?.

SunnyDub1

isn't this against the law?

antodeco

IT can check who viewed the files aswell!

tony81

Be careful. Network environments often have logs of who is accessing files. Though seeing as your place lacks basic user access controls you probably don't have much to worry about.

Phill Ewinn

stick me on that payroll list OP. split it with you 50/50.

tony81

SunnyDub1 wrote: »

isn't this against the law?

The company is breaking the law by not protecting confidential information.

D1stant

antodeco wrote: »

IT can check who viewed the files aswell!

If they are leaving them in an open folder I wouldn't be too concerned about their ability to track you

In Finland you can find out what your colleagues are on via their revenue dept. Think it costs €2. Cant see that working in Ireland for some reason

Micky Dolenz

Sell the info to the Russians.

CreepingDeath

antodeco wrote: »

IT can check who viewed the files aswell!

The Windows event viewer on that company server will have a log of all users who logged into that machine to access a shared folder.

Your name is already in the logs, if someone were to browse it.

You must burn down the office before the next offline backup.

Grayson

D1stant wrote: »

If they are leaving them in an open folder I wouldn't be too concerned about their ability to track you

i was thinking that too. I'd have no trouble finding who accessed what. But I'm not n00b enough to leave it in an unprotected folder.

Drakares

antodeco wrote: »

IT can check who viewed the files aswell!

If they've left everything open on the Network, it's likely they haven't a clue how to check anything.

When I get paid each month, we actually sign a page with all our salaries on it.. We're all on roughly the same, just a raise each year so it's not really sensitive information. If I worked a regular job, I'd be really pissed off if I knew the company had left the info public. But at the same time, if I found it, I'd look at it.

JoseJones

In my company everyone knows what everyone else is on, it's normal. I haven't really worked anywhere else before so kind of find it strange that in most companies this information is private!

donegal_road

I worked in the IT dept of a company in Dublin back in 2000, I stumbled upon a similar document on a shared drive on someone's pc which contained the names, addresses and credit card numbers of all the customers who had sent their items in to be repaired. I checked and found that all staff in this particular office could access this document if they knew where to look.

Truncheon Rouge

Rabidlamb wrote: »

Our accounts actually have an unprotected folder called wages on the company server :eek:
... I'm happy as I'm on a par with or ahead of some senior colleagues.

No you're not, you're on 8.65 management left an open wages folder for you to find so you wouldn't feel so bad about being a slave.
They're really on at least 20 per hour, including the guy on work experience.
They all get together after work and laugh at you.

"ooooh look at me guys I found the wages folder durr..hahahaha" - (direct quote. work experience guy).
"sure he's thick as two planks but we make use of him" (- your boss)

padd b1975

If asked, you better have a good reason for accessing that information.

Feeling nosy is not a good reason.

Mr Simpson

Rabidlamb wrote: »

Well in my case there's not much discovering required.
Our accounts actually have an unprotected folder called wages on the company server :eek:
There's a load of P35 Micropay files but these can be opened using Wordpad or Notepad.
Makes very interesting reading, I'm happy as I'm on a par with or ahead of some senior colleagues.
Most interesting is how some of my more gifted colleagues seem to make peanuts in comparison to their peers, obviously they're not good in pay review situations.
Anyway, I keep all this knowledge as my little secret & just consult it once a year to keep them honest.

Have you ever stumbled upon this most sacred of company documents & what has been the result ?.

Yeah, you might want to report that to it or management. Its a breach of data protection laws, could land your company in a whole heap of crap

sfwcork

say fook all and smile at the tw@ts that think they own the place but earn less than You

Dont listen to these bunch of grass's that think you should run to teacher because you found anaughty File

Downlinz

antodeco wrote: »

IT can check who viewed the files aswell!

View it once, screenshot it and keep the screenshot you took saved externally while deleting it from your work computer. It cannot log that you took a screenshot or how many times you viewed it, if it logged you viewing the payroll once you can claim it was accidental and you didn't know what you were looking at it which they cannot dispute since their records will show you never viewed it again.

Yes I have seen mine, granted I am in IT so I'm unlikely to rat out myself. :cool:

Lando Griffin

CreepingDeath wrote: »

The Windows event viewer on that company server will have a log of all users who logged into that machine to access a shared folder.

Your name is already in the logs, if someone were to browse it.

You must burn down the office before the next offline backup.

Couldn't you just introduce a devastating virus into the system to wipe everything with the intention of covering your tracks?

pickarooney

It's strange that this kind of thing is considered senstive information when you think about it. Should it not all be public knowledge in the interest of assuring pay equality?

slavetothegrind

ah but some are more equal than others......

besides mushroom treatment is effective for the masses

Crimson King

Is it updated? Like is the list up to date I mean?

If not it might be an older file forgotten about. If it is the current one, very silly of the company to leave a copy accessible to everyone. I would be careful how many times I would view it if I was you and maybe even report it.

MOH

Take a copy of all the files then delete them.

Sit back, grab some popcorn.

JoePie

It's a test. Whoever they catch in the server logs opening the files that shouldn't be gets fired and a slap on the bum.

Gummy Panda

MarkMc wrote: »

Yeah, you might want to report that to it or management. Its a breach of data protection laws, could land your company in a whole heap of crap

yeah if he doesn't tell them and they later find out I'm pretty sure they can use it to justify dismissal under the grounds of gross misconduct

the_syco

View the log files on who else has modified it in the last two years if you can, to ensure none of your colleagues gave themselves a pay-rise...

amacca

Downlinz wrote: »

View it once, screenshot it and keep the screenshot you took saved externally while deleting it from your work computer. It cannot log that you took a screenshot or how many times you viewed it, if it logged you viewing the payroll once you can claim it was accidental and you didn't know what you were looking at it which they cannot dispute since their records will show you never viewed it again.

Yes I have seen mine, granted I am in IT so I'm unlikely to rat out myself. :cool:

Didn't he say he views it or intends to view it every year or something?

Thats an unmistakeable pattern......hard to claim ignorance and shure I only stumbled upon yer honor while looking for that there porn folder everyone was talking about


on a related note years ago I was put doing my departments (private company before I open a can of worms here) accounts in SAP and the amount of internal fraud being committed via cost centres was almost funny

ie: one department put through AA (automobile association) and quite costly golf club memberships through my departments cost centre because not a single person before that had known how to even check........I used to casually leave the information with the offending department head only to see the cost magically disappear within hours

strategy worked so well we had a big surplus near the end of the year which had to be spent.........do you think they gave out some christmas bonuses etc......not likely, thousands spent on a fcukin party no one wanted to go to just so we get the same allocation next year

my first introduction to how the world really works

JonathanAnon

antodeco wrote: »

IT can check who viewed the files aswell!

IT can also monitor what posts you put on the InterWeb about the aforementioned viewed files..

Where To

In one of my first jobs one of the office staff would go round everybody on a Friday and ask them how much were they due.

Those were the days.

JonathanAnon

Where To wrote: »

In one of my first jobs one of the office staff would go round everybody on a Friday and ask them how much were they due.
Those were the days.

How many cups of salt were you on back then?

Where To

JonathanAnon wrote: »

How many cups of salt were you on back then?

This is only fifteen years ago.

amacca

Where To wrote: »

This is only fifteen years ago.

Ah how far we've come in such a short time!

(Now we have many more potential pr1cks and bolloxes than ever before as co-workers)