I broke work’s laptop & Do you have a separate laptop for WFH?

[largeprintagathachristie]

Do you have a separate laptop for working from home? Does your work provide them?

In January my own laptop, pretty old, died so I borrowed a work laptop to cope with the occasional WFH day. Never got around to buying another one just for my own use; I suppose it never felt urgent because I had the work laptop to access the internet during the weekend, etc and the cost of a new one was off putting.

Today this work laptop was knocked off the kitchen table and the gel stuff under the screen is shattered. Laptop is unusable.

I know my work will be ok about the accident and I will be able to ask for a new laptop, as I’m WFH until at least September.

I think they are scrambling around for policies on this stuff. The vast majority of staff are using their own equipment. This may change due to C-19 and increased wfh but we’re definitely not there yet.

What’s the norm? If work provide a laptop do you keep it just for work? Are there policies in place? We use cloud based systems.

I can see it would be “cleaner” to have one laptop that’s bought and set up by work, and is just for work, and one that’s for personal use.

In the meanwhile, I’ve got no laptop to work off on Monday morning, and do feel bad that the accident happened in my own time on a Sunday

[TheBiscuitStrikesBack]

I think you shouldn’t have been using a work laptop for personal things. Most workplaces only allow very minimal personal usage.

[RedCatBlueCat]

DH has a work laptop. When I worked, I also had one from work.
There is no way we would have access to the servers or software we needed if not using a work laptop.
Anything other than minimal personal use would be frowned upon.

So, yes. For us, work and home stuff on different devices.

[YouUnlockedTheGateAnd]

Work laptop for work

My laptop for,home

Never mix the two.

[BestIsWest]

Two work laptops. Never use them outside work hours. Minimal personal use (googling the odd thing) during work hours.

[cazinge]

Agreed, work laptop is for minimal personal use and my boss came to my house to collect it while I'm on mat leave as I'm not expected to work, I don't need it. Same with work phone in terms of personal use (I've sent the odd text to DP when travelling if my personal phone has no signal/ battery) although I have kept my phone while on mat leave but was given strict instructions to keep it switched off &my voicemail advises I'm off until early 2021.

I do have a personal laptop. If buying one, think about what you really need if it is only surfing, some office applications etc you really dont need a high spec and can pick up something decent for £250-300

[BeeyatchPlease]

I have 2 laptops for work, both provided by my company, as is my work mobile.
I don't ever use the laptops or mobile for personal use, I have my own devices for that.

[SauvignonBlanche]

I have a work lap top and personal iPad would rarely access personal stuff on work laptop.

[itbemay1]

I have two. Work lap top and own personal, I never use work lap top for personal use.

[EmpressLangClegSpartacus]

I’ve got a specific work laptop. In the office it plugs into a docking station but for the moment I’m using it to WFH & use my home laptop for all my own stuff.

If I broke it I suspect I’d be in deep shit.

[dramaqueen]

Two laptops here

One provided by work, for work only (occasionally google something like BBC news)
Personal one for everything else

Don’t mix the two. Very unprofessional to use a work laptop for personal tasks. My work would take a dim view of an accident such as yours and do a search to find out what the laptop was being used for at the time of the accident.

[BackforGood]

Work laptop for work, my own for my own personal stuff.

3 really good reasons - 1 is the overwhelming majority of sites are blocked on the work laptop which is damned annoying when I need them for work.

1. it means I am not aware of any work e-mails coming in, or not tempted to "just do X or Y" when sitting, using my laptop at the weekend or on annual leave.
   
2. When IT services need to look on my (work) laptop, they don't have access to my banking, or Mumsnet posts or anything else I might do

[rottiemum88]

Would never dream of using my work laptop for personal use outside of normal work hours. Might have a quick browse of the news on it during my lunch break, but that's it. We have our own laptop and a tablet for home use, as well as our phones. Your employer may well be fine about it, but in their shoes I'd be furious. Laptops are in short supply at the moment due to COVID-19 and our company has struggled to keep up with demand with so many extra people WFH, yours may well be similar

[BikeRunSki]

Work provide me with a laptop and phone. My job is peripatetic, sbdbjnhace been able to work remotely from anywhere for about 15 years. We are not allowed to use the work lap top for personal use, abd many websites -eBay, Facebook, sky news etc are blocked. Equally, we can not access our servers etc on non-work laptops. We can use work phones for personal use if we go through the bill every month, in our own time, and pay for our calls.

I also have my own personal laptop and phone for personal use. I have my own phone so that I can turn my work phone off when I am not at work! (I work for a 24/7 organisation).

[bloodywhitecat]

I have two, my own laptop for personal stuff and one for work stuff. I never use the work laptop for personal stuff.

[LIZS]

Work equipment should be separate to personal. Otherwise there are security and gdpr risks. Did they know how you intended to use it?

[Millie2013]

Yup, work laptop just for work stuff, personal laptop for personal stuff. We’re not allowed to use work one for personal stuff, although no sites are blocked, as far as I know

[EnglishRain]

Completely separate at all times. I'm on mat leave and my work are so disorganised they haven't taken my work one off me yet. It's now gone in the loft!

[WeAllHaveWings]

We have a desktop at home we use for personal stuff. Laptop is never used outside of work hours, minimal personal use during.

Our company policy asks us to include laptop in household insurance for theft/accidents, it didn't cost anything extra to include, and we are forbidden to leave in unattended in our cars.

[FizzyPink]

I have a work laptop which I work off in the office and can take home with me whenever. I don’t think they’d care if we also used it for personal use. We’ve had a couple of people break them during lockdown and they’ve all be couriered a new one the next day.

I don’t have a home one. I can’t really think what I’d use it for other than looking at holidays or the online shopping which I’d do in my lunch break anyway and definitely never in work time 🙄

[Bionical89]

I have a work laptop and work phone. I don't use either for personal use. I don't have a personal laptop. I use my phone and the household iPad. I've not needed a laptop for personal things for years. Everything can be accessed via smart phone or tablet?

[PastMyBestBeforeDate]

Two separate laptops. Work supplied one for work and mine for personal use.
Same for phones.

[Invisimamma]

I only have a work laptop. I had to ask to borrow it from at work at the beginning of lockdown as I didn't have anything to work from home on. Most other staff are working from home on a personal device.

I use it for personal use too, but I don't actually do many personal tasks on a laptop. But as we're 'home schooling' and it's our only device I have been using it to print the dc school work. I don't think work would mind (printer is a personal one).

I don't look at anything inappropriate or have large files saved to the work laptop. I view it the same as if I was using the desktop at work, it's fine to browse amazon, read the news, have a look at Facebook on my lunch hour. As long as its not logged as working time they don't mind run of the mill browsing.

[CorianderLord]

I have an iMac desktop which work provided - we all do as the security needed to access can't be added to personal laptops. DP has a work laptop and additional iMac screen. All provided by work.

Then we both have MacBooks for personal use

[Willowkins]

Work laptop for work use. It would feel like a breach of trust to use it for home stuff. The only thing I did for me was to change the screensaver.

[HandsOffMyRights]

I have a work and personal laptop.
Husband is having to use his personal laptop for work. He works for a massive global company and I'm really shocked that they still haven't offered him one.