Maybe She Thought The “DK” Was Short For A Certain… Asset…

As a design engineer in charge of systems engineering and applicable international standards for implantable radio transceivers, I obviously needed access to various standards and websites — which also gave details of meetings I needed to attend all over Europe.

All went well for several months. Then, a new woman in charge of IT took over, and the next thing I knew, I was being hauled up in front of IT and Human Resources, accused of accessing pornographic sites on a company computer on company time!

At that time, the European Conference of Posts and Telecommunications (CEPT) had a European Radiocommunications Office in Copenhagen, known as the “ERO”. Their website, “ero dot dk”, was obviously one I went to regularly, as I was a member of two of their radio committees.

The “new broom” at IT was well aware that a lot of porn sites were “ero dot [country identifier], so she put two and two together and came up with an answer in the hundreds! Fortunately, suspecting what it was all about, I stated that, in accordance with company policy, I would be accompanied at the meeting by my manager.

The new IT boss started off.

IT Boss: “You have been looking at pornographic sites on company time on a company computer.”

I replied, allowing them to dig deeper:

Me: “What porn site and on what address?”

IT Boss: “‘Ero dot dk’.”

Me: “Access to that site is necessary to enable me to do my work. Have you looked at the site?”

IT Boss: “No, it’s not necessary. All sites starting with ‘ero’ are porn.”

Me: “That is a downright lie. ‘Ero dot dk’ certainly isn’t.”

My manager cut in then and asked very mildly:

Manager: “Perhaps you could point out where ‘ero dot dk’ has pornographic material on it?”

I stirred the pot here a bit and commented:

Me: “I suppose you believe that discussions on acceptable limits for receiver intermodulation and transmitter unwanted emissions involve pornography?”

At this point, it became obvious to the Human Resources person that maybe there was something wrong here… and having looked at the website, even the IT woman decided they had it wrong.

So, just to rub it in, my boss sent a memo to HR — copied to the HR manager and his manager — requesting a charge code for the time wasted in attending the meeting. I don’t think he ever got a reply!