I was having a look through some old photos and came across something that made me laugh. But first some background.

My previous job (the one before my current one) was the first place I’d ever worked that had an internet restriction policy in place. Since I’d been used to working in small companies with professional (and that doesn’t just mean “dresses smartly”, that means does their job very well), highly motivated, intelligent people who wouldn’t waste their day surfing the net and could be trusted to not need supervision – so there was no need to restrict them from any sites. I guess the culture at my previous company was different as all sorts of people worked there of varying levels of trustworthiness but it meant that we were all tarred by the same brush. This is a particular pet peeve of mine but I’ll save that for another day…

Anyway, one time I went to a perfectly legitimate site that just happened to be on their exclusion list and was presented with a web page telling me I’d breached the internet usage policy and to STOP! what I was doing. I’m fairly sure I rolled my eyes in disgust, but then decided to spice up the denial page somewhat and came up with the following:

As is almost always the case with my self-portait photography I ended up with something completely different to my intention. I wanted to portray a disapproving look with a stern expression but instead managed to create a camp picture of me looking like I’m about to start dancing! Tsk.

To make matters worse I failed to get the company to replace the boring corporate page with this one – for shame. However if you’re in control of a draconian internet policy at your company that you disapprove of then feel free to use the graphic above royalty free by means of a silent protest. Or better still, make your own so that long after you’re sacked your likeness will live on whenever someone tries to browse to a porn site (until they work out how to change it)!