The case of the missing laptop (part 2)

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The next day

Siobhan turns up for work at Focus on the Child looking pale and tired. She needs to prepare for today’s visit from Linda, the Regional Director, who wants to talk to her about next year’s budget.

Siobhan likes and respects Linda but her visits are often stressful. Siobhan feels that Linda grills and challenges her about facts and figures, and she ends up giving confused answers. Budgets and finances aren't her strength.

Siobhan is hugely anxious about the missing laptop. Should she tell Linda as soon as she arrives? Should she have told her last night? A small part of her still hopes that Pete will ring any minute, saying he has found the briefcase and that there was an innocent explanation for its disappearance.

Pete’s worries

Pete also arrives at work exhausted and anxious. He notices that Glenn isn’t in and wonders whether it was Glenn who he heard slamming the office door last night. If it was, did he overhear his conversation with Siobhan? 

Siobhan takes advice

Siobhan rings Jim, a colleague and the Director of Voluntary Action Millcaster.  Jim was a lawyer before moving to the voluntary and community sector and Siobhan knows that he is level-headed and will be able to help. She knows that she can speak to him in confidence, so explains what has happened and that she doesn’t know what to do. She tells Jim about Pete’s accusations and his fears that someone may have overheard their conversation last night.  As she says "If this is true, then rumours about the breach of data security at Focus may already be spreading around the office, or worse still, outside the organisation".

Jim is sympathetic but before he can give her any advice, he is called away to a meeting with his Chair who has arrived unexpectedly.  Jim is a bit in awe of his Chair who is is very demanding and is always turning up without warning.

Jim apologises to Siobhan "I'll think about this and ring you back as soon as I can".

Siobhan sits in her office waiting for Linda to arrive. She can’t concentrate on the day ahead – how is she going to say anything coherent about budgets when all she can think about is the wretched missing laptop? 

Glenn talks

Glenn hasn’t been to work. He’s had a sleepless night and is really angry and upset that he’s seems to be a suspect. He rings a friend and they meet at the Mill Pot café. His friend is sympathetic and reassuring: "Look they’ve got no evidence that you took the laptop so what can they do?"  But Glenn gets more and more angry as he speaks and his voice rises.

At the next table in the café, pretending to read a book, is a journalist from the Millcaster Mercury, the local paper. The journalist goes outside and calls his editor saying, “I’ve got a fantastic story for the front page!”

Siobhan tells the police

Siobhan decides to report the missing laptop to the police. They tell her that several local small businesses have recently been the target of similar opportunistic thefts. Siobhan explains the situation to Linda as soon as she arrives who then informs the senior management and the Chair of Trustees.

Monitoring security

All of the staff at Focus on the Child are told about what's happened. They are given a formal apology plus assurances that all possible measures are being taken to increase data security and prevent the situation happening again. The employees are also advised to look for any unusual activity in their bank accounts, to inform their bank of the theft and if concerned to seek further advice from the government's Identity Theft website. After the initial panic, things slowly go back to normal.

So what happened?

Pete was lucky – the person who stole his briefcase just wanted the laptop and wiped off the contents to avoid it being traceable. As a result the data was 'safe' and didn’t get passed on. Pete didn’t get sacked for gross misconduct as a result of his negligence. He didn't get a formal warning either - he had a blameless record with Focus on the Child and Siobhan felt that he had punished himself enough. However, she warned him that if anything similar occurred in the future, he would certainly face a disciplinary hearing.

Have your say

• Should Pete have been given a formal warning or faced other disciplinary action?
• Were the affected employees treated in a fair and responsible way?
• Have you been in a similar situation? How did you handle it?

Have your say on the Millcaster Tales forum.

Other episodes

Missed part 1? Read it here.

The next Millcaster Tale will be published on 20 April.

Catch up with past episodes.