Double-Busted

[Kathi Lake]

Well, I may be out to a few more people at work.

While browsing this site (Yes. I know. At work. Dumb) a few guys came into my office to get a couple of questions answered. This is pretty normal. My son was hanging out with me at work one day and said, "Geez! Your office is like Grand Central Station!" What can I say? It's either my sparkling personality or I have the answers to people's questions (most likely the latter).

Normally when this happens I either hide my browser window or do a command-key sequence to slip another window on top of it. This time, I must not have. I didn't notice anything odd - I had an electrical engineer sitting on my desk in front of my monitor and a mechanical engineer nearby. They got their answers and left. A technical writer soon came in asking questions about an upcoming hardware project. We chatted for awhile and I happened to turn to my monitor. What did I see? My pretty face smiling at me from the screen (I had just responded to a post). I quickly covered it with another window and our chat continued.

He was playing with my iPad, and I didn't give it a second thought - that is, until he said, "Oops" and looked at me quizzically. I raised my eyebrows and he turned the iPad towards me. Wanna guess what was on the screen? The front page of deal old Crossdressers.com! Yikes!

I cocked my head quizzically and said, "Hmm." I didn't say anything, and he went to a new page to show me the new pictures on his Flickr album. Nothing further was said. We crossed paths 3-4 times more that day, either in my office or in is cubicle. It didn't seem weird, but we'll see.

Life is funny, isn't it?

:)

Kathi

[VeronicaMoonlit]

While browsing this site (Yes. I know. At work. Dumb)

You're a nerd! You of all people should know how risky that is...even the methods that I know that can be used to bypass monitoring might not work if there's hardware monitoring installed.


We chatted for awhile and I happened to turn to my monitor. What did I see? My pretty face smiling at me from the screen (I had just responded to a post). I quickly covered it with another window and our chat continued.

He was playing with my iPad, and I didn't give it a second thought - that is, until he said, "Oops" and looked at me quizzically. I raised my eyebrows and he turned the iPad towards me. Wanna guess what was on the screen? The front page of deal old Crossdressers.com! Yikes!

Yikes! Though it might be even worse if he found your Kathi pictures on it.

No browsing the site at work! Unless, of course, you reboot your PC with a Live Linux distro and then use X11 Forwarding over SSH to your Linux box at home. That'll stop any software monitoring they have installed on windows and any monitoring at the network end, though they can still tell you're SSH'd to an outside address.

Course, it won't stop a hardware keylogger, and any sysadmin worth his neckbeard and suspenders will have disabled CD/DVD/USB booting.

Veronica Rogers

[Sherry-Stephanie]

YOur pretty well out when your out and about...and I know work is a whole different issue, but you seem to be able to handle it pretty good and you and I know that people don't seem to bothered by it as much as we (as well as others who CD) have perceived it would be beforewe go out to people...example is if we go for a makeover...we tend to perceive all kinds of embarressment before we do, it only to find it it was a non-event...oh there may be whispers, and some looks but I know your really cool with your dressing from previosu posts and threads so you'll do OK with this new "revelation"...LOL

[Kayla Shadows]

O.O

Oops..Well,he didnt freak out which is a good thing I guess.We try to be careful but things happen...Like today at work when I was showing a guy whos also a childhood friend my new camera..Why does he have a funny look?..Oh..My nails are long and shiny...Well,he thought I was strange before anyway.Didnt stop him from talking to me though

[Kaz]

Kathi,

You are so "out and about" and a kind of role model for many of us...

I think this is your next phase of out?

Yeah I know we all make mistakes, but.... some mistakes we make are for a reason?

Love all your postings... I wish! So are you in the next stage? rhetorical... no need for a direct answer!

Kaz xx

[Christina2008]

Hold on, you have an iPad?, cool!

I have a friend who, like me, is very computer literate and one night he was at my house and asked me to check a web site to show me something. I typed in www. and in Internet Explorer it auto-completed with www.crossdressers.com in the address bar.

Nothing was or has been said but I do wonder, was I caught? He must have seen it but maybe he didn't realise what it was. Maybe a website selling CROSSbow hunting dress/clothing?
If I hear anything remotely that relates to Crossdressing my ears prick up, but I do wonder if others aren't in tune so much as us and that they simply don't pick up on these things.

[TxKimberly]

. . . Life is funny, isn't it?. . .

Well that's ONE way to look at it.

[linnea]

Life is funny--sort of. Well, once the ice is broken, it is hard to re-freeze; once the bell is rung, it can't be unrung.
I've had a few of those mistake--not in my office--but with mail sent to my fem address and name ("Oh, who is that? It must be someone who used to live at this address. Mmmm?")
Your situation is a reminder to me to be extra cautious at work.

[t-girlxsophie]

Its Good that you were Cool,calm and collected about the whole Situation,A less Confidant Person could have handled it all wrong.

[Nicole Erin]

This wasn't like at your Army job was it?

Girl you really do need to be more careful with these things, I mean if it was in your army office, It can't lead to much good.

I don't know how the army is these days, I got out in 96 (general discharge) and was not CD'ing at the time.
I remember there were a few of us frequenting a gay club and a few of the NCO's knew about it but didn't say a whole lot, mostly a mild joke here and there.

Yeah I would not risk anything, I am thinking you are almost eligible to retire from the Army?

[Jodi]

Kathy, When I saw the title of your post--"Double Busted", I expected a post about a girl with two pair of breasts:heehee:.

Jodi

[Angiemead12]

They monitor all websites we log in at the office so no browsing there! I do browse via iPhone alot over the cell network though.

[Kathi Lake]

Well that's ONE way to look at it.Kim, for an eternal optimist like me, it's the only way to look at it! :)


This wasn't like at your Army job was it?Nope. I was only Active for 4 1/2 years. The last 25 have been in the Reserves. Translation: They don't own me anymore, they just rent me for the weekend.


Kathy, When I saw the title of your post--"Double Busted", I expected a post about a girl with two pair of breasts:heehee:.Ha!! I totally didn't think of that. Wow, I need to get my mind back in the gutter more. :)

Kathi

[ErikaLadyoftheDesert]

Kathy: In your avatar you look amazingly hot and confident, roll with this, be you and embrace your originality. Yesterday I was at a conference with about 75 of my peers, I was wearing my very feminine earrings and still had a bit of mascare on, although I was dressed in drab, I was softing it up as much as possible, of course I was wearing panties also. :) I wish I was bold enough to walk into my place of work totally as Erika, it is a dream. Someday. :daydreaming:

[eluuzion]

You already have a "mom" and it appears you have plenty of "drill sergeants" around, so giving you "advice" is the last thing you need, lol.

You are obviously an astute and skilled person that has a solid background in the perils of computer data sharing. It suggests to me that you have some conscious or unconscious agenda of slowing revealing yourself by gradually leaving more and more doors "open" that you know should be locked to protect your privacy.

Sounds like you are sliding into the space you really want to occupy, with little baby steps. Good luck, it is a forest full of mine fields at the place we work. But hey, what's new. Many times, the best you can expect, is to make em' stab you in the front instead of the back, right? lol

Good Luck

HaveFun/BeHappy:love:

[Paula W]

Geez, what a misleading title, I came in expecting.... well nevermind :o


Getting too complacent is the easiest way to get busted but hey, nothing bad has happened and hopefully nothing bad will so look on the bright side, you are that much closer to being able to dress at work lol.

[Stormgirl]

Sorry to hijack your thread Kathi but how do you like your iPad? I can PM if you want.

Anyways, you are brave for posting on this site at work. That is something I could not do, at least not yet, I'm still working on the coming out part. I'm sure your co-workers have seen stuff like that before and really don't think much about it.

[Persephone]

Oh Kathi . . .

Wasn't it just last week or so when I started a thread (http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130707) in which I asked, "Does your femme self come up with sneaky little ways to toss 'him' out? Perhaps by showing up at inconvenient times? Or maybe by engaging in feminine mannerisms when 'he's' trying to be 'all guy?'" and someone with a name a lot like yours replied, "I don't think I really have a male or a female side. I just have me. She integrates with me and I integrate with her. There is no he. There is no she. There is no we. There is only me."?

Ummm, and just a little bit before that I remember starting another thread (http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130382) in which I asked, "Have you ever noticed that being a crossdresser can sometimes make for some strange days?"

And once again there was a woman with a name a lot like yours who responded with some very powerful advice, "That's kind of where I was going. People know. I guarantee it. It's not just the acrylics. It's not just the long hair. It's not the clothes and the body that is obviously feminine (unless they make guys 4-inch wedges - which would be very cool). What it is is the reason why you are accepted wherever you go, however you present yourself. You accept yourself. Barbara, you are one of the most gender-fluid people I know. You seem to have the ability to "shape shift" as you call it by adding or removing articles of clothing/makeup in order to fit into a category that you have created. I will step outside the boundaries of what I usually do and give advice. All I have to ask is this; are those boundaries totally necessary?"

And she continued, "As I said, the people around you - the people you know in various 'spheres' - already know Barbara, just as much as they know your male persona."

Well, I have to tell you, Kathi, your advice to me made me stronger. I'm still not out to the whole world, and I have no plans to completely change that, but I took your advice to heart and acted on it, going places and doing things I hadn't done before, and it was wonderful!

I'm still leading my vida loca lifestyle, but your advice has made a difference in how I feel about me.

You see where this is going, don'tcha girl?

Hugs,
Persephone.

(P.S. - In all fairness, I am retired, and while your skill, talent, problem solving ability, and "can do" attitude obviously make you invaluable to your employer, they are always aware of your representation of the company in front of its clients).

[SherriePall]

Kathi -- This is a situation where you are going to have to roll with the punches and just wait it out to see what happens next.

[Sally24]

It happens! If you get comfortable with it and aren't in full hiding mode, you get sloppy. I've lately been shopping at work, usually on my lunch break. Friday, one of the supervisors was strolling thru with another tech. He went to ask me a question and then noticed I was eating lunch. He said "Oh don't bother him, he's eating lunch......and shopping for dresses!" I'd been looking at Cache' and had a page full of dresses up on my laptop. Oh well....:battingeyelashes:

[Christina Horton]

You're a nerd! You of all people should know how risky that is...even the methods that I know that can be used to bypass monitoring might not work if there's hardware monitoring installed.



Yikes! Though it might be even worse if he found your Kathi pictures on it.

No browsing the site at work! Unless, of course, you reboot your PC with a Live Linux distro and then use X11 Forwarding over SSH to your Linux box at home. That'll stop any software monitoring they have installed on windows and any monitoring at the network end, though they can still tell you're SSH'd to an outside address.

Course, it won't stop a hardware keylogger, and any sysadmin worth his neckbeard and suspenders will have disabled CD/DVD/USB booting.

Veronica Rogers

All I understood was Nerd.......



From your title I said Oh....its a short one like really short, then I said to myself naaa can't be it's a Kathi Lake post. Well my first impression was right on the money. Not sure why I knew it was but it was not the normal title you would use I guess. Weird EH. Liked the story by the way. I think your so well like there that if you came to work fully dressed up that they would all be fine with it. And I think they would all not be shocked , one or tow but I think from reading your stories that they know or suspect something by now. Good luck and have fun.

[Samantha_Smile]

In fairness Kathi, browsing anything CD related in Grand Central is a little bit silly isn't it? :D

[PretzelGirl]

Well Kathi, what I am thinking is that you have been posting about inserting more of Kathi into your regular life (make-up, etc). So how much of this are you doing at work? If it was a stealth amount to where your were thinking that it would go unnoticed, I would think that it, combined with seeing the site, would make even a dense person perk up.

It seems that you are somewhat comfortable (or maybe better worded, not concerned) with coming out to some people at work as I think back to the admin threads. So is coming out a little more what you want? Is it not what you want, so this is a little disconcerting? Or is it, Que Sera Sera and life is good?

And just to be sure, you don't have some special pink iPad, do you? :heehee:

I wish for it all to go the way you want it to be! :hugs:

[AKAMichelle]

He was playing with my iPad, and I didn't give it a second thought - that is, until he said, "Oops" and looked at me quizzically. I raised my eyebrows and he turned the iPad towards me. Wanna guess what was on the screen? The front page of deal old Crossdressers.com! Yikes!


Who is the HE? I can only assume that it is a co-worker. If that is the case, then yes you are busted.

[Chickhe]

Most people don't seem to add two and two. And in a professional work environment people generally will not hassle you, except maybe a small joke... If the tech writer says anything, just say...hey you were the one surfing there, not me... and the other two guys probably didn't recognize your image. The only concern I ahve with work is the logs they keep and some do-gooder might report your web surfing as inappropriate or something.

[Kathi Lake]

Sorry to hijack your thread Kathi but how do you like your iPad? I can PM if you want.No worries, Stormy! The iPad pretty much rocks! It is more versatile than you's imagine. I use it for e-mail (both corporate and home), video, showing off pictures (of my vacation - not Kathi. Well, OK, Kathi too :)), music, surfing the web (as was obvious by the guy who saw this site on it) and more. Heck, I did sound for a wedding a few weeks ago. I used the iPad to separate all of the music into various playlists - pre-ceremony, special music, closing, etc. Like I said, it rocks!


Oh Kathi . . .

You see where this is going, don'tcha girl?Yes. I know. I just didn't know, you know? :)

I'm not trying to come out at work, to the best of my (admittedly minuscule) knowledge. Am I Kathi at work? Hard to say. Do I hang around the girls at work more than the guys? Heck yeah! They smell better! Also, they talk about things that we all want to talk about. I don't care about golf. I couldn't care less about the Boston Marathon or how the lunchtime Ultimate game is going to be. I want to talk about kids and relationships and clothes and "real" stuff. So, am I out? If by I, we mean Kathi, than I don't think so. If we mean "me" as the whole package, yeah, I'm sure they see that.


(P.S. - In all fairness, I am retired, and while your skill, talent, problem solving ability, and "can do" attitude obviously make you invaluable to your employer, they are always aware of your representation of the company in front of its clients).When I started here, there were about 5,000 people working here. I have managed to ride that down to approximately 120 - gathering responsibilities, other people's jobs and respect along the way. I'm not indispensable, but I am needed. I was on vacation a few weeks ago, and they needed something done. They asked me to document how I normally did it. Three single-spaced pages later, I had a document called "How to do XXX in 47 easy steps." So I have managed to make myself needed and wanted here, which will help however this plays out.


It suggests to me that you have some conscious or unconscious agenda of slowing revealing yourself by gradually leaving more and more doors "open" that you know should be locked to protect your privacy.Unlike Christina, I understood perfectly Veronica's instructions. The reasons why I couldn't do that would involve even more techno-mumbo-jumbo. Suffice to say that the company is pretty darn well locked down. Luckily, CD.com is a wonderful site that the admins try to keep as a place where stuff like that just doesn't pop up. That's one reason why my company hasn't flagged this site down as "unsavory."


Sounds like you are sliding into the space you really want to occupy, with little baby steps.Sigh. Possibly? I dunno. Time will tell. What space would I like to occupy? One where what I wore would not affect people's opinions of me in the slightest. Oh, and I want a pony, too! :)


So is coming out a little more what you want? Is it not what you want, so this is a little disconcerting? Or is it, Que Sera Sera and life is good?Sue, I would love to come out - but not at the expense of others' respect for me. Would this destroy that respect? For some, yes. That is why I am normally pretty careful. As for the que sera sera aspect, well, you know me. I'm just that kinda gal!

:)

Kathi

[MsJanessa]

I have a well paying job in a government office and have an iron clad rule against any kind of personal browsing the net at work for Trans sites etc.--My thought is to keep my personal life separate from my professional one--besides which I'm way too busy at the office to surf the net---there was a recent scandal at the Securities and Exchange Commission here in DC when some high level employees, GS-13, 14, and 15 were busted for surfing porn websites, some more than 8 hours a day--and, although this site certainly isn't pornography (far from it) it is personal, at least to me. Although the federal government has anti discrimination policies against discrimination based on gender identification, I don't need the kind of hassle that would involve, so I leave it out of the office. Just my two cents worth--if it works for you and your employer doesn't mind you doing it on work time, all the more power to you.

[Jilmac]

Kathi, it looks like you have to get out of the office and into the field if that's even possible. At least then there wouldn't be any evidence looking back at your co-workers from a computer screen. :eek:

[dilane]

Wow, sorry you outed yourself. There's a miniscule probability that he kept it to himself, right??

I outed myself at a former job 15+ years ago. I came in in perfect Di office mode for Halloween.

I ran the IS department and reported to the president. I had *major* political problems for the next 6-8 months -- I had to be pretty much perfect. It finally blew over. Office politics can get nasty when the competition smells blood ...

It eventually simmered down to a few knowing jokes now and then -- including a mention in the Christmas party skit :)

[Persephone]

When I started here, there were about 5,000 people working here. I have managed to ride that down to approximately 120 - gathering responsibilities, other people's jobs and respect along the way. I'm not indispensable, but I am needed.

Well, Kathi, my advice to you (and others) is something I'm sure you are already doing, which is to salt away every nickel and dime that you can, taking maximum advantage of every matching contribution that your company offers.

My spouse was just selected for retirement by the 3rd-world leveling juggernaut traveling through this country. She's in one of the six major high tech fields that have been eliminated. The cutting-edge job openings in her field are now in China, India, and Iran, and, lovely as those places may be, we might choose to visit, but we don't want to live there.

We are extremely blessed in what we do have, but we'll be "retiring" a couple of years earlier than planned, with a kid still in college, and a reduction in our quality of life expectations for our future.

So squirrel away those acorns while you can, girl!

Hugs,
Persephone.

[Kathi Lake]

. . . So squirrel away those acorns while you can, girl!

Hugs,
Persephone.Oh, believe me, this squirrel always takes good care of her nu . . . . acorns! :)

My wife and I are at maximum match - and then some - on our 401K's, we put lots into savings and more.

Kathi