Unattended Printouts

What Is Unattended Printouts?

A document sent to a shared printer sits in the output tray until someone collects it, and that someone is not always you. In this exercise you print a confidential pay review, leave for a meeting, and watch a colleague find and read it before you get back. You report it, then print the same class of document again using Secure Print, which holds the job on the server until you enter your PIN at the device.

What You'll Learn in Unattended Printouts

• Recognize that a shared output tray is an open surface where any passing colleague can read, move, or photograph your document
• Identify the print jobs that need holding at the device rather than the default of printing straight to a communal tray
• Configure Secure Print so a job stays on the print server until you authenticate at the printer
• Release a held job with your print PIN and collect every page before you walk away
• Report an exposed printout promptly, with the time it printed and who could have seen it

Unattended Printouts — Training Steps

1. Monday, 8:47 AM

   The partners' quarterly meeting starts at 9:00 in the room down the hall. You are at your desk in the open-plan office, coffee in hand, running through the prep list. The shared multifunction printer sits on the credenza a few steps away, where everyone on the floor collects their jobs.

2. A Print Request

   An email from Diane Okafor, the managing partner, lands in your inbox. She needs the compensation review printed for the 9:00 meeting.

3. Opening the Document

   You click the link in Diane's email. The People portal opens on the Partner Compensation Review. It lists every partner's draw, bonus pool allocation, and next-year adjustment by name.

4. Sending It to the Printer

   Everything looks right. You click Print. The print dialog comes up with its usual defaults: the shared floor printer, one copy, Normal print. You confirm it the way you have a hundred times before, without a second look.

5. The Page Lands in the Tray

   The printer wakes up and the compensation review rolls out into the output tray, face up, where the whole floor collects their jobs.

6. 9:00 Sharp

   Diane appears at your desk with her notes under her arm. The meeting is starting.

7. Into the Meeting

   You grab your laptop and follow Diane down the hall. The compensation review stays where it is, face up in the tray. You will pick it up after the meeting, you tell yourself.

8. Meanwhile, at the Printer

   Back on the floor, the review has been lying face up in the tray for an hour while people come and go for their own jobs. Priya Raman, an analyst from across the floor, walks over to collect her expense report.

9. Whose Is This?

   Your page is lying on top of hers. Priya picks it up to see whose it is, and the first thing in front of her is a list of partner names, each with a pay figure beside it.

10. Face Down

    Priya turns the page face down in the tray and heads back to her desk. That hides it from whoever comes next, but it cannot undo what the people before her have already seen.