My wife and daughter snuck out to repair my laptop after I told them not to.

[HeritageDad]

I am a writer, meaning all my devices are filled with unpublished/not-yet-copyrighted stories that I do not want seen by people outside my family. One family member of mine has had a tragic experiences with their creations being stolen by quite notable people, and so, I am paranoid about people having access to my work before it's copyrighted and published.

With that, I don't like taking my computer to repair shops for this exact reason, and if I have to, I move my stories from my laptop to some other device, and load them back after it's been fixed.

Recently, my 16-year-old daughter needed to borrow one of my smaller laptops for school. It's an older laptop, but it was working fine until she had it, and somehow, it died on her, with all my stories on there, too.

I learned all this later, because my wife and my daughter decided to not tell me about the damage (they later said they were afraid I'd get "mad") and secretly brought it to a computer repair shop and had it fixed. But my wife felt bad about the sneaking and hiding, so when my daughter brought my laptop back to me, they told me what happened and what they did.

And I admit: I got very, very upset. In my anger, I called my daughter a ***. My wife rightfully flipped out at me. I later apologized.

But I am still reeling at what they did––all the sneaking and lying––and how my stories were exposed. I regret calling my daughter what I did, but after our blowup, I've been the only who's apologized and no one has taken accountability for what they did to me....as if I have no right to be upset.

[Batya33]

I think you overreacted.  Why wasn’t your laptop password protected with dual authentication?? Why don’t you have backups of your work?? This is mostly on you. You are so paranoid of an IT person stealing your work at a repair shop and yet you’re careless as to how you protect it. Doesn’t make much sense to me. I’m glad you apologized. They meant well. 

[HeritageDad]

6 minutes ago, Batya33 said:

I think you overreacted.  Why wasn’t your laptop password protected with dual authentication?? Why don’t you have backups of your work?? This is mostly on you. You are so paranoid of an IT person stealing your work at a repair shop and yet you’re careless as to how you protect it. Doesn’t make much sense to me. I’m glad you apologized. They meant well. 

Huh? Of course it is password protected, and all my stories are also on an external harddrive. But an IT person can easily surpass password protection to get in to fix the computer.

[Batya33]

29 minutes ago, HeritageDad said:

Huh? Of course it is password protected, and all my stories are also on an external harddrive. But an IT person can easily surpass password protection to get in to fix the computer.

Not if there’s dual authentication. Then it would have to have you ok it from your device. You really think an IT person will be interested in your creative writing ? They’re typically extremely busy these days particularly with all the remote workers. 

[Crawfords Wine]

I wouldn't worry about it too much. 

I doubt that anyone would be even remotely interested in your musings, considering you can't seem to keep your stories straight even between 2 forum posts.

I mean, your daughter managed to lose 2 whole years in age between them?! Maybe you ought to market that secret, considering mankind has been chasing the fountain of youth forever. Then you can ditch the creative writing efforts, and the loss making 'family' t-shirt venture.

Win-win!

[Seraphim]

Same as the T shirt thread people and Covid people . 

[Starlight925]

This was wrong all the way around.

They were wrong too sneak behind your back and do something you specifically told them not to, with one of your own possessions.

And you were wrong to overreact.  I'm glad you apologized.

And I'm sorry they took your computer.  That was so wrong of them.  

As you've said, even with quadruple authentications, lol, any hacker can get in.  Plus, it's simply a very personal possession.  I'd be furious.