The permissive and participatory conduct which most employees take for granted,eventually escalates into more serious assaultive behavior commonly referred to as employee on employee workplace violence starts with innuendos, a bad word, or simple jokes taken out of context or used to inflame another. Initiation of a proper and thorough investigation is possible under auspices of a Threat Assessment Team. Banter between employees if left alone by supervisors becomes tense and often results in a more aggressive response. The truth of matter is that in most cases this banter is perceived as harmless shop talk.

Supervisors often believe that this healthy shop talk builds camaraderie and does not detract from performance. However, such permissive behavior empowers potential perpetrator who may feel he enjoys partiality of supervisor. After all, he does his job, pumps out numbers and meets "bosses" demands. Regardless of relationship and his performance, definite and clear action should be taken initially to curtail potential of an explosive situation from impacting workplace. The spontaneous reaction by victim is surprising and could be sufficiently volatile to affect bystanders as well.

Remembering that business owner is ultimately responsible for actions they fail to take in any situation places decision in question. The prevention of workplace violence requires a proactive response. Security is everyone's responsibility but ultimately but ultimately management's duty. The exposure to violent behavior by non employees is yet another issue which will be presented in future articles.

In a permissive environment, uninformed employee has no idea that emotions tied into simple acts of harassment are an explosive combination often leading to a spontaneous counter response by victim. While response is unfortunate in terms of who ultimately precipitated incident, victim who is now taking action into his hands becomes aggressor and must be held accountable.

You check your e-mail program and it reports your username and password as no longer valid. You call your Internet service provider (ISP) to discuss problem and they tell you they turned off your account due to "abuse". "Abuse!" you cry to customer service operator, "What are you talking about?"

"Someone used your computer this past Saturday night in an attempt to hack into a government computer system. They made attempt at 1:20 a.m. from your account," replies rep. "Look in your windows registry for a file called QAZWSX.hsq."

You punch a few keys and sure enough file stares right back at you. "What is it?" you ask, scared to know answer.

"Someone used a Trojan Horse virus to remotely control your computer and cloak identity of hacker. Here's how to get rid of it, just..."

What you just read happened very recently to someone I know quite well. A computer hacker found an open port on his computer when he switched over from a dial-up Internet connection to an "always-on" high-speed connection.

The hacker used a robot scanning Internet for available "ports", openings in a computer that allow data to pass back and forth from a network connection like Internet. Once hacker found an unprotected port on my friend's computer he simply inserted a Trojan Horse virus that rides along with Windows Notepad, a handy utility used by just about everyone who makes web pages.

When my friend activated notepad program he also activated virus. The virus in turn transmitted all of my friend's security information to hacker and allowed him to gain access and control his victim's computer in middle of night.