The Wild Web at Investec during the Naughties
Wimpie was there when I was Blocking Bytes & (Wild Wankers) Blushing Bankers
Ah, the early 2000s – the “naughties,” as we called them back then. I was the network guy at Investec, tucked away in the Sandton headquarters, wrangling cables, switches & firewalls like a digital cowboy. The internet wasn’t the sleek, HTTPS-everywhere beast it is today; it was mostly plain old HTTP, wide open and wild. And boy, did people discover its true purpose: porn. It spread through the office like a virus, popping up on screens faster than you could say “bandwidth hog.”
We couldn’t have that, of course. Investec was a serious bank – or at least, we tried to pretend it was. So, we rolled out the blocks. Checkpoint firewalls, filters, the works. But those clever buggers on the trading floor? They were relentless. A new site would emerge overnight, and by morning, they’d be hammering away at it. Block one, and up sprang two more. I’d watch the logs: denied, denied, denied. But no, they wouldn’t quit after one try. They’d refresh like madmen, hoping the digital gods might change their minds. Ja nee!
Then there was this one chap in IT, a real character. I’d stroll by his desk mid-morning, and there he was, glued to the Teasers website. Teasers, for the uninitiated, was this cheeky spot for booking... entertainment. “What are you doing on that site all morning?” I asked him once, straight-faced. Without missing a beat, he replied, “Planning my evening.” Classic. Turned out Teasers had started posting some “teasers” of their own – wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more. Eventually, we blocked it too, and the dealing room erupted. “How are we supposed to unwind now?” they’d moan. I told them to pick up the phone and book their tables the old-fashioned way. Touch grass, lads.
One evening, kicking back with Star Trek (with Captain Picard, naturally), I saw the red alert siren blare across the Enterprise. Lights flashing, klaxons wailing – genius! I thought, “That’s exactly what we need.” Next day at the office, I fired up Windows Notepad – if you could even call that an editor – and got to work. Swapped the bland block page background to a glaring red, embedded a Star Trek red alert WAV file for good measure. Boom. Instant office theatre.
Investec had this open-plan policy: no walls, no cubicles, just one massive floor buzzing with bankers. Everyone could see and hear everything. So, I’d be heading to the coffee machine, and suddenly – WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP! Red alert from some poor soul’s screen. Heads would turn, laughter would ripple across the floor. Some victims turned beet red, slinking under their desks in embarrassment. Others? Plain the moer in – furious, slamming their mice like it was our fault they got caught.
It was brilliant fun for about a month. Productivity? Debatable. Morale? Sky-high, at least among the non-offenders. But then HR caught wind (or rather, ear) of it. They marched over to my desk: “Remove that red alert. It’s disruptive.” I played it cool. “Well,” I said, “we’ve got this thing called change control. Submit the form, it’ll go through the process.” Never mind that I’d slapped it in without a single approval. Bureaucracy, my shield! But eventually, the powers that be won out. The alert vanished, the page went back to boring white, and that was the end of our little sci-fi porn saga.
Looking back, those were the days when the web felt like the Wild West – untamed, full of surprises, and occasionally embarrassing. We tamed it, bit by bit, but not without a few laughs along the way. Investec survived, the traders adapted, and I learned that sometimes, the best firewalls come with a side of humor.
