Postgrads in particular work on personal machines in work - they're not employees and while they often do have work machines they're often old and rubbish.* This is not uncommon, and people also use work laptops for fairly personal stuff (hopefully at least with different browsers/profiles). My work machine is a desktop (I do a fair bit of CAD and a little number-crunching) so when I give presentations (and can't use a lecture-theatre PC) I use a personal laptop. I now work in a academia where the line between personal and work is a bit more blurred, so this may give a different persepctive even if the conclusion is similar. *I am confident it's a universal professional norm, and doesn't depend on culture all that much, but for context I've worked in the UK and Germany with colleagues from all around the world You have absolutely no reason to feel embarrassed. Rest assured that most people in the room were on your side and would likely have done the same in your position. This is unfortunate, but you'd hope in most cases will only have to be done once or twice before the message gets across and they don't try it again. However some people just don't, for whatever reason, get this and need to be politely but firmly told to not do it when they try. The fact that this is your personal machine and that it's in public only increase the need to ask first, but they should be asking every time regardless. In my experience* the vast majority of people understand that just using your laptop without asking isn't OK. I've worked on my personal laptop at a number of companies and so know this situation well. Since all this happened in the past, I cannot change it now. Update: I did not have a separate laptop for work, and there was no possibility to get it.
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