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If Workers Slack Off, the Wristband Will Know

nytimes.com

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Re: If Workers Slack Off, the Wristband Will Know

#41

Post by bbctol »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #7
Clubber wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people aren't robots. That's not how the brain works. People can't concentrate 100% for 8-12 hours a day every day consistently. >What if your supervisor could identify every time you paused to scratch or fidget, and for how long you took a bathroom break? I certainly wouldn't want to work under those conditions.

So the best workers will be people too. No worries; folks won't be judged or measured as robots. Not an issue.

Yeah, bosses have never expected workers to work unreasonably hard.

Re: If Workers Slack Off, the Wristband Will Know

#42

Post by wmeredith »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #37

I often see debates here about how tech workers should or shouldn’t organize because they’re too highly paid, etc. But what if they organized to protect something more simple, like warehouse workers fundamental humanity? I understand that people have had different experiences working on the tech side of Amazon, some great, some terrible. And yet I would hope that we can all look at this and say “this isn’t something…

I'm trying to think of a _less_ simple task than defining the humanity of a subset of people and I'm coming up short.

Re: If Workers Slack Off, the Wristband Will Know

#43

Post by usdghkasdghk »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #9
Santosh83 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you prepared to wear a bracelet when you work?

Millions of people wear a fitbit. I used to wear a watch (to regulate my work day). How many office workers wear a badge? Most of them. Not a problem

Do the employers of these millions of people have access to the fitbit data? And use it to decide on keeping them employed?

Re: If Workers Slack Off, the Wristband Will Know

#44

Post by 2323232123 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #9
Santosh83 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you prepared to wear a bracelet when you work?

Millions of people wear a fitbit. I used to wear a watch (to regulate my work day). How many office workers wear a badge? Most of them. Not a problem

Can you show us a repository that contains your output?

Re: If Workers Slack Off, the Wristband Will Know

#45

Post by minikites »

yawgmoth wrote: post #29

As companies develop more ways to ensure consistency of behavior and performance of their human assets, humans need to develop more ways to collectively bargain for their welfare against companies.

You can only abuse people so much before they snap and out come the guillotines.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_rebellion

Re: If Workers Slack Off, the Wristband Will Know

#46

Post by smacktoward »

ballenf wrote: post #20
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #2

They call this dystopian, but I don't get it. Why keep a slacker around when you have limited slots for workers? Why not measure and retain good workers? Somebody please try a little to see beyond the linkbait title of the OP. Knee-jerk anti-the-man comments aren't very helpful in digging into why this is a good or bad idea.

None of the attacks on your position really answer your question, which I think is a reasonable one. If I'm hiring someone to stack boxes, what's wrong with hiring and keeping the best box stackers? Why should I be limited in the non-discriminatory tools I use to measure such performance? The wristband isn't monitoring an employee's attitude or beliefs. If anything, the tool would make racism or favoritism generally…

"I'm paying for their health insurance. Why shouldn't I be allowed to jam a device up their rectum that sends me a Slack notification whenever they drink alcohol?"

Re: If Workers Slack Off, the Wristband Will Know

#47

Post by at-fates-hands »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #12
jkldsadfaf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you're monitoring someone constantly. Imagine if your manager sat behind you breathing on your neck while you coded. He has a pack of tic-tacs so his breath is fine. He crushes the tic tacs with his teeth everytime he thinks you're not working

So many, many workers are monitored by human supervisors already. Not shown to be significantly different.

I've worked in a few place like that. Micromanagement pushed people to do just enough to get by. They also created strategies to avoid the extreme oversight and inflate their metrics to stay off the managers bad list.

All this does is push people to fight the system more.

Re: If Workers Slack Off, the Wristband Will Know

#50

Post by ericthor »

They already have scanners with countdown timers that track and enforce an average time to scan. http://amazonemancipatory.com/time-to-pick-countdown-timer

This tracks pretty well with the beginning bit from the Manna short fiction. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Next up Alexa headsets with an AI to direct and fire workers.

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