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How Employers Track Their Workers

theatlantic.com

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Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#31

Post by keyle »

Tade0 wrote: post #7
gorpomon wrote: post #3

Pretty disgusting stuff. There are plenty of places in the world where a video camera provides relief and safety, but work is rarely one. The engineers building this tech should be ashamed, they grew up to be the bad guys.

A few years back a guy I knew from college wanted to have a meeting with me regarding a "business opportunity". He pitched me an idea for a system that would essentially spy on IT contractors through the webcam during work. Fortunately his budget was laughably small and my participation out of the question so he never went through with this. He is known for being utterly shameless but I guess what other kind of perso…

How to watch someone pick their nose for 8 hours a day. Which finger will he use next? Woah he's going for the big one!

And this is me, and it's not even lunch time.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#32

Post by pnutjam »

nimbius wrote: post #27

as someone who works a blue collar job in an auto repair shop, these articles always make me pause for a moment and ask if i really want to keep learning python in the hopes of pursuing an office job. The entire environment just sounds like high school all over again. Why does anyone in an office put up with it?? is this somehow different than time keeping? do you have a punch card? If you asked my boss where i was,…

Don't let this stuff discourage you. People who put up with stuff are like the mechanics who work at Pep boys. You can do better and you don't have to tolerate it.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#33

Post by L_Rahman »

nimbius wrote: post #27

as someone who works a blue collar job in an auto repair shop, these articles always make me pause for a moment and ask if i really want to keep learning python in the hopes of pursuing an office job. The entire environment just sounds like high school all over again. Why does anyone in an office put up with it?? is this somehow different than time keeping? do you have a punch card? If you asked my boss where i was,…

Office jobs are not trustworthy.

The model you should have for an office job is that it's basically a social game within which some actual work takes place. Most of the time people spend is maneuvering within the game.

I say this as someone with an office job.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#34

Post by dragonwriter »

nimbius wrote: post #27

as someone who works a blue collar job in an auto repair shop, these articles always make me pause for a moment and ask if i really want to keep learning python in the hopes of pursuing an office job. The entire environment just sounds like high school all over again. Why does anyone in an office put up with it?? is this somehow different than time keeping? do you have a punch card? If you asked my boss where i was,…

Most of the jobs described in the article are not office jobs, and are hourly jobs that probably have timekeeping and pinch cards or the equivalent on top of the surveillance.

Blue collar jobs, especially with large employers, aren't any less exposed to this.

Office workers put up with it for the same reason as other workers—its that or not have a job.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#35

Post by rifung »

joewee wrote: post #19
toomanybeersies wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But nothing a company does it to the benefit of the employee This isn't a feature intrinsic to companies, but rather a relatively recent social norm. There are still a few companies that do look after their employees, and do things to the benefit of their employees. They aren't very common though, usually it's smaller (often family run) businesses, and often a physical trade rather than an office job.

True, their are companies that have founding principles that are employee friendly, but once you have an official HR role, their job is the complete opposite. Similarly, corporate counsel is responsible to the corporate entity (are companies people?), even if that means recommending removal of the founder. A organization with employee friendly values has leadership willing to challenge HR and Legal, but that means a…

> True, their are companies that have founding principles that are employee friendly, but once you have an official HR role, their job is the complete opposite.

I really don't like or agree with this characterization at all. Sure part of their job is to prevent the company from being sued but part of their job is (usually) also keeping employees happy.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#36

Post by loriverkutya »

gorpomon wrote: post #3

Pretty disgusting stuff. There are plenty of places in the world where a video camera provides relief and safety, but work is rarely one. The engineers building this tech should be ashamed, they grew up to be the bad guys.

A video camera never provides relief and safety by itself.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#37

Post by joewee »

rifung wrote: post #35
joewee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, their are companies that have founding principles that are employee friendly, but once you have an official HR role, their job is the complete opposite. Similarly, corporate counsel is responsible to the corporate entity (are companies people?), even if that means recommending removal of the founder. A organization with employee friendly values has leadership willing to challenge HR and Legal, but that means a…

> True, their are companies that have founding principles that are employee friendly, but once you have an official HR role, their job is the complete opposite. I really don't like or agree with this characterization at all. Sure part of their job is to prevent the company from being sued but part of their job is (usually) also keeping employees happy.

A company is made to benefit its shareholders. Sometimes employees are also the shareholders but this has historically not been the case. Historically, because of the focus on benefiting it’s owners above all else, companies have sometimes resorted to using slaves and child labor. The concept of employee-shareholders is a fairly recent invention. The concept of employee rights only gained traction in the USA during the industrial revolution.

Agricultural cooperatives, might come close...

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#38

Post by spin »

nimbius wrote: post #27

as someone who works a blue collar job in an auto repair shop, these articles always make me pause for a moment and ask if i really want to keep learning python in the hopes of pursuing an office job. The entire environment just sounds like high school all over again. Why does anyone in an office put up with it?? is this somehow different than time keeping? do you have a punch card? If you asked my boss where i was,…

There are good office jobs and there are bad office jobs. There are good employers and bad employers. The best jobs I've had usually have some basic deadlines (measurable goals and results), and some basic rules (show up every day), but other than that, not much structure or micro-management or anything. If you're a full-time programmer on a team, then you might have a lot of little tasks assigned to you (eg: "add feature X to user profile page", "fix bug Y on the logout screen", etc.), but not constant surveillance or anything. If you're constantly checking in code to Github, then your boss knows that you're working.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#40

Post by kchoudhu »

The bank I was working at tried installing monitoring software on programmers' computers one day with no monitoring.

I sent my MD an email saying I wouldn't be working that day because of it, and left. The software disappeared the next day.

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