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Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

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Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#21

Post by bluntfang »

iask wrote: post #12

It’s old-fashion management. If you don’t understand your employees workload and don’t trust them then either you resign or fire the employees. Simple as that. I don’t see how this makes any employee productive. This adds more stress imo. An employee gives you 8 of their 12 hour day. Now, you tell me if that works only for you - the management. They’re people just like you. They have a life just like you. They have r…

TBH these managers probably don't have work life balance, spend 12-16 hours a day on work, probably less than 4 are productive, and believe their subordinates and ingrates if they don't share the same "devotion" that they do, regardless of ability to complete the assigned job/task.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#22

Post by thrower123 »

My mother-in-law is trying to teach driver's ed over Zoom. It's a horrible clusterfuck, because they are trying to force everyone to keep their webcam on at all times as a means of tracking attendance. The first session was 75% her shrieking at kids because their internet connections were dropping out or Zoom was glitching and the video feeds froze. Not to mention that Zoom can only show a 5x5 grid at a time, and some of the classes had 27 or 30-something kids in it.

It's not easy for normies to deal with video-conferencing... Take your normal enterprise conference call bingo card, and put it on turbo.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#24

Post by runawaybottle »

greendave wrote: post #19

> And with few legal barriers, employers who turn to this software during the pandemic may choose to keep using it even after work-from-home orders are lifted, he said. Unsurprising - why give up power once you've accumulated it. Regulation is the only way to reverse that. The companies building these tools are a special breed.

Your last sentence is an interesting point. Like, man, I really don’t want to be apart of that if I can avoid it.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#26

Post by capdeck »

runawaybottle wrote: post #20

There’s no way decent companies are doing this. Any company that does this probably also has skeleton budgets with underpaid staff. I just can’t fathom it.

I don't think decency has anything to do with it. Profits are king that everyone bows to. I can see a management meeting where inevitably someone throws the idea of webcam surveillance into the rink. After all it is simple to understand, it "makes sense", (micro)managers will really enjoy it. So it will pass with flying colors.

And as they say, the rest is history. Good workers will eventually leave. Some will adapt. Software and hacks will appear that can trick key presses and mouse clicks. Eveyone will become 9 to 5 no matter what.

I see some examples brought up where developers are not putting up with it - that is correct. For developers, typing productivity, so that will not stick. But there are other occupations around - admin work, marketing, data entry, HR, etc... Productivity in those occupations will dip, some people will leave, but in larger scope work will continue. Companies will compensate by hiring more people, it won't be visible on a balance sheet as "survelliance tax" because no one is tracking. And the world will go on. Worse off than before, unfortunately.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#27

Post by trhaynes »

runawaybottle wrote: post #20

There’s no way decent companies are doing this. Any company that does this probably also has skeleton budgets with underpaid staff. I just can’t fathom it.

Basecamp is a decent company and is actively blocking this effort: https://m.signalvnoise.com/employee-surveillance-software-is...

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#29

Post by subhobroto »

js8 wrote: post #18
loa_in_ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulation is the opposite of exercising freedom you already have

I downvoted you, because I think this is not true in general. Regulation can actually increase the freedom. It is a concept in philosophy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance And it's also not true in particular, you might happen to be in a group which benefits from given regulation. Hopefully, in a democratic society, the group that is negatively affected (if any) is as small as possible.

.. and I downvoted you, because it absolutely true by definition.

Regulation, by definition, decreases freedom.

That's the whole point of regulation - to threaten with violence, acts that people have agreed are not a good idea.

If software engineers were regulated under IEEE, the freedoms of software engineers would decrease not increase.

I quote from the article you linked:

"In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."

Regulation, by definition, is intolerance.

For example - the minimum wage regulation. You have now removed the freedom of an untrained, unemployed person to sell their labor at a lower floor which was their only way to gain employment when there's a trained but unemployed person willing to also work for minimum wage!

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#30

Post by subhobroto »

loa_in_ wrote: post #9
javajosh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or regulate. Consider that your same argument was applies to e.g. the 40-hour workweek, and workplace safety standards in the US. We quite rightly decided not to leave such things to the market because in practice the labor market is FAR from perfect.

Regulation is the opposite of exercising freedom you already have

Spot on. I am so surprised you've been downvoted to hell.

Sometimes it seems basic economics is an alien concept.

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