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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

#81

Post by uses »

Vox Reset covered worker surveillance software in their most recent two episodes: https://www.vox.com/reset "The future of work pt 1 & 2"

One nice thing about being in a union is that if my upper management ever got a twinkle in their eye about this kind of thing (they wouldn't, because they're cool), I'm 100% sure I could flat out tell them no, AND keep my job.

If I wasn't in a union, I'd like to think I'm personally in a position where I could still tell them no and deal with the consequences. But I know a lot of people won't be in that position.

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

#82

Post by HumblyTossed »

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…

I read a comment long time ago: Managers manage while Bosses react. These are clearly bosses not managers.

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

#83

Post by hangphyr »

malux85 wrote: post #38
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…

Couldn't have said it better. One of the reasons I'm a supporter of universal basic income is so that the employees can have a better negotiating position. I suspect many bullshit rules will go out the window when the alternative to employment isn't destitution. For far too long has this negotiation been highly in favour of the employer.

This is a bit of a tangent, but one should be careful with that path. Not all employers are 'evil' and have negative intentions for their employees. Think of an example such as the independently owned restaurant that cannot afford to pay employees high wages and their owners are not wealthy. Just as not all employees can be painted as untrustworthy and hostile, not all employers should be painted as untrustworthy and hostile.

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

#84

Post by papeda »

subhobroto wrote: post #56
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…

> poor management. Uneducated decision making There is no "poor management". What are these uneducated decision makers even doing at your place of work? There's always a boss. The boss is paying for the behavior they want to see. Now if you argue the ultimate boss is clueless, then, what are you even doing there? You might want to tell yourself that your immediate boss who calls you every 30 minutes you are away from…

This style of writing where almost every sentence is its own line is weird to me. It's like writing in all caps -- if you emphasize every single point, then you emphasize none of them. Especially when it's a long post that takes up a bunch of space.

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

#85

Post by HumblyTossed »

crispyambulance wrote: post #76
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…

> I am certain most managers that implement this are antisocial fucks. I agree. But the surveillance tools have been around for A LONG TIME, and people haven't really complained much about it. The thing is whenever people ask questions about how the surveillance is performed and how to respond to it, the answer (in the USA) has traditionally been something like "It's your employer's equipment, they can do whatever th…

> Employees were to install software called Hubstaff immediately on their personal computers so it could track their mouse movements and keyboard strokes, and record the webpages they visited.

They were told to put this on their "personal" computers. Not work computers. This is way over the line.

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

#86

Post by seattle_spring »

papeda wrote: post #84
subhobroto wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> poor management. Uneducated decision making There is no "poor management". What are these uneducated decision makers even doing at your place of work? There's always a boss. The boss is paying for the behavior they want to see. Now if you argue the ultimate boss is clueless, then, what are you even doing there? You might want to tell yourself that your immediate boss who calls you every 30 minutes you are away from…

This style of writing where almost every sentence is its own line is weird to me. It's like writing in all caps -- if you emphasize every single point, then you emphasize none of them. Especially when it's a long post that takes up a bunch of space.

This style has taken over LinkedIn. It's intolerable, and makes me lose respect for anyone that does it.

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

#88

Post by chepaslaaa »

hangphyr wrote: post #83
malux85 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't have said it better. One of the reasons I'm a supporter of universal basic income is so that the employees can have a better negotiating position. I suspect many bullshit rules will go out the window when the alternative to employment isn't destitution. For far too long has this negotiation been highly in favour of the employer.

This is a bit of a tangent, but one should be careful with that path. Not all employers are 'evil' and have negative intentions for their employees. Think of an example such as the independently owned restaurant that cannot afford to pay employees high wages and their owners are not wealthy. Just as not all employees can be painted as untrustworthy and hostile, not all employers should be painted as untrustworthy and…

I've been a line cook, restaurant owners are absolutely untrustworthy and hostile. The food industry is one where exploitation, highly aggressive staff retention practices (making employees dependent on you for a visa, threatening to spread lies about you, etc.), crazy unhealthy hours and just a generally awful culture are standard.

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

#89

Post by peterangular »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #74

> After two weeks of working from her Brooklyn apartment, a 25-year-old e-commerce worker received a staffwide email from her company: Employees were to install software called Hubstaff immediately on their personal computers so it could track their mouse movements and keyboard strokes,and record the webpages they visited. I'm 100 percent positive that I would tell this company to get stuffed if they suggested I put…

It's an extension of the "butts in chairs" management style that's all over in America. When the managers are unable to actually measure output due to incompetence + lacking the ability to do the same job as their subordinates this is one of the few levers they get to pull. It's a management style of fear and dissonance where the workers are constantly being judged not based on merit, but on useless metrics and butt kissing...

In contrast - I've worked for managers that could care less about "butts in chairs" and are much more concerned with output/quality... this means they have to be actually productive/knowledgeable in my field which typically is an exception - especially for larger corps. I personally find my mental state is so much better and my output is magnitudes greater when working with this management style!

The other thing that's great about output based managers is that the bad-to-mediocre talent/work ethic folks get weeded out ASAP because it's apparent who can't cut it vs. higher output workers. "Butts in chairs" workers are good at gaming the optics + politics regardless if it's surveillance software or someone complaining about being in the office for X hours a day/week.

All-in-all I agree with your statement.

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

#90

Post by crispyambulance »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #85
crispyambulance wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am certain most managers that implement this are antisocial fucks. I agree. But the surveillance tools have been around for A LONG TIME, and people haven't really complained much about it. The thing is whenever people ask questions about how the surveillance is performed and how to respond to it, the answer (in the USA) has traditionally been something like "It's your employer's equipment, they can do whatever th…

> Employees were to install software called Hubstaff immediately on their personal computers so it could track their mouse movements and keyboard strokes, and record the webpages they visited. They were told to put this on their "personal" computers. Not work computers. This is way over the line.

Yes, of course, putting something like that on a personal machine is odious.

But how do you tell if that or something like it is on your work machine? Look for "hubstaff.dll"? ... half kidding, but seriously how do you tell if there's corporate fuckery on your work machine (eg screenshotting, logging time on URLs, keylogging, etc etc)?

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