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Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

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141–150 of 312 posts

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

#141
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…

Your software records a phone call an employee made while not on the clock? Congratulations, That's a felony.

Your software reports on their browser history when an employee is not on the clock, Congratulations, that's another felony.

Your terminate someone because the software is saying they aren't at their computers the whole day, that's a class action lawsuit and possibly another felony.

And all of it is EASY AS HELL TO PROOVE BECAUSE YOU MADE THE LOG FILES AND INSTRUCTED YOUR IT STAFF TO DO IT YOU DIPSHIT.

Think that your employment contract which stipulates you get to watch everything and anything they signed to keep or get their job will save you? Think binding arbitration will save you? Not only will it not save you, but it will make your sentance longer.

We have entered a brave new worlds of uncharted territory.

One of the key driving factors of bad behaivour of company staff is the consequences of a fertility rate so bad a newborn male child has a 1 in 2 shot at procreating. Many people in "trap" jobs have chosen to live well and die young; if that means fucking your company over for the maximum dollars than so be it, they will do it, and you are going to be forced into putting up with it. The disconnect of plantation management is unbelievable; they think it's honorable capitalism to cannibalize society and lament they have no choice but to do so. They have a choice, they just prefer not having responsability. And that's when they are not intentionally sabotaging you. Piss off your employee and they might let an APT group in on their personal computer who will then attack your infrastructure.

And if I were IT Staff, I'd asking the question and Nop'ing that and quoting the law.

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

#142
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…

You've been speaking of bosses, but I think the topic is of management. A subtle difference, but alas this is not word-play. A "boss" does not work for you, "management" works for you.

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

#143
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

You've got a pretty simplistic view of freedom there, bud. Regulations often increase freedom for some while decreasing it for others. Constitutions are just regulations for government--does preventing the government from infringing on the right to free speech, for example, increase or decrease freedom?

Employers have immense power over their workers, and regulation is one of the tools societies can use to make sure that power isn't abused.

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

#144
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because you're applying a definition of freedom so absolutely and narrowly that it ceases to be useful.

Assault being illegal increases my freedom because I can freely walk down the street without threat of harm.

Prohibiting outside doors from being locked in a factory increases my freedom as a worker to leave whenever I choose.

And theoretically at an absolute minimum any time you see a prisoners dilemma regulation is how you prevent it and make sure that everyone gets their preferred outcome.

If your definition of freedom can't explain why voluntary enslavement makes people less free then it's useless.

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

#145
post #38
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.

Why is it that, given your last sentence, your comment is about ubi and not unions?

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

#146

Working for a highly regulated company at least company owned desktop monitoring is BAU. I assume anything I do with company equipment is monitored at all times. And if I forget they remind me every time I log in. When I discovered the company needed to protect their data by pushing on a policy that let them wipe my personal device remotely I respected that and bought a personal device dedicated to the task of readin…

Why would you install anything from an employer on a personal device? If they want you to install their spyware they should buy the hardware.

Or they can decline to let you connect to the corp net when you are out of office.

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

#147
post #108
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a time when that sort of made sense. When companies didn't lay people off during hard times, carried pensions that were risky for the company, etc. It seems like some didn't understand that loyalty goes both ways...pull one side and the other goes with it.

That was back in the day you trained and educated employees (to save money and built loyality). Back when they offered a living wage a single person could raise a family with. What happened? Free trade. Cheap goods from other countries gutted the local industries. Hard to compete on price when labour costs are so different. The only jobs remaining become min wage or importing. People not working as hard as a generati…

It's important to remember that free trade is not the ultimate cause. Greed among the wealthy elite is. What happened is that rich business owners deliberately pushed for free trade laws as a way to circumvent the laws the labor movement got passed to protect people.

They sold out American workers to increase their profit margins.

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

#148

Everyone has a choice: yes or no. Consequences may vary, but then again, no-one is owed anything legally, morally, or otherwise so to act as though every individual does not have or exercise their own self-agency is disingenuous.

I strongly disagree. There are certain human rights that it is immoral and illegal to contract away. The common example is that selling yourself into slavery is illegal even though people have self-agency. Over time we have decided on others so for example it is illegal to take a job that disallows bathroom breaks or violates certain safety standards. It's also not legal as far as I know to take jobs with certain consequences for quitting, like "we break into your house and kill your family". Although, "we will ensure your family starves" may be an unwritten one.

Also, it is disingenuous at least to say every has their own "self-agency", but "Consequences may vary." I would agree it's a sliding scale because people's chioces imply different levels of consequences for losing one's job (for example if you bought an expensive mortgage versus not). But morally, and legally as well, we certainly owe people the ability to make actually free choices without metaphorical guns to their heads.

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

#149
post #128
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…

Well you have to realize that most managers have no idea why they have it so good. When so many children are starving to death worldwide, why do they live in a 4 bedroom house with a pool? Do they have exceptional talent or intelligence? No. So they fundamentally operate from a place of fear. It’s like Twitter holding onto 140 characters forever — they had no idea why they were so successful, so their approach was “d…

That sounds a bit dismissive. What if they realize "I'm not a super star, but I'm above average in these desired skills. Therefore I get a nice house, but no multi-acre villa like some NBA superstar".

I think you're adding a bit too much personal animosity towards management.

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

#150
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.

Why is it that, given your last sentence, your comment is about ubi and not unions?

UBI seems less risky than a union because of a long history of anti-union action, hostility towards employees, and lack of mobility once one is bound to a union. UBI provides flexible minimum support and someone could transform their life from one place to another by being sure they could at least maintain a minimum standard of living.
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