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“I monitor my staff with software that takes screenshots”

bbc.co.uk

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Re: “I monitor my staff with software that takes screenshots”

#111

Post by lostlogin »

hnick wrote: post #62
mrweasel wrote: post #21

I worked for a company with a UK department, the UK boss would routinely use similar software to check that people where actually working and doing things correctly. The Scandinavian bosses opted to just trust everyone to do the right thing and people always would. Interestingly enough if was always the British employees who would do things like steal customer contact lists when they left or do deals on the side, so…

> Interestingly enough if was always the British employees who would do things like steal customer contact lists when they left or do deals on the side, so I suppose they had a reason to not trust people. If you're already treating me like I've done you wrong, then trust is gone and it wasn't by my choice. That cuts both ways. If someone feels like they are being treated as though they've already broken a social cont…

You see this with children (and some adults if I’m being honest). Being told not to do something makes it more appealing.

Re: “I monitor my staff with software that takes screenshots”

#112

Post by brailsafe »

spurdoman77 wrote: post #17
zenincognito wrote: post #5

I once went to court against a client who wouldn't pay his bills. The sum more than 35K. It took over 9 months to get to court ( as the court wouldnt give a date ) and countless docs and hours spent to come up with evidence folder. In Australia, a citizen can argue their case which I did without using any lawyers. Finally, we both argued our case to a point where the client's defence was that there was no time log fo…

> Pay for work not time spent on the computer. Pay for the results, not for the work or time spent.

Hell no. If someone hires me to do work, it's on them whether or not it was a good idea in the first place. Unless and only unless the risk was explicitly agreed upon.

"You owe me $50000" "But I didn't make $50000 from the thing I asked you to build" "Maybe you should have thought about that before you agreed to pay me to build it, based on your idea."

Re: “I monitor my staff with software that takes screenshots”

#113

Post by wisty »

zenincognito wrote: post #5

I once went to court against a client who wouldn't pay his bills. The sum more than 35K. It took over 9 months to get to court ( as the court wouldnt give a date ) and countless docs and hours spent to come up with evidence folder. In Australia, a citizen can argue their case which I did without using any lawyers. Finally, we both argued our case to a point where the client's defence was that there was no time log fo…

> Pay for work not time spent on the computer.

Which is fine for stuff that can be done as an individual contract. Otherwise, there's this thing called "Theory of the Firm" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm) in which economists try to answer just why firms exist.

What if your job is one where it's hard to measure output? What if it's a job where the's a lot of risk? What if collaboration is important, and you want people to use a bit of common sense to put effort behind the stuff that matters (and the boss isn't some super-genius overlord , running some kind of dystopian company where meat-robots are assigned certain goals that can be well specified but are still yet to be completely automated).

Re: “I monitor my staff with software that takes screenshots”

#114

Post by C1sc0cat »

roel_v wrote: post #80
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pay for work not time spent on the computer This is the right solution, but of course is harder for some occupations - call center, sewing buttons, and more mundane work. Where 'bad' employers can push up the amount of work expected.

Does that make them bad employers? I would expect it to be quite logical that employers want to hire the best workers, where the 'best' is those who can process the most items. I used to work in a brush factory when I was a teenager (during school holidays). It was basically 8 hours of grabbing a metal clip and s row of brush hairs, slide the latter into the former, put the assembly under a press, put the result in a…

You just have to remember to slow down when the time and motion person is monitoring your work - its I known way of gaming the system.

There's a lot of unwritten rules in factories - I recall being told about how when a big heavy engineering turbine or what have you was close to being delivered ,work slowed right down until the magic brown envelopes arrived.

And my source commented even the tea boy got £750 - this was the 70's so a lot of £

Re: “I monitor my staff with software that takes screenshots”

#115

Post by C1sc0cat »

SpeckOfDust wrote: post #18

I wonder if its actually even worth it to do this kind of shit. Forget the ethical concerns for a minute, think about the kind of company you've built and the people you've hired to even warrant this kind of scrutiny in the first place.

If you read the article its it's a shitty little company

Re: “I monitor my staff with software that takes screenshots”

#116

Post by feintruled »

lacker wrote: post #27

Eventually this will be full-fledged AI monitoring that politely interrupts you when you're reading social media and suggests that you get back to work.

Or perhaps even a fuller-fledged AI that monitors your work and ends up doing the work after you get sacked (twist: you've actually trained it to read social media 90% of the time)

Re: “I monitor my staff with software that takes screenshots”

#117

Post by C1sc0cat »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #8

I used to work at a bank whose homeworking remote login system would timeout after a ridiculously short period. The solution (used by many, and widely publicised around the company) was to place an optical mouse over the face of a clock whose movement would trigger a tiny movement every so often and keep you logged in. I'm sure the remote staff at his company have worked out how to browse facebook and instagram on th…

You can buy mouse jigglers on amazon to do this :-)

Re: “I monitor my staff with software that takes screenshots”

#118

Post by dspillett »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #90
jacquesm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A woman approaches Yves Saint Laurent, "Oh Yves, I must have a unique hat for tonights' gala". The master seats her, grabs a bunch of ribbons and proceeds to drape her hair in what turns out to be an extremely nice and harmonic creation, and all that in the space of 30 minutes. The woman is ecstatic: "Oh Yves, I knew you would come through, how much do I owe you?" "That will be 10,000 Francs" "10,000 Francs? For 30 m…

I wonder how much the person who makes up all these amusing anecdotes about famous people having to quibble about their payment rate gets paid. Probably not enough.

The one we were told at University was the contractor who charged £5,000 for a few hours work fixing a design, which in the end took five pencil marks. When asked to break down the costs of the job he resubmitted the invoice as: 5x 1 pencil mark = 5x £1 = £5, 1x knowing where to make the marks = 1x £4,995 = £4,995, with an offer of a discount on future pencil marks if the invoice was paid promptly.

Re: “I monitor my staff with software that takes screenshots”

#119

Post by mrweasel »

tpmx wrote: post #93
t0mas88 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be a bit of both, but indeed from anecdotal evidence starting a company in the UK and in the Netherlands: A lot of things are set up with less thrust in the UK. As a simple example in the Netherlands if you reclaim VAT as a company tax services just gives you the money and checks later (obviously you need to give it back if it wasn't correct). In the UK you'll need to show invoices, proof etc before HMRC pays…

Matches the data shown here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/self-reported-trust-attit...

China is kinda funny. Either the question was misunderstood, or they've answered what they know should be the right answer. Everyone I know who as been trained in dealing with Chinese suppliers or business partners is telling me that you can only trust the Chinese as long as their financial interests are aligned with yours.

Re: “I monitor my staff with software that takes screenshots”

#120

Post by johnchristopher »

The other day, while looking for cheap sensors/cameras/networking solutions for a hobbyist project, I stumbled upon this: https://partners.sigfox.com/products/simplepack-office-chair

Identified needs – why to focus on office chair monitoring?

    Data-driven managers love to monitor home officing, track work hours, save space and costs incurred by unoccupied desks when employees work away from an office or on flexible schedules
    Companies are willing to avoid wasting money on lighting, heating, and cooling
    Facility companies want to optimize cleaning services
    There is a shift to working hubs, hot seats and a need for shared space utilization
How does SimplePack Chair work?

    Fix SimplePack Chair with 3M double-sided bonding tape to office chair
    There are 2 following ways to operate SimplePack Chair depending on the data you want to get and the business case you solve
    SimplePack Chair measures acceleration of 3 axis accelerometer with remote configurable intensity
    Acceleration or in other words vibration is measured every second
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