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Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

economist.com

21–30 of 180 posts

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#21

Feels like every damn thing that happens gets used as a pretext to enable more and more surveillance. Will we need job boards specifically for jobs that don't do surveillance too? >Last year Fujitsu, a Japanese technology group, unveiled AI software which promises to gauge employees’ concentration based on their facial expression. Just need software that punishes employees who aren't happy enough at work, then we'll…

> Just need software that punishes employees who aren't happy enough at work, then we'll have a proper nightmare.

Ask, and ye shall receive: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/mar/03/c...

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#22

I'm convinced that keeping track if your employee is visibly working or not is so fundamentally wrong. Especially in an office setting. Just look at the output. Nothing more. Does the employee provide value at the end of the day or not. That's important. Not hours or anything else.

I wonder how it is that basic idea seems lost amidst a sea of increasingly painful ways to monitor and control.

The need to control is greater than...

I don't know. I lack that need, instead needing people to be great people more, and they can't be great when the environment they work in snuffs out greatness.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#23

Don't forget the home. With the ubiquity of security cameras privacy is eroding even in private. I am struggling now with properly placing cameras in an apartment and balancing safety, security, and privacy in a family environment.

Why do you want to place cameras in your apartment in the first place? Maybe one camera for the entrance, if you have reasons to be paranoid (I was thinking about it for myself, because of weird landlord with second keys), but why more cameras? edit: one further reason for myself I remembered, watching the small kids from the smartphone, while going out for some minutes. But in the end I never set it up

Catching acts of domestic violence would be a reason. To prevent he said/she said instances.

NB: I don't agree with the increasing paranoia, it's just devil's advocate.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#24

I'm convinced that keeping track if your employee is visibly working or not is so fundamentally wrong. Especially in an office setting. Just look at the output. Nothing more. Does the employee provide value at the end of the day or not. That's important. Not hours or anything else.

> That's important. Not hours or anything else.

Not to the bean counters. If they can get a good job out of you while distracted 25% of the time they think they could get 25% more out of you for no extra cost if they beat that distraction out of you.

It is one of those double standards many companies have: if you are needed to work extra “you are salaried, not paid by the hour, a bit of flexibility is normal and expected” but if you don't do 37.5 hours one week or are seen to be relaxing too much “your contract clearly says that you are paid to be actively on the job for X time, no less”. Luckily our current regime is far more sensible about this sort of thing, considerate even, though before that buy-out this sort of issue was on the list of reasons I was days away from walking out & burning a few bridges along the way.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#25

Feels like every damn thing that happens gets used as a pretext to enable more and more surveillance. Will we need job boards specifically for jobs that don't do surveillance too? >Last year Fujitsu, a Japanese technology group, unveiled AI software which promises to gauge employees’ concentration based on their facial expression. Just need software that punishes employees who aren't happy enough at work, then we'll…

Many Japanese companies have really fucked up ways of measuring "work". They work hard to make these AI and tech-based things to measure some dumb stats that have nothing to do with getting actual work done. I've heard of a company measuring how "well" a meeting went based on some AI analysis of people smiling. So much time here is wasted on managing workers and talking about how to work, instead of just getting shit…

There is an urban legend that being asleep at work would be seen as being productive since you obviously work so hard. This would be my chance to become employee of the month.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#26

Feels like every damn thing that happens gets used as a pretext to enable more and more surveillance. Will we need job boards specifically for jobs that don't do surveillance too? >Last year Fujitsu, a Japanese technology group, unveiled AI software which promises to gauge employees’ concentration based on their facial expression. Just need software that punishes employees who aren't happy enough at work, then we'll…

>Feels like every damn thing that happens gets used as a pretext to enable more and more surveillance.

If bosses could have slaves working for them, a vast majority of them would use slaves in an instant, without thinking about it. At best, they'd use a contractor or two removed from them, to mitigate the ethical accusations (same way they justify the use of sweatshops, child labor in mines, violently threatening and beating or even murdering workers when they stand up, and so on, in the production/supply chains the most seemingly "progressive" companies).

The only reason they don't have everything they want atm, and societies got things like paid leave, the 5-day 8-hour workweek and such, has been pushback (which was reristed fiercely, with many dead in the process). Pushback, plus, when the global communist movement was still a thing, and still shiny to many, the danger of working classes falling for socialism as an alternative to capitalism, which between the 30s and 70s did wonders in securing concessions from capitalist governments.

Since pushback has stopped, and the alternative system of production is dead and/or discretided, in any job market that they have the upper hand, they'll reinforce any 19-th century norm they like.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#27

Feels like every damn thing that happens gets used as a pretext to enable more and more surveillance. Will we need job boards specifically for jobs that don't do surveillance too? >Last year Fujitsu, a Japanese technology group, unveiled AI software which promises to gauge employees’ concentration based on their facial expression. Just need software that punishes employees who aren't happy enough at work, then we'll…

> Just need software that punishes employees who aren't happy enough at work Automating the good old “floggings will continue until staff morale improves”. Though given a choice between that and the utterly cringy gamification¹ that some managers² seem to think doesn't make us want to high-five them in the face with a chair, I know which I'd hate least. [1] which thankfully seems to be going out of fashion, but it'll…

> efficiency encouragers

That is quite the title. Imagine if they would just work and you actually had someone to help you. A whole new universe of productivity.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#29

I'm convinced that keeping track if your employee is visibly working or not is so fundamentally wrong. Especially in an office setting. Just look at the output. Nothing more. Does the employee provide value at the end of the day or not. That's important. Not hours or anything else.

It is an excuse for bad management that cannot set goals and verify if they are reached or not.

To be honest you should immediately exploit that for your own career. Office surveillance exploiters wouldn't hold back as well. Tell them you want set goals and no surveillance, make your employment conditional to that. If that doesn't work go to the next higher instance. If it is only the CEO or owner and he supports it, change the company. Otherwise make an offer to replace the manager or being elevated to the same position with defined goals. Often just a little resistance is enough.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#30
post #26

Feels like every damn thing that happens gets used as a pretext to enable more and more surveillance. Will we need job boards specifically for jobs that don't do surveillance too? >Last year Fujitsu, a Japanese technology group, unveiled AI software which promises to gauge employees’ concentration based on their facial expression. Just need software that punishes employees who aren't happy enough at work, then we'll…

> Feels like every damn thing that happens gets used as a pretext to enable more and more surveillance. If bosses could have slaves working for them, a vast majority of them would use slaves in an instant, without thinking about it. At best, they'd use a contractor or two removed from them, to mitigate the ethical accusations (same way they justify the use of sweatshops, child labor in mines, violently threatening an…

^This a thousand times over. The workers' benefits we enjoy today in Europe like 8 hour workdays, minimum 20 days vacation, paid sick leave, free healthcare, pensions, unemployment benefits, etc. were due to the communist movements sweeping Europe after WW2 which governments and industrialists fought hard to suppress so they had to give concessions to the workers in order to keep their business afloat and prevent them from rioting/striking.

But, the collective labor pushback has stopped since the great offshoring took over in the last 30 years thanks to globalization, and various labor unions lost their power as the great industrialists moved the labor intensive jobs overseas where they could easily enforce their 19-th century norms and environmentally damaging practices and make killer profits, which in term bought them more lobbying power and political influence back home to push for lax immigration and lax trade policies with oppressive regimes, to further water down local wages and working conditions to "increase economic competitiveness" with those oppressive regimes.

Now we're slowly moving back to longer working hours and worse working conditions, but not by force like in the past, but by making housing and living so insanely expensive and getting a job so competitive, that the only chance people have is to willingly sacrifice the quality of life to get a head start in the rat race over everyone else, unless they were lucky enough to inherit some generational wealth that has appreciated, like a house.

Couple this with economic policies where at every crisis or dip in the economy, the well off, asset holder and big companies get further boosted up and amass even more wealth, while the lesser well off and small business go bust and end up worse off and pushed "further back on the monopoly board".

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