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Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

economist.com

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

#71

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #27
dspillett wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I genuinely shiver when I read language like this despite being very much a corporate child. I count my blessings that, at least until now, even when I was tracked, my boss either cared about results or 'metrics' were good enough or the boss liked me.

I am not entirely certain how to prepare a child for this world. Short of running your own company, it will be hard to avoid the beast.

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

#72

Post by pmoriarty »

totetsu wrote: post #65

I recently had to install chrom'ium' on my work pc, because all the mainstream browsers were auto installing an un-removable tracking extension via some domain policy :(. I'm sure my manager gets some report at the end of the month detailing how many hours I had a news.ycombinator.com tab open

Why even use you work pc for non-work purposes?

If you want to browse HN, why not just browse it on your phone?

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

#73

Post by api »

imranq wrote: post #46
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^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 the…

Is getting a job so competitive? Last I heard there was a labor shortage

There is a shortage of people willing to work shitty jobs for shitty pay. Employers could fix this by either making the job less shitty or raising the pay.

The inflation complaint is similar. We've had ludicrous inflation in housing, college tuition, health care, and many other things for over a decade. Inflation is not a problem until it starts to hit wages and supply chains.

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

#75

Post by vharuck »

emptyparadise wrote: post #4

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…

Where's the software letting me surveil my supervisors? They're supposed to be spending some time and effort on me, so I have a legitimate need to make sure that's happening. There should be software that scans their emails and chat for discussions about open positions, projects, or trainings that are a good fit for me. Then it'll let me know if they recommended me, or mentioned my name in a negative context. Of course, we'll need AI for that. Maybe even let me just read the logs, to get a human in the loop. Purely a professional interest, of course.

/s

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

#76

Post by switch007 »

totetsu wrote: post #65

I recently had to install chrom'ium' on my work pc, because all the mainstream browsers were auto installing an un-removable tracking extension via some domain policy :(. I'm sure my manager gets some report at the end of the month detailing how many hours I had a news.ycombinator.com tab open

Same here. It’s touted as a security add on but it also just happens to do lots and lots of tracking and reports for management

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

#77

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #50
imranq wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is getting a job so competitive? Last I heard there was a labor shortage

If there really was a shortage, employers would offer concessions, better working conditions, WFH, more vacation days, etc. Just look at truck drivers or hospitality for example. Just because employers say it's a shortage doesn't always make it true or it doesn't mean it's not their fault for the shortage for refusing to offer better conditions. Depends on the field of course, but from my experience interviewing in t…

I think there are several factors that play into this and beyond the points you mentioned, I wanted to introduce one more.

Size of the companies appears to matter when it comes to accommodations. In my industry, companies are effectively offering the same WFH policy across the board making people like me suspicious that CEOs banded together to discuss 'best practices', but anecdata from social circle suggests that smaller companies do work to accommodate people they want to keep.

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

#78

Post by newsclues »

I worked in a telco call centre. Everything was recorded on our computers, whee as t we said on phones and they had cameras in the office to watch us, plus human supervisors.

And yet everyone still flaunted all the rules: we were drunk and on drugs, we ate and had our cellphones.

Rules exist to selectively enforce against people who are not liked.

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

#79

Post by bwestergard »

I'm a software developer working remotely most of the time. My unionized colleagues and I pushed for and won an agreement to prevent our employer from surveilling us in this manner. Several other recently organized companies have gotten similar agreements.

https://twitter.com/WeBuildNPR/status/1522586389774221313?cx...

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