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Workplace surveillance is coming for you

pluralistic.net

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Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#51

Post by helloworld97 »

nopehnnope wrote: post #49
avg_dev wrote: post #23

Damn, I had some fairly old opinion of Doctorow where I disliked him for some reason or other, but I am definitely revising that. I thought this was a great article. I am certain “bossware” will accelerate the downfall of already shitty workplaces. Very happy to hear Amazon is doing away with it. Strongly hope their workers unionize anyway. What kind of employer nickle-and-dimes a worker’s bathroom breaks? Not a good…

This is the unintended consequence of anti discrimination laws (and other laws, like those protecting unions, that defeat at-will employment). Easiest way to fire shitty employees is to document a bunch of technical rule violations. That will create a rock solid paper trail that will stand up in court. Otherwise, they will claim some kind of discrimination and it’s your word about their performance against theirs cal…

That's some pretzel logic there. They can't arbitrarily implement/enforce rules without first disclosing them, and it looks bad in a court of peers if they start doing this haphazardly. I would actually say it's easier for them to get away with this in an at-will environment without these rules.

"Position was eliminated" works pretty well (in the US).

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#52

Post by bheadmaster »

I'm currently reading "The Tyranny of Metrics" which provides a decent analysis of how over-measuring things that don't have anything to do with the real goal often serves as a deterrent to real progress.

What managers want to know is how much do their workers contribute to the success of the company. What they measure is how much time do workers spend doing X. They're completely glossing over the middle step of how does the time spent doing X contribute to the success of the company, which is usually taken as some kind of linear equation.

Over-measurement is often worse than not measuring anything at all.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#54

Post by jacquesm »

nopehnnope wrote: post #49
avg_dev wrote: post #23

Damn, I had some fairly old opinion of Doctorow where I disliked him for some reason or other, but I am definitely revising that. I thought this was a great article. I am certain “bossware” will accelerate the downfall of already shitty workplaces. Very happy to hear Amazon is doing away with it. Strongly hope their workers unionize anyway. What kind of employer nickle-and-dimes a worker’s bathroom breaks? Not a good…

This is the unintended consequence of anti discrimination laws (and other laws, like those protecting unions, that defeat at-will employment). Easiest way to fire shitty employees is to document a bunch of technical rule violations. That will create a rock solid paper trail that will stand up in court. Otherwise, they will claim some kind of discrimination and it’s your word about their performance against theirs cal…

This is complete nonsense. The easiest way to fire shitty employees is to fire them for being shitty, which you should have documented to begin with.

This has absolutely nothing to do with anti discrimination law.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#55

Post by pnf »

I can't recall the name of it but there was a pre-pandemic startup for remote teams where it took a picture of you at your desk every few minutes to share with your team, supposedly to achieve less lonely remote-only workplaces. They marketed it as pro-worker, lol.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#56

Post by nopehnnope »

helloworld97 wrote: post #51
nopehnnope wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the unintended consequence of anti discrimination laws (and other laws, like those protecting unions, that defeat at-will employment). Easiest way to fire shitty employees is to document a bunch of technical rule violations. That will create a rock solid paper trail that will stand up in court. Otherwise, they will claim some kind of discrimination and it’s your word about their performance against theirs cal…

That's some pretzel logic there. They can't arbitrarily implement/enforce rules without first disclosing them, and it looks bad in a court of peers if they start doing this haphazardly. I would actually say it's easier for them to get away with this in an at-will environment without these rules. "Position was eliminated" works pretty well (in the US).

It’s great that you think that, but what I described is what the government does (because of civil service protections) and what every sane HR department with a high legal risk workforce does. Any US employment lawyer would advise that you follow this practice.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#57

Post by swayvil »

nopehnnope wrote: post #49
avg_dev wrote: post #23

Damn, I had some fairly old opinion of Doctorow where I disliked him for some reason or other, but I am definitely revising that. I thought this was a great article. I am certain “bossware” will accelerate the downfall of already shitty workplaces. Very happy to hear Amazon is doing away with it. Strongly hope their workers unionize anyway. What kind of employer nickle-and-dimes a worker’s bathroom breaks? Not a good…

This is the unintended consequence of anti discrimination laws (and other laws, like those protecting unions, that defeat at-will employment). Easiest way to fire shitty employees is to document a bunch of technical rule violations. That will create a rock solid paper trail that will stand up in court. Otherwise, they will claim some kind of discrimination and it’s your word about their performance against theirs cal…

Re : documenting transgressions.

Local food co-op. Very modern hippy. Nice place.

Every employee has a dossier on file. Every time a rule is broken it goes into the dossier.

If, for whatever reason, you are fired. The dossier is cited as legal justification.

I guess this is perfectly rational from a businessy perspective, and a common tactic. But still.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#58

Post by hedora »

avg_dev wrote: post #23

Damn, I had some fairly old opinion of Doctorow where I disliked him for some reason or other, but I am definitely revising that. I thought this was a great article. I am certain “bossware” will accelerate the downfall of already shitty workplaces. Very happy to hear Amazon is doing away with it. Strongly hope their workers unionize anyway. What kind of employer nickle-and-dimes a worker’s bathroom breaks? Not a good…

Read some of his young adult fiction, then get all gag-me-with-a-spoon over the coming of age stuff. (But then stay for the occasional afterward by Bruce Schneier…)

You may enjoy Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem.

Peloton will eventually start climbing the STAC ladder (it’s literally their only remaining move). Between that, permanent covid mitigations and the office-space downsizings of the late 2020’s, Gilliam’s vision will be complete!

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#59

Post by nopehnnope »

jacquesm wrote: post #54
nopehnnope wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the unintended consequence of anti discrimination laws (and other laws, like those protecting unions, that defeat at-will employment). Easiest way to fire shitty employees is to document a bunch of technical rule violations. That will create a rock solid paper trail that will stand up in court. Otherwise, they will claim some kind of discrimination and it’s your word about their performance against theirs cal…

This is complete nonsense. The easiest way to fire shitty employees is to fire them for being shitty, which you should have documented to begin with. This has absolutely nothing to do with anti discrimination law.

That “complete nonsense” is what US employment lawyers would advise you. But hey, some French guy on the internet knows more.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#60

Post by sillystuff »

nopehnnope wrote: post #49
avg_dev wrote: post #23

Damn, I had some fairly old opinion of Doctorow where I disliked him for some reason or other, but I am definitely revising that. I thought this was a great article. I am certain “bossware” will accelerate the downfall of already shitty workplaces. Very happy to hear Amazon is doing away with it. Strongly hope their workers unionize anyway. What kind of employer nickle-and-dimes a worker’s bathroom breaks? Not a good…

This is the unintended consequence of anti discrimination laws (and other laws, like those protecting unions, that defeat at-will employment). Easiest way to fire shitty employees is to document a bunch of technical rule violations. That will create a rock solid paper trail that will stand up in court. Otherwise, they will claim some kind of discrimination and it’s your word about their performance against theirs cal…

This is the result of managers who have no idea how to do the tasks of the employees they are "managing". E.g., non-technical manager managing technical employees who uses silly metrics like LOC because he/she has no idea how to evaluate the employee's performance.

Also, upper management somehow feel that their middle and lower managers can be trusted to act like adults while the people who do the actual work cannot be.

The proper solution is getting rid of management, and letting workers get their jobs done.

https://hbr.org/2011/12/first-lets-fire-all-the-managers

https://www.inventium.com.au/learned-fired-managers/

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