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Workplace surveillance is coming for you

pluralistic.net

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Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#191

Post by asdff »

Kalium wrote: post #129
bart_spoon wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aside: anyone who wants to talk about doing data analysis without access to the underlying data is cordially invited to explain how to do this to statisticians who only understand R and local Jupyter notebooks. Provision some isolated machines with access to production data, and let the data scientists login remotely. You'll be able to tell who is accessing the data and when, and won't need to install invasive boss…

Now you need to convince them to use this system. You also need to convince them to not use this system, where they're injecting arbitrary code into the sandbox remote machine, to download the data to their local machines where they can work in the way they understand and are comfortable with. Inevitably some person will react badly to the perceived lack of trust or object to what they see as making their job more di…

You can never perfect endpoint monitoring. At the very least, the engineer could see data, go to the bathroom, and write down what they saw on a scrap of paper. As long as eyeballs see data this is possible no mater what software you install on device, or even if you have an armed guard sitting in the office right behind the engineer.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#192

Post by asdff »

mattnewton wrote: post #34

I’ve recently watched Brazil, and the film has one of the most chilling dystopian views I’ve ever seen because it’s easy to see yourself as part of the machine doing your best just trying to get by. Similarly, I can see how the people working in this software slipped into this- they identified a need in the market with WFH, tried prototypes that were well received on the market, and keep iterating. Many of them legit…

>employees pretending to work and milking them

Why don't bosses just fire their managers and hire better ones than contract some software? It should be impossible to milk your employer if you are expected to be contributing. Anyone on your team will see right away you are full of shit if you are actually full of shit. If they can get the job done half assed, and people are none the wiser, then good for that employee figuring out how to optimize their time while still delivering acceptable performance that no one is complaining about.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#194

Post by asdff »

Raidion wrote: post #153
padolsey wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Over-measurement is often worse than not measuring anything at all. Yes. Not only is "time spent" or "code written" or "features implemented" or even "user engagement" a lossy metric in the best of cases but it can literally end up doing the exact opposite of what you intended. Campbell's & Goodhart's laws are often cited. The trap I see in software companies is a hyperfocus on quantifiable short term wins, entirel…

You never want to built anything shoddily, but there is a lot of value in doing minimum scope. Testing, clean code, etc shouldn't be negotiable in most shops, but scope can be really trimmed down in a lot of scenarios. Universe Z: - Programmer X implements feature A in 1 week with tiny scope - Feature B is mothballed and never gets built Universe A: - Programmer X implements feature in 2 weeks - One year later: This…

If you really wanted to get into waste, how about the building to spec process?

Spec universe: engineer makes thing. bean counters believe they will be out of business if others see how thing is made and copywright their code. another engineer wants to make the same thing. a second engineer has to be brought in to write up a spec. the other engineer now tries to reinvent this wheel from basically a telephone game description on how it should work and behave. as a result any time an engineer needs a wheel you need a second engineer to describe it to you so you can reinvent the wheel.

open source universe: engineer makes thing. second engineer forks thing.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#195

Post by etothepii »

padolsey wrote: post #65
bheadmaster wrote: post #52

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 ho…

> Over-measurement is often worse than not measuring anything at all. Yes. Not only is "time spent" or "code written" or "features implemented" or even "user engagement" a lossy metric in the best of cases but it can literally end up doing the exact opposite of what you intended. Campbell's & Goodhart's laws are often cited. The trap I see in software companies is a hyperfocus on quantifiable short term wins, entirel…

Universe Y is fine if the company is certain to survive for one year but it is quite possible that slow development of features will mean that in Universe Y there is no Programmer B to benefit from the beautiful API.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#196

Post by wussboy »

beeboop wrote: post #160
amelius wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Boss took big risks, so save that poop for when you get home."

Yes, took risks with lots of money that he inherited or borrowed from dad

"When I started this company, all I had was a dream and 6 million pounds."

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#197

Post by bigDinosaur »

skyfaller wrote: post #141
bigDinosaur wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This stuff is worse than the Death Star. At least that thing made no pretence about helping its targets. I cannot fathom how much my mood has dropped on reading about Bossware. I'd do pretty much anything in my career to avoid it.

I was referring to some material from the no-longer canon Star Wars Extended Universe, where it was referred to during development as the "Imperial Planetary Ore Extractor", and some characters working on its design genuinely believed (due to brainwashing) that the Death Star "was developed to break up dead, lifeless planets to extract the valuable ores and elements within". https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Qwi_Xux O…

Thanks for the context, I was unaware.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#198

Post by agileAlligator »

skyfaller wrote: post #30
agileAlligator wrote: post #2

Does anyone else not like the design of this website or is it just me? I find the articles fascinating, but the design I don't jive with...

It's really just the font I hate. In the past I've used Reader Mode in Firefox to make it readable, but just now I went into Ublock Origin to change the font to something I like, using the suggestions from this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/r4gzzl/how_do... pluralistic.net##*:style(font-family: Fira Sans !important) If you like your default browser font, you could instead just unset it…

It's not so much the font as it is the lack of separators for me. There's no lines or anything separating one article from the rest, and when I click continue reading it takes me to the heading of that article in the page for that day rather than a separate page for the article. These two things are specifically what bother me.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#200

Post by bigDinosaur »

Silhouette wrote: post #176
fezfight wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know some people with IBS for who that would amount to discrimination.

And likewise for many other medical conditions. Or being female and unlucky with the effects of your cycle. Or just having a rough day because something you ate was bad. It's one thing if there's an ongoing pattern of long, unexplained breaks and someone's line manager has a discreet word about it and asks if there is anything they need to know. However routinely messing with things like breaks or availability of kit…

Bathroom breaks would have to get extreme before management has the slightest place in bringing it up as an issue. Anyway, if someone is getting their work done, why does it matter how many breaks they take?
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