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Workplace surveillance is coming for you

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Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#201

Post by useruser1234 »

sillystuff wrote: post #60
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 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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#203

Post by 6510 »

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…

Jeff Bezos is the urine man. He made his billions by banning urination. Everything depended on it.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#204

Post by Silhouette »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #200
Silhouette wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Sometimes people do abuse the system. Sometimes they have a real medical issue. Sometimes they're being treated badly at the office and they're just desperate to get out of that environment and don't know how to tell anyone or get help. It's not always obvious what is happening or why.

Any of these situations can mean someone isn't getting their work done. Their colleagues might be left to pick up the slack, which isn't fair on them either. Any of the people involved might start to worry or get upset about the situation, which can make things worse.

Whatever is going on it's management's responsibility to figure it out and then deal with it professionally and with appropriate discretion and sensitivity. The difficult part is figuring out what that looks like when the situation could be delicate and there might be anything from very personal medical issues to criminal behaviour involved.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#205

Post by hoseja »

giantg2 wrote: post #89
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What kind of employer nickle-and-dimes a worker’s bathroom breaks? I had a teacher in high school who would respond the same way (more or less) whenever someone would ask to use the restroom: > If you ever have a job that needs you to ask to use the restroom, find a better job.

There are some strict time-keeping requirements for bathroom use when it comes to certain contracts, like government ones. It wasn't too bad, but I forget the specifics. It was like it had to be less than 5 minutes, or you use your 15 minute breaks or lunch for anything longer.

I can imagine somebody somewhere spent their whole days in the bathroom and management in its infinite wisdom, instead of (or in addition to) firing the dude instituted this sort of smoothbrained policy.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#206

Post by Ancalagon »

skyfaller wrote: post #22

On workplace surveillance / "bossware": > Mazzoli seems to have either not used his product, or, if he did, did so under conditions where he was in charge of it – using it the way an athlete might use a stopwatch to time their own sprints, and not the way a boss might: to decide whether to dock your pay or fire you. > This inability to understand the difference between using a technology and having the same technolog…

Oh come on. He's playing dumb for the positive PR view. Of course he knows what his product is going to be used for.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#207

Post by Breza »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #173
giantg2 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some strict time-keeping requirements for bathroom use when it comes to certain contracts, like government ones. It wasn't too bad, but I forget the specifics. It was like it had to be less than 5 minutes, or you use your 15 minute breaks or lunch for anything longer.

I have written many government contracts and I can tell you that there are no federal timekeeping requirements that would mandate that level of granularity. Whomever wrote that contract was a doofus.

Some contractors record a lot more detail than their contract requires. I've worked on government contracts. One workplace had a timekeeping system for DOD and a separate one for the corporate overlord. The latter was much more detailed. It was a pain to fill out multiple time cards.
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