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WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

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Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#81

Post by ResearchCode »

hmmSceptical wrote: post #37
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #20

Nearly 20 years ago we used to install monitoring software to tell if a user's mouse or keyboard hadn't been used in a while. More and more places use traffic inspection "for security". Desks now use sensors to tell when warm bodies are near. Doesn't matter whether you're working from office or in the home, surveillance is here to stay. Good businesses should only care if work is getting accomplished. Bad businesses…

> Bad businesses will continue to use draconian methods to try to squeeze productivity rather than foster it What about jobs that aren't creative like coding or graphic design? Some jobs are simply "sit in your chair and do work". The productivity metrics aren't speculative - they are measurable. You may argue "these are jobs for AI" - but realistically alot of jobs are a way off from this. Why shouldn't the "product…

> If you work at "university" and "prove" 1 conjecture a year and your colleagues do 100, should you not be fired?

No, because that isn't enough context.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#82

Post by candiddevmike »

mantas wrote: post #63
gchamonlive wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quit the bad ones, join the good ones. This is why universal income is extremely important, so that people can pursue better jobs without risking being vulnerable.

Universal income covering the very basic would still keep people making beyond minimum wage vulnerable. Paying meaningful money would be too expensive at scale. Then few jobs could pay meaningfully more than the universal income. Why work if you get +/- not working?

Why work now at minimum wage if it won't get you out of poverty?

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#83

Post by jupp0r »

LightBug1 wrote: post #59

I run a couple essential apps in a Virtualbox on my work laptop. Mainly due to compatability but more and more so due to privacy and articles like this. Am I right in thinking that anything that goes on inside that Virtualbox is 'relatively' private? I don't believe our IT department have the capacity to go beyond something like Office 365 Admin, but who knows. Thanks,

What goes on in your virtual box is not private if the host machine is not under your control.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#84

Post by transpute »

LightBug1 wrote: post #62
cma wrote: post #58

Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash: > Y.T.'s mom pulls up the new memo, checks the time, and starts reading it. The estimated reading time is 15.62 minutes. Later, when Marietta does her end-of-day statistical roundup, sitting in her private office at 9:00 P.M., she will see the name of each employee and next to it, the amount of time spent reading this memo... > Y.T.'s mom decides to spend between fourteen and fifteen min…

I remember the stress building up in me as I read that part of the book ...

TikTok's user profiling algorithm pays close attention to time spent on microcontent. Twitter may be going down a similar path.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#85

Post by midasuni »

kmatthews812 wrote: post #7

Full disclosure. I just built this for Google Workspace (www.gofasterhq.com). I built it because it's a tool I wish I had when managing teams in the past. These articles are very one sided and there is a productive middle ground to be established using productivity management tools. As a manager, it can be difficult to know what your team is working on and who is actually productive, especially in a remote environmen…

> As a manager, it can be difficult to know what your team is working on and who is actually productive,

Literally your job. Yes it’s difficult, which is why they pay you rather than automate it. Or get someone on minimum wage to do it.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#86

Post by candiddevmike »

hmmSceptical wrote: post #44
wmf wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The productivity metrics aren't speculative - they are measurable. So measure the output, not the mouse, not the keyboard, not the chair, etc.

"output" only matters if your company is paid by "results" and isn't based on billable hours, otherwise ... "output" doesn't matter. Law firms would love every case to be solved in 2 hours if they still got the same $ value from a case that dragged on for 6 months.

This already happens. You really think places bill at cost?

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#87

Post by bequanna »

LightBug1 wrote: post #59

I run a couple essential apps in a Virtualbox on my work laptop. Mainly due to compatability but more and more so due to privacy and articles like this. Am I right in thinking that anything that goes on inside that Virtualbox is 'relatively' private? I don't believe our IT department have the capacity to go beyond something like Office 365 Admin, but who knows. Thanks,

I’ve always thought it was a good rule that if you don’t want your employer to know about it, don’t do it on a company machine.

Assume they can see everything.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#89

Post by hmmSceptical »

ResearchCode wrote: post #81
hmmSceptical wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bad businesses will continue to use draconian methods to try to squeeze productivity rather than foster it What about jobs that aren't creative like coding or graphic design? Some jobs are simply "sit in your chair and do work". The productivity metrics aren't speculative - they are measurable. You may argue "these are jobs for AI" - but realistically alot of jobs are a way off from this. Why shouldn't the "product…

> If you work at "university" and "prove" 1 conjecture a year and your colleagues do 100, should you not be fired? No, because that isn't enough context.

Comparing a research role in mathematics vs "boxing a big shipping co" is not the same.

Its reasonable to expect a research mathematician to output 0-1 result a year, packing 1 box a year at "big shipping co" is not "reasonable".

You reframed my entire argument about low skilled / measurable "output" jobs back into the "creative" realm, which i've said isn't as easy to measure.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#90

Post by ResearchCode »

hmmSceptical wrote: post #89
ResearchCode wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you work at "university" and "prove" 1 conjecture a year and your colleagues do 100, should you not be fired? No, because that isn't enough context.

Comparing a research role in mathematics vs "boxing a big shipping co" is not the same. Its reasonable to expect a research mathematician to output 0-1 result a year, packing 1 box a year at "big shipping co" is not "reasonable". You reframed my entire argument about low skilled / measurable "output" jobs back into the "creative" realm, which i've said isn't as easy to measure.

No, I am comparing it to software development. Software development is not further away from research mathematics than it is from shipping boxes.
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