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This isn't happening in any respectable sector I'd hope. When a bigger company bought the smaller software company where I worked, almost the first thing they

This isn't happening in any respectable sector I'd hope. When a bigger company bought the smaller software company where I worked, almost the first thing they tried to do was change all the contracts to include things like universal IP claims and getting more visibility and control over things people were doing away from the office. This culture was becoming pervasive even a few years ago, and the arrogance and contempt exhibited by the senior executive who came to tell us about it was almost unbelievable. It felt like he watched Darth Vader's "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further" scene and thought it was an instruction manual. The only meaningful difference seems to be that since it was a software business, a significant proportion of the developers essentially telling them to shove their deal or we'd walk was powerful enough to put a stop to it. Obviously people working in unskilled jobs where staff are fungible aren't so lucky. We're supposed to have employment laws to protect people in vulnerable positions like that from exploitation, but welcome to 2018 I guess.

DoubleGlazing 9y ago
The Darth Vader quote rings true with me. I was working at a logistics firm in its in-house dev team. There was a constant push to increase employee tracking. Toilets were fitted with swipe card readers, we were encouraged to "give time" to the company for free, and we came under huge pressure to install various apps on our phones so that we were always "connected in" to company operations. Some people accepted this, some refused. When there was too much push-back management just implemented it anyways. For example, I wrote the performance monitoring web application. Each employees manager would rate them 1 (good) to 4 (bad) on 10 criteria (e.g. punctuality, quality of work etc). The scores would be averaged and you'd end up with a 1 to 4 rating. I was asked to change it so that an average score greater than 2.2 would automatically become a 4 and also a manager could arbitrarily lower the overall score if they wished. So someone getting a 1 average could be moved to a 4 if their manager felt like it. This formula was baked in to everyone's employment contract, so legally the company would have had to notify all staff and get their approval to make the change. I raised ethical concerns but was told to implement it and not tell anyone, or risk getting fired. I told people anyway, I knew I wasn't going to be working there much longer.

DoubleGlazing 9y ago

The Darth Vader quote rings true with me. I was working at a logistics firm in its in-house dev team. There was a constant push to increase employee tracking. Toilets were fitted with swipe card readers, we were encouraged to "give time" to the company for free, and we came under huge pressure to install various apps on our phones so that we were always "connected in" to company operations. Some people accepted this, some refused. When there was too much push-back management just implemented it anyways. For example, I wrote the performance monitoring web application. Each employees manager would rate them 1 (good) to 4 (bad) on 10 criteria (e.g. punctuality, quality of work etc). The scores would be averaged and you'd end up with a 1 to 4 rating. I was asked to change it so that an average score greater than 2.2 would automatically become a 4 and also a manager could arbitrarily lower the overall score if they wished. So someone getting a 1 average could be moved to a 4 if their manager felt like it. This formula was baked in to everyone's employment contract, so legally the company would have had to notify all staff and get their approval to make the change. I raised ethical concerns but was told to implement it and not tell anyone, or risk getting fired. I told people anyway, I knew I wasn't going to be working there much longer.