4 ms·

Well, as a software developer, I don't mind my work being monitored as long as I am unaware that the employer is monitoring me. If I know the employer is monito

Well, as a software developer, I don't mind my work being monitored as long as I am unaware that the employer is monitoring me. If I know the employer is monitoring me I will become self-conscious and the employer would then, in essence, destroy my productivity. However, like writers, coders think about what they are going to write next and web search stuff a lot more than they code so monitoring a developer in real time would probably be pretty boring - and employers would probably be dismayed at how much they pay us to google/cut/paste/modify/test. In all seriousness though the situation is that, privacy concerns be damned, if valuable data can be collected it will be collected. Absent laws protecting worker privacy, employers will collect as much information about you as they can and use it in whatever way the deem necessary. It's a sad and unfortunate truth.

myspy 7y ago
Well and it needs to be prohibited with absurd large amounts of fines when doing it any way. When you can‘t make goals and check their success as a manager without surveillance you need to stop managing people.
- massivecali 7y ago
  That would mean they have to resort to manually adjusting the velocity indicator on a spreadsheet.
- crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  As long as "right to work" (anti-unionization) and "at-will" (immediately fired for no reason, or any reason listed as non-protected) states exist, those states will be free to implement whatever checks on employees. And they will be free to make decisions on this data without ever disclosing it, hence the 'at-will' status of the state. And if they are put in a position of court, the company will have ample data to show cause, even if the employee never explicitly approved or knew. The 'right-to-work' also protects companies since unions that are formed can't force employees to pay into the union... Yet the union must negotiate for all employees, including the ones who refuse. In this way, "right-to-work" is a way to drain and kill unions by attacking their solvency. Perhaps through Europe, their governments care more for workers. In the US, I have no illusion that the local governments, the state government, the federal government, or the company I work for truly cares for us workers. The worse times shows just how little we workers are thought of. (Edit: And I deal with, as a system administrator, that no demographic or monitoring shows how we are performance-wise. If you count closed tix/day, each job gets split into X tickets for number bloating. Time to close is also sad because some tickets are autogen'd or long term projects. And like plumbers, our jobs aren't noticed UNTIL the 'shit' is backing into the sink. I've proposed only counting internal and external customers' time in our group, but that too encourages us to blame and bounce tickets to other groups to stop the clock. Tl;Dr. Sysads are even more fucked than devs that can show feature/ticket over time. We can't show 'crisis averted/ticket/time'.)
  - posterboy 7y ago
    ÄI wonder, why the downvotes
  - robdachshund 7y ago
    You do realize this isn't cut and dry right? If your industry is unionized, you just join and pay dues just to work, even if you have no interest. Unions also aggressively influence who you vote for in local and federal elections. What if you disagree with who they support? Doesn't matter, your dues will support them. What if you don't want to strike, but you are forced to? What if the union is not bargaining in your interests? What if your union is corrupt? Most of them are. Many of them are intertwined with organized crime. Unions are not perfect in virtue of their purported goal. A union does not automatically work in tour interest. Additionally, if you have problems in your workplace, perhaps the best thing to do is quit, or even form your own business. A company does not owe you anything but a wage for a job. There are ways to deal with bad actors other than creating a bureaucratic middle man to possibly help you. There are good arguments for both sides. I'd just like to illustrate that unions and regulations are not magical things that work perfectly out of good will.

myspy 7y ago

Well and it needs to be prohibited with absurd large amounts of fines when doing it any way. When you can‘t make goals and check their success as a manager without surveillance you need to stop managing people.

massivecali 7y ago
That would mean they have to resort to manually adjusting the velocity indicator on a spreadsheet.
crankylinuxuser 7y ago
As long as "right to work" (anti-unionization) and "at-will" (immediately fired for no reason, or any reason listed as non-protected) states exist, those states will be free to implement whatever checks on employees. And they will be free to make decisions on this data without ever disclosing it, hence the 'at-will' status of the state. And if they are put in a position of court, the company will have ample data to show cause, even if the employee never explicitly approved or knew. The 'right-to-work' also protects companies since unions that are formed can't force employees to pay into the union... Yet the union must negotiate for all employees, including the ones who refuse. In this way, "right-to-work" is a way to drain and kill unions by attacking their solvency. Perhaps through Europe, their governments care more for workers. In the US, I have no illusion that the local governments, the state government, the federal government, or the company I work for truly cares for us workers. The worse times shows just how little we workers are thought of. (Edit: And I deal with, as a system administrator, that no demographic or monitoring shows how we are performance-wise. If you count closed tix/day, each job gets split into X tickets for number bloating. Time to close is also sad because some tickets are autogen'd or long term projects. And like plumbers, our jobs aren't noticed UNTIL the 'shit' is backing into the sink. I've proposed only counting internal and external customers' time in our group, but that too encourages us to blame and bounce tickets to other groups to stop the clock. Tl;Dr. Sysads are even more fucked than devs that can show feature/ticket over time. We can't show 'crisis averted/ticket/time'.)
- posterboy 7y ago
  ÄI wonder, why the downvotes
- robdachshund 7y ago
  You do realize this isn't cut and dry right? If your industry is unionized, you just join and pay dues just to work, even if you have no interest. Unions also aggressively influence who you vote for in local and federal elections. What if you disagree with who they support? Doesn't matter, your dues will support them. What if you don't want to strike, but you are forced to? What if the union is not bargaining in your interests? What if your union is corrupt? Most of them are. Many of them are intertwined with organized crime. Unions are not perfect in virtue of their purported goal. A union does not automatically work in tour interest. Additionally, if you have problems in your workplace, perhaps the best thing to do is quit, or even form your own business. A company does not owe you anything but a wage for a job. There are ways to deal with bad actors other than creating a bureaucratic middle man to possibly help you. There are good arguments for both sides. I'd just like to illustrate that unions and regulations are not magical things that work perfectly out of good will.