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When I was younger, I had a boss that had security cameras around our small office. When he was at home (which was half the week), he would watch us through th

When I was younger, I had a boss that had security cameras around our small office. When he was at home (which was half the week), he would watch us through the cameras. These cameras also had two-way audio, so I would be having a conversation with my co-worker and he would butt into the conversation..through the camera. I only lasted about 3 months before I quit. There is still an active, private, Facebook group with ex-employees of this company. The boss was so horrible..it's almost like people needed a support group.

Theodores 7y ago
Same but different tyrant-boss but no two way audio. We didn't have gigabit broadband back then, therefore whenever the boss was on the cameras the internet went slow. Therefore we always knew that if the internet was slow we had to be on best behaviour. We never told him how we knew when he was watching or let him know that we knew, it was an office wide open secret amongst us though. Funny times. The off topic highlight was when a young French girl was being interviewed. I happened to be in earshot and I almost fainted. Straight up she was asked about her plans to start a family. They didn't want to hire someone who might cost them maternity pay down the line, hence the opening question that brazenly got straight into the sexism. She took the job. I too only lasted three months before I quit.
- JudgeWapner 7y ago
  you should have hacked the camera drivers, a-la Speed, to show the same footage of people diligently staring at screens with their hands neatly placed on the home row.
- pstch 7y ago
  > Straight up she was asked about her plans to start a family. They didn't want to hire someone who might cost them maternity pay down the line In France, you can lie to that question without legal repercussions, even when currently pregnant, and refusing to hire someone for the reason you stated (and a long list of other reasons) would be illegal. Does this kind of thing exist in the US, even if only in some states ?
taw20190601prod 7y ago
Throwaway to avoid being identified. In my company our product person was working remotely. For a short stint he was elevated to head of engineering, even though he had absolutely no idea about how engineers work. It was around that time that he presented the idea of a webcam pointed at us with open audio all day, so that he could be in the loop. We quickly shot down that idea, together with his recommendation to "have trello constantly open in one of our monitors". During his stint the complete engineering team including me practically evaporated, only one or two people stayed on... He's still going on, as he's friends with the CEO. This anecdote is probably a bit off topic to the article as this was not for "security", but it goes to show how many people are so open to the idea of cameras to solve their little problems.
- vidarh 7y ago
  The camera bit in that case doesn't seem so bad to me - as long as he'd do it two way, and it was positioned so that it wasn't much different from a "portal" to someones desk, and audio similarly calibrates so he wouldn't hear muted conversations at other peoples desks. From the "trello constantly open" bit it sounds like he had something more excessive in mind though.

Theodores 7y ago

Same but different tyrant-boss but no two way audio. We didn't have gigabit broadband back then, therefore whenever the boss was on the cameras the internet went slow. Therefore we always knew that if the internet was slow we had to be on best behaviour. We never told him how we knew when he was watching or let him know that we knew, it was an office wide open secret amongst us though. Funny times. The off topic highlight was when a young French girl was being interviewed. I happened to be in earshot and I almost fainted. Straight up she was asked about her plans to start a family. They didn't want to hire someone who might cost them maternity pay down the line, hence the opening question that brazenly got straight into the sexism. She took the job. I too only lasted three months before I quit.

JudgeWapner 7y ago
you should have hacked the camera drivers, a-la Speed, to show the same footage of people diligently staring at screens with their hands neatly placed on the home row.
pstch 7y ago
> Straight up she was asked about her plans to start a family. They didn't want to hire someone who might cost them maternity pay down the line In France, you can lie to that question without legal repercussions, even when currently pregnant, and refusing to hire someone for the reason you stated (and a long list of other reasons) would be illegal. Does this kind of thing exist in the US, even if only in some states ?

taw20190601prod 7y ago

Throwaway to avoid being identified. In my company our product person was working remotely. For a short stint he was elevated to head of engineering, even though he had absolutely no idea about how engineers work. It was around that time that he presented the idea of a webcam pointed at us with open audio all day, so that he could be in the loop. We quickly shot down that idea, together with his recommendation to "have trello constantly open in one of our monitors". During his stint the complete engineering team including me practically evaporated, only one or two people stayed on... He's still going on, as he's friends with the CEO. This anecdote is probably a bit off topic to the article as this was not for "security", but it goes to show how many people are so open to the idea of cameras to solve their little problems.

vidarh 7y ago
The camera bit in that case doesn't seem so bad to me - as long as he'd do it two way, and it was positioned so that it wasn't much different from a "portal" to someones desk, and audio similarly calibrates so he wouldn't hear muted conversations at other peoples desks. From the "trello constantly open" bit it sounds like he had something more excessive in mind though.