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While having this kind of monitoring sucks (I had to do a similar thing at my last job and it’s awful and demoralizing), what exactly is unsafe about the work e

by smabie 7y ago

While having this kind of monitoring sucks (I had to do a similar thing at my last job and it’s awful and demoralizing), what exactly is unsafe about the work environment. What is illegal about it (in Europe)? It seems to me that the shitty environment is mostly due to the nature of the job itself: viewing unpleasant content all day long. While watching this garbage might constitute as “unsafe” I suppose, until AI can fully take over, there’s not much you can do about it. Is it illegal to have a time monitoring system in Europe? Vice is a pretty terrible news site and never actually answers the real questions. Instead we get a clickbait title with very little actual facts. Not that I’m particularly surprised, though.

itake 7y ago
To add to this, I really want to know why they felt they need to do this? My guess is someone was abusing the existing system and they needed to set tighter controls?
- Seenso 7y ago
  > To add to this, I really want to know why they felt they need to do this? My guess is someone was abusing the existing system and they needed to set tighter controls? My guess is some manager got it in his head to gather some bullshit metrics and evaluate people on them, and the affected employees are so low-status that they don't have the political power to push back. There's also probably a pretty but useless graph on a powerpoint involved.
- vkou 7y ago
  That guess is likely wrong. More likely, is that whomever set this department up, has a background in managing call centers, and they've just re-implemented all the same penny-pinching, degrading practices.
- mikekchar 7y ago
  I've worked in some big companies with call centres, etc. Often management is under pressure to achieve specific numbers for things. The pressure can be quite intense (i.e., either hit those numbers or we will replace you with someone else). They often convince themselves that the reasons they don't hit their numbers is because somebody is abusing their friendly demeanor. Sometimes that idea is also pushed onto them in their performance reviews. The main thing to realise is that often in these teams they hire just about anybody. They'll can pick up huge numbers of people a month with the idea that it's easier to let someone "prove themselves" and fire all the people who "don't perform" (statistics is usually not a strong point on these teams). People who survive for a long time are promoted into line management. Then it's the slippery pole all the way up (with everyone stomping on each other's face to get a leg up). There often isn't any respect given to other people. They are panning for gold, essentially. You are either gold or you are dirt. IT departments are usually quite civilised in comparison. This is mainly because of the difficulty of doing our jobs and the difficulty of finding replacements. You see much better treatment in all such departments, but often IT is the best of the lot.
save_ferris 7y ago
What about this piece is light on facts? I’ve read it and it seems pretty well substantiated. The question this piece is focusing on isn’t whether this behavior is legal or not. The question is whether or not it’s the right way to treat their people. Keep in mind that Facebook earns its living by harvesting data on users, mining it, and selling ads on it. Now they’ve demonstrated a willingness to demand to know every little detail about a worker’s day, presumably under the guise of productivity. People love to talk about surveillance capitalism and it’s similarly to “1984” (which I don’t necessarily disagree with), but here’s a perfect example of an authority demanding to know everything about you throughout the course of a day. Sure, they’re not a government, but given their size and power, they might as well be for the sake of this argument.
Barrin92 7y ago
>What is illegal about it (in Europe)? Employees are also covered by GDPR so depending on what they do with the data they may be violating regulations. As far as monitoring, in general, is concerned I'm not sure there is detailed legislation on bathrooms but the EU stipulates that employee monitoring needs to respect privacy and freedom, needs to be proportionate and on a necessity basis, and I think you could make a pretty good case that monitoring bathroom breaks violates all of those.
JanSt 7y ago
In Germany it would be a violation of personality rights to always monitor things like toilet time.

by smabie 7y ago

itake 7y ago

To add to this, I really want to know why they felt they need to do this? My guess is someone was abusing the existing system and they needed to set tighter controls?

Seenso 7y ago
> To add to this, I really want to know why they felt they need to do this? My guess is someone was abusing the existing system and they needed to set tighter controls? My guess is some manager got it in his head to gather some bullshit metrics and evaluate people on them, and the affected employees are so low-status that they don't have the political power to push back. There's also probably a pretty but useless graph on a powerpoint involved.
vkou 7y ago
That guess is likely wrong. More likely, is that whomever set this department up, has a background in managing call centers, and they've just re-implemented all the same penny-pinching, degrading practices.
mikekchar 7y ago
I've worked in some big companies with call centres, etc. Often management is under pressure to achieve specific numbers for things. The pressure can be quite intense (i.e., either hit those numbers or we will replace you with someone else). They often convince themselves that the reasons they don't hit their numbers is because somebody is abusing their friendly demeanor. Sometimes that idea is also pushed onto them in their performance reviews. The main thing to realise is that often in these teams they hire just about anybody. They'll can pick up huge numbers of people a month with the idea that it's easier to let someone "prove themselves" and fire all the people who "don't perform" (statistics is usually not a strong point on these teams). People who survive for a long time are promoted into line management. Then it's the slippery pole all the way up (with everyone stomping on each other's face to get a leg up). There often isn't any respect given to other people. They are panning for gold, essentially. You are either gold or you are dirt. IT departments are usually quite civilised in comparison. This is mainly because of the difficulty of doing our jobs and the difficulty of finding replacements. You see much better treatment in all such departments, but often IT is the best of the lot.

save_ferris 7y ago

What about this piece is light on facts? I’ve read it and it seems pretty well substantiated. The question this piece is focusing on isn’t whether this behavior is legal or not. The question is whether or not it’s the right way to treat their people. Keep in mind that Facebook earns its living by harvesting data on users, mining it, and selling ads on it. Now they’ve demonstrated a willingness to demand to know every little detail about a worker’s day, presumably under the guise of productivity. People love to talk about surveillance capitalism and it’s similarly to “1984” (which I don’t necessarily disagree with), but here’s a perfect example of an authority demanding to know everything about you throughout the course of a day. Sure, they’re not a government, but given their size and power, they might as well be for the sake of this argument.

Barrin92 7y ago

>What is illegal about it (in Europe)? Employees are also covered by GDPR so depending on what they do with the data they may be violating regulations. As far as monitoring, in general, is concerned I'm not sure there is detailed legislation on bathrooms but the EU stipulates that employee monitoring needs to respect privacy and freedom, needs to be proportionate and on a necessity basis, and I think you could make a pretty good case that monitoring bathroom breaks violates all of those.

JanSt 7y ago

In Germany it would be a violation of personality rights to always monitor things like toilet time.