36 ms·

It’s old-fashion management. If you don’t understand your employees workload and don’t trust them then either you resign or fire the employees. Simple as that.

by iask 6y ago

It’s old-fashion management. If you don’t understand your employees workload and don’t trust them then either you resign or fire the employees. Simple as that. I don’t see how this makes any employee productive. This adds more stress imo. An employee gives you 8 of their 12 hour day. Now, you tell me if that works only for you - the management. They’re people just like you. They have a life just like you. They have responsibilities similar to you. They might have a family similar to you. There’s no fucking way they can manage all this, giving you a focused 8 hour. They might need a few mins to pay a bill, lookup a medication, place a personal Online order. And many other activities that come with “living”, being alive. I am certain most managers that implement this are antisocial fucks. It’s poor management. Uneducated decision making. Now, it does has its place. For example in highly secured environments or when dealing with highly sensitive documents. But for a small or regular office, no! HR/Payroll companies such as ADP and Insperity need to start setting ground rules. I know that they’re in favor of the employer, however, it would make good on them.

bluntfang 6y ago
TBH these managers probably don't have work life balance, spend 12-16 hours a day on work, probably less than 4 are productive, and believe their subordinates and ingrates if they don't share the same "devotion" that they do, regardless of ability to complete the assigned job/task.
- mc32 6y ago
  And they probably pore over metrics more than anything else and prepare reporting based on a bunch of old queries and automated reports package it and send it off. They might also have chats with subordinates about those metrics and at the end think “what a good boy/girl am I!”
- gilrain 6y ago
  Maybe. We don't know what they're doing at their desks or away from the office, because they don't get surveiled like the plebs. Any manager who feels the need to peek over the shoulders of their workers should submit to the same.
  - subhobroto 6y ago
    > Any manager who feels the need to peek over the shoulders of their workers should submit to the same. Sounds like a "Tit for tat". Why? If I cut your finger off and stabbed you in your kidney, would it change your personal situation if you did the same? If your immediate boss calls you every 30 minutes you are away from work, you want to do the same? That's madness! There is no "poor management". What are these uneducated decision makers even doing at your place of work? There's always a boss. The boss is paying for the behavior they want to see. Now if you argue the ultimate boss is clueless, then, what are you even doing there? You might want to tell yourself that your immediate boss who calls you every 30 minutes you are away from work is just ineffective, but if he was not delivering on what his boss wanted from him, he would be gone. "Tit for tat" is a great children's activity. Adults are not children. If your boss behaves like a child it's time to have a conversation. Depending on your specific situation that conversation might very well be with a new company.
CydeWeys 6y ago
> An employee gives you 8 of their 12 hour day. How much sleep are you getting??
- EternalHeadache 6y ago
  I guess if you take into account commute, cooking, cleaning and other household tasks and errands it seems possible to only have 4 hours of true free time.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    You have to take into account weekends and days off too. Anyway, using the DOL's standard of 2,087 work hours in a work year, we can do the following calculation: 2,087 / (365.24 * 24) = 23.8% of your total time spent at work. Let's use a generous figure of 8 hours of sleep per night: 2,087 / (365.24 * 16) = 35.7% of your waking hours spent at work. The rest is your time, to spend however you choose to spend it, whether that's commuting, cooking, chores, errands, hobbies, whatever. And we haven't even factored in vacation and sick days -- the 2,087 work hours figure only includes federal holidays.
Kalium 6y ago
Once upon a time, I worked for a company in Kansas City where upper management genuinely had trouble with the idea that engineers were humans with lives outside the office. I was walking through their section of the office one day, and overheard the President of the company asking in tones of complete bewilderment why engineers were not voluntarily working twelve-hour days. Suffice to say that his confusion was reflected in how engineers were treated.
- GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
  Had the same experience in the midwest early in my career. Underpaid, overworked, our boss expected us to work weekends without any extra pay because we "all needed to pitch in". Corporate culture in the midwest is horrifically outdated.
  - Kalium 6y ago
    Honestly, I think this is less about the Midwest and more about purposely siting a company in a town with relatively low labor costs and few other options. At the time, there were few other choices for technology work in Kansas City.
  - pthomas551 6y ago
    Yep, an obsession with (the appearance of) "hard work" and "frugality" combined with hardcore nepotism is the Midwestern way.
    - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
      oh boy, nepotism is rampant. It might as well be a written rule, if your father works as a director, you can expect his kid gets to run a department for 6 figures a year
- tyingq 6y ago
  There was a time when that sort of made sense. When companies didn't lay people off during hard times, carried pensions that were risky for the company, etc. It seems like some didn't understand that loyalty goes both ways...pull one side and the other goes with it.
malux85 6y ago
Couldn't have said it better. One of the reasons I'm a supporter of universal basic income is so that the employees can have a better negotiating position. I suspect many bullshit rules will go out the window when the alternative to employment isn't destitution. For far too long has this negotiation been highly in favour of the employer.
- hangphyr 6y ago
  This is a bit of a tangent, but one should be careful with that path. Not all employers are 'evil' and have negative intentions for their employees. Think of an example such as the independently owned restaurant that cannot afford to pay employees high wages and their owners are not wealthy. Just as not all employees can be painted as untrustworthy and hostile, not all employers should be painted as untrustworthy and hostile.
  - chepaslaaa 6y ago
    I've been a line cook, restaurant owners are absolutely untrustworthy and hostile. The food industry is one where exploitation, highly aggressive staff retention practices (making employees dependent on you for a visa, threatening to spread lies about you, etc.), crazy unhealthy hours and just a generally awful culture are standard.
    - Avicebron 6y ago
      Can vouch for the life science industry being like this as well. Management threatened to make us check in every hour of work. Spending an eighth of that hour writing an explanatory email was pretty toxic.
    - gbmor 6y ago
      I've worked in the restaurant industry in the US. It's nothing short of horrifying, and often traumatizing for those involved. I've seen no overtime pay happen, lies from management to get unemployment claims denied, management not actually firing people but just giving them zero or reduced hours to mess with the unemployment claim process, the VISA fuckery you mentioned, harrassment. Intentional scheduling of conflicting days for people with multiple jobs. Being made to work 7 days a week for long periods of time. Being made to repeatedly close late at night / early in the morning and then open the restaurant the next morning, a few hours later, and work a double. Being made to work while sick (this happens a lot). A gold comment I heard from one manager was "I don't pay overtime because these motherfuckers already take enough of my money" (referring to the employees). This same guy was shaving time slips to keep them below 40 hours.
subhobroto 6y ago
> poor management. Uneducated decision making There is no "poor management". What are these uneducated decision makers even doing at your place of work? There's always a boss. The boss is paying for the behavior they want to see. Now if you argue the ultimate boss is clueless, then, what are you even doing there? You might want to tell yourself that your immediate boss who calls you every 30 minutes you are away from work is just ineffective, but if he was not delivering on what his boss wanted from him, he would be gone. > in highly secured environments or when dealing with highly sensitive documents Its about control. No matter how highly secured an environment is, human ingenuity can and will still work around it. There's literally several professions dedicated to it. NO matter how highly sensitive a document is, if someone decides to share it, they will. Crocodiles, fire pits, stripdowns, armed guards, MRIs or any camera is no obstacle to a determined individual. > If you don’t understand your employees workload and don’t trust them then either you resign or fire the employees. Nah - it's just about control. Look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA_fJh4lzqQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA_fJh4lzqQ Did "Jim" not know that he was on facebook for 8 hours yesterday? Will bringing that to his attention suddenly make him "more productive"? Why would it have that effect? You could try and fake empathy for the hand that feeds you (you have reason to!) but even if this kind of management had absolute clarity into employees workload, they still would do surveillance. Why? ... because their messaging is "we control you during the hours you work for us". It's unlikely anyone's watching the surveillance data and footage. Honestly, people don't have time and it's a very high noise-to-signal ratio activity. Even at retail where loss prevention is at least one dedicated department, it's impossible to follow up on surveillance data and footage. Do you honestly believe anyone would look a those verbose reports generated in the video at any detail? No. For all purposes, its not the how but the why. Control. All this talk about productivity, workload and trust are "feel good" concepts that give the illusion that there just some "miscommunication" happening. If only that "miscommunication" went away, everything would be perfect with the world again. It provides a distraction from the reality that the people one's working for are sycophants and extremely manipulative. The truth is - action has no miscommunication - it either works or it does not. The toilet needed to be scrubbed? Its either done or not done. Couldn't be done because someone was having a seizure there that required a team to come in and block the cleaning from happening? Check. If the cleaner had to badge in and out and had a camera mounted at the restroom entrance to check if they went in or out - does not have any relation to the job getting done. IF the individual cleaner was so determined to clean the restroom during the seizure, they would manage to do it. Russia, China and the companies that hire the likes of InterGuard Employee Monitoring for surveillance is doing it for control. Putin wants dirt on you so when you become a problem for him, he can use it against you. Surveillance is all about control.
crispyambulance 6y ago
> I am certain most managers that implement this are antisocial fucks. I agree. But the surveillance tools have been around for A LONG TIME, and people haven't really complained much about it. The thing is whenever people ask questions about how the surveillance is performed and how to respond to it, the answer (in the USA) has traditionally been something like "It's your employer's equipment, they can do whatever they want with their equipment-- don't do anything on it unless you want the man to know." Now, "the equipment" is at home. I don't think that makes much difference, but yeah, there's some interesting edge cases like turning on camera/microphone in employee home without employee consent. It makes me wonder about countermeasures. Is there a way to know if you're being screenshotted or some enterprise shit-ware is logging stuff? Yes, it's always true that it "could happen". I would like to know if it IS happening. Is that even possible?
- HumblyTossed 6y ago
  > Employees were to install software called Hubstaff immediately on their personal computers so it could track their mouse movements and keyboard strokes, and record the webpages they visited. They were told to put this on their "personal" computers. Not work computers. This is way over the line.
  - crispyambulance 6y ago
    Yes, of course, putting something like that on a personal machine is odious. But how do you tell if that or something like it is on your work machine? Look for "hubstaff.dll"? ... half kidding, but seriously how do you tell if there's corporate fuckery on your work machine (eg screenshotting, logging time on URLs, keylogging, etc etc)?
    - hirako2000 6y ago
      Apps for auto mouse movements exist. It's also possible auto feed a stream of recorded video to the cam. If my employer automated stuff to spy on me, I would automate to feed the troll in that same manner.
HumblyTossed 6y ago
I read a comment long time ago: Managers manage while Bosses react. These are clearly bosses not managers.
groby_b 6y ago
And yet, it's perfectly possible to give a focused 8 hours. If you can't give focused 8 hours, give a focused 7 and let's talk about that. But let's stop pretending it's an 8 hour workday then, shall we? The US habit of doing lots of random shit during work is absolutely nuts - because you can't do anything well if you're constantly switching tasks. Oddly, it's perfectly possible to have an environment where both are true - management trusts you to get work done, and you actually get focused work done. It "just" requires maturity on both sides. A willingness to honor an agreement on both sides, as opposed to constantly looking out for #1 only.
squnch 6y ago
Well you have to realize that most managers have no idea why they have it so good. When so many children are starving to death worldwide, why do they live in a 4 bedroom house with a pool? Do they have exceptional talent or intelligence? No. So they fundamentally operate from a place of fear. It’s like Twitter holding onto 140 characters forever — they had no idea why they were so successful, so their approach was “don’t touch it, you might break it.” If you are a heart surgeon or Lebron James you can understand why you are making so much money — you have exceptional skill at something in high demand. The average manager is more like someone who found a bank error in their favor and prays every morning that it isn’t discovered.
- luckylion 6y ago
  That sounds a bit dismissive. What if they realize "I'm not a super star, but I'm above average in these desired skills. Therefore I get a nice house, but no multi-acre villa like some NBA superstar". I think you're adding a bit too much personal animosity towards management.
  - squnch 6y ago
    It's not just management... it's all white collar middle class workers in America. Why aren't they inhaling dust in a coal mine or dying of a preventable disease? None of us really have any idea.
  - codemac 6y ago
    And I think you're giving management too much credit. The vast majority of management does not have goals/behaviors they are measured in. I'm still fascinated that it's largely considered impossible to have a VP count how many 1:1's a manager had or how many times they gave positive vs. negative feedback. Imagine if no one kept any statistics for any sports player, and just say "it's too hard, you have to manually count". Most managers should be fired, they largely are flailing around underneath directors who should also be fired, underneath VPs who have so little control over their org they largely are future predictors with no inputs (aka random output). I say this from a place of love - I think they're all working very hard. But I've only ever met 1 manager in my life that counted their small interactions with their reports to try and improve.
TheBobinator 6y ago
Your software records a phone call an employee made while not on the clock? Congratulations, That's a felony. Your software reports on their browser history when an employee is not on the clock, Congratulations, that's another felony. Your terminate someone because the software is saying they aren't at their computers the whole day, that's a class action lawsuit and possibly another felony. And all of it is EASY AS HELL TO PROOVE BECAUSE YOU MADE THE LOG FILES AND INSTRUCTED YOUR IT STAFF TO DO IT YOU DIPSHIT. Think that your employment contract which stipulates you get to watch everything and anything they signed to keep or get their job will save you? Think binding arbitration will save you? Not only will it not save you, but it will make your sentance longer. We have entered a brave new worlds of uncharted territory. One of the key driving factors of bad behaivour of company staff is the consequences of a fertility rate so bad a newborn male child has a 1 in 2 shot at procreating. Many people in "trap" jobs have chosen to live well and die young; if that means fucking your company over for the maximum dollars than so be it, they will do it, and you are going to be forced into putting up with it. The disconnect of plantation management is unbelievable; they think it's honorable capitalism to cannibalize society and lament they have no choice but to do so. They have a choice, they just prefer not having responsability. And that's when they are not intentionally sabotaging you. Piss off your employee and they might let an APT group in on their personal computer who will then attack your infrastructure. And if I were IT Staff, I'd asking the question and Nop'ing that and quoting the law.
- tssva 6y ago
  In large parts of the US if a company provided phone and/or computer is used to make the phone call or do the browsing none of the actions you listed are illegal. Neither is firing someone because the software said they weren't at the computer. In many states besides being fired for being part of certain protected classes you can be fired at anytime for any or no reason.
pen2l 6y ago
> I don’t see how this makes any employee productive. I'll contribute a counter argument, if only because I don't see it mentioned much. I'm the counter argument. Since I'm at home now, with kids, if I'm not directly on the phone with a coworker or boss, I'm likely not working. Recently our boss mandated that webcams must be on hereon-forward... before today, I would sometimes just have airpods on for the meeting but otherwise be doing stuff (cooking, clean dishes, other chores). Honestly this part I don't really enjoy -- because rarely there is stuff said in the meetings for which I need 100% of my brain head-on. But that's just me with all of my mental disorders and problems, who needs a helicopter boss to be productive. You may be different.
- pdonis 6y ago
  I think the question is what you are getting paid for. Are you getting paid for time, or are you getting paid for results? If you're getting paid for results, then it shouldn't matter what you are doing every minute, as long as you are producing the results you are expected to produce.
WalterBright 6y ago
There is another aspect to this. Many employees need guidance here and there. A manager told me once that he'd often find his team members working on something that wasn't the critical path, and he'd have to nudge them back on it. Every day. Team members may also be working inefficiently, and the manager observing it can help with that, too. It's not always an adversarial thing.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Many employees need guidance here and there. This is best done by regular check-ins, not by monitoring everything an employee does every single minute.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Seeing what someone is doing is different from hearing a description of it. For example, someone may be using the wrong tool for the job. Or he may be using an ineffective sales pitch. Or he may be doing his job by going around the horn rather than using the canal. I'm not saying it's never abusive. Just that it isn't necessarily abusive.
    - pdonis 6y ago
      > someone may be using the wrong tool for the job So ask them what tool they are using and why. Or set up a video chat where they can show you what they are doing and you can make suggestions about better tools. > he may be using an ineffective sales pitch So listen in on the sales call and then give feedback afterwards. Still don't see why any of this requires minute by minute monitoring. > I'm not saying it's never abusive. Just that it isn't necessarily abusive. If there are obvious alternatives that are (a) much less intrusive, and (b) much more respectful of the employee's professionalism, then it sure seems to me like minute by minute monitoring is abusive.

by iask 6y ago

bluntfang 6y ago

TBH these managers probably don't have work life balance, spend 12-16 hours a day on work, probably less than 4 are productive, and believe their subordinates and ingrates if they don't share the same "devotion" that they do, regardless of ability to complete the assigned job/task.

mc32 6y ago
And they probably pore over metrics more than anything else and prepare reporting based on a bunch of old queries and automated reports package it and send it off. They might also have chats with subordinates about those metrics and at the end think “what a good boy/girl am I!”
gilrain 6y ago
Maybe. We don't know what they're doing at their desks or away from the office, because they don't get surveiled like the plebs. Any manager who feels the need to peek over the shoulders of their workers should submit to the same.
- subhobroto 6y ago
  > Any manager who feels the need to peek over the shoulders of their workers should submit to the same. Sounds like a "Tit for tat". Why? If I cut your finger off and stabbed you in your kidney, would it change your personal situation if you did the same? If your immediate boss calls you every 30 minutes you are away from work, you want to do the same? That's madness! There is no "poor management". What are these uneducated decision makers even doing at your place of work? There's always a boss. The boss is paying for the behavior they want to see. Now if you argue the ultimate boss is clueless, then, what are you even doing there? You might want to tell yourself that your immediate boss who calls you every 30 minutes you are away from work is just ineffective, but if he was not delivering on what his boss wanted from him, he would be gone. "Tit for tat" is a great children's activity. Adults are not children. If your boss behaves like a child it's time to have a conversation. Depending on your specific situation that conversation might very well be with a new company.

CydeWeys 6y ago

> An employee gives you 8 of their 12 hour day. How much sleep are you getting??

EternalHeadache 6y ago
I guess if you take into account commute, cooking, cleaning and other household tasks and errands it seems possible to only have 4 hours of true free time.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  You have to take into account weekends and days off too. Anyway, using the DOL's standard of 2,087 work hours in a work year, we can do the following calculation: 2,087 / (365.24 * 24) = 23.8% of your total time spent at work. Let's use a generous figure of 8 hours of sleep per night: 2,087 / (365.24 * 16) = 35.7% of your waking hours spent at work. The rest is your time, to spend however you choose to spend it, whether that's commuting, cooking, chores, errands, hobbies, whatever. And we haven't even factored in vacation and sick days -- the 2,087 work hours figure only includes federal holidays.

Kalium 6y ago

Once upon a time, I worked for a company in Kansas City where upper management genuinely had trouble with the idea that engineers were humans with lives outside the office. I was walking through their section of the office one day, and overheard the President of the company asking in tones of complete bewilderment why engineers were not voluntarily working twelve-hour days. Suffice to say that his confusion was reflected in how engineers were treated.

GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
Had the same experience in the midwest early in my career. Underpaid, overworked, our boss expected us to work weekends without any extra pay because we "all needed to pitch in". Corporate culture in the midwest is horrifically outdated.
- Kalium 6y ago
  Honestly, I think this is less about the Midwest and more about purposely siting a company in a town with relatively low labor costs and few other options. At the time, there were few other choices for technology work in Kansas City.
- pthomas551 6y ago
  Yep, an obsession with (the appearance of) "hard work" and "frugality" combined with hardcore nepotism is the Midwestern way.
  - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
    oh boy, nepotism is rampant. It might as well be a written rule, if your father works as a director, you can expect his kid gets to run a department for 6 figures a year
tyingq 6y ago
There was a time when that sort of made sense. When companies didn't lay people off during hard times, carried pensions that were risky for the company, etc. It seems like some didn't understand that loyalty goes both ways...pull one side and the other goes with it.

malux85 6y ago

Couldn't have said it better. One of the reasons I'm a supporter of universal basic income is so that the employees can have a better negotiating position. I suspect many bullshit rules will go out the window when the alternative to employment isn't destitution. For far too long has this negotiation been highly in favour of the employer.

hangphyr 6y ago
This is a bit of a tangent, but one should be careful with that path. Not all employers are 'evil' and have negative intentions for their employees. Think of an example such as the independently owned restaurant that cannot afford to pay employees high wages and their owners are not wealthy. Just as not all employees can be painted as untrustworthy and hostile, not all employers should be painted as untrustworthy and hostile.
- chepaslaaa 6y ago
  I've been a line cook, restaurant owners are absolutely untrustworthy and hostile. The food industry is one where exploitation, highly aggressive staff retention practices (making employees dependent on you for a visa, threatening to spread lies about you, etc.), crazy unhealthy hours and just a generally awful culture are standard.
  - Avicebron 6y ago
    Can vouch for the life science industry being like this as well. Management threatened to make us check in every hour of work. Spending an eighth of that hour writing an explanatory email was pretty toxic.
  - gbmor 6y ago
    I've worked in the restaurant industry in the US. It's nothing short of horrifying, and often traumatizing for those involved. I've seen no overtime pay happen, lies from management to get unemployment claims denied, management not actually firing people but just giving them zero or reduced hours to mess with the unemployment claim process, the VISA fuckery you mentioned, harrassment. Intentional scheduling of conflicting days for people with multiple jobs. Being made to work 7 days a week for long periods of time. Being made to repeatedly close late at night / early in the morning and then open the restaurant the next morning, a few hours later, and work a double. Being made to work while sick (this happens a lot). A gold comment I heard from one manager was "I don't pay overtime because these motherfuckers already take enough of my money" (referring to the employees). This same guy was shaving time slips to keep them below 40 hours.

subhobroto 6y ago

> poor management. Uneducated decision making There is no "poor management". What are these uneducated decision makers even doing at your place of work? There's always a boss. The boss is paying for the behavior they want to see. Now if you argue the ultimate boss is clueless, then, what are you even doing there? You might want to tell yourself that your immediate boss who calls you every 30 minutes you are away from work is just ineffective, but if he was not delivering on what his boss wanted from him, he would be gone. > in highly secured environments or when dealing with highly sensitive documents Its about control. No matter how highly secured an environment is, human ingenuity can and will still work around it. There's literally several professions dedicated to it. NO matter how highly sensitive a document is, if someone decides to share it, they will. Crocodiles, fire pits, stripdowns, armed guards, MRIs or any camera is no obstacle to a determined individual. > If you don’t understand your employees workload and don’t trust them then either you resign or fire the employees. Nah - it's just about control. Look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA_fJh4lzqQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA_fJh4lzqQ Did "Jim" not know that he was on facebook for 8 hours yesterday? Will bringing that to his attention suddenly make him "more productive"? Why would it have that effect? You could try and fake empathy for the hand that feeds you (you have reason to!) but even if this kind of management had absolute clarity into employees workload, they still would do surveillance. Why? ... because their messaging is "we control you during the hours you work for us". It's unlikely anyone's watching the surveillance data and footage. Honestly, people don't have time and it's a very high noise-to-signal ratio activity. Even at retail where loss prevention is at least one dedicated department, it's impossible to follow up on surveillance data and footage. Do you honestly believe anyone would look a those verbose reports generated in the video at any detail? No. For all purposes, its not the how but the why. Control. All this talk about productivity, workload and trust are "feel good" concepts that give the illusion that there just some "miscommunication" happening. If only that "miscommunication" went away, everything would be perfect with the world again. It provides a distraction from the reality that the people one's working for are sycophants and extremely manipulative. The truth is - action has no miscommunication - it either works or it does not. The toilet needed to be scrubbed? Its either done or not done. Couldn't be done because someone was having a seizure there that required a team to come in and block the cleaning from happening? Check. If the cleaner had to badge in and out and had a camera mounted at the restroom entrance to check if they went in or out - does not have any relation to the job getting done. IF the individual cleaner was so determined to clean the restroom during the seizure, they would manage to do it. Russia, China and the companies that hire the likes of InterGuard Employee Monitoring for surveillance is doing it for control. Putin wants dirt on you so when you become a problem for him, he can use it against you. Surveillance is all about control.

crispyambulance 6y ago

> I am certain most managers that implement this are antisocial fucks. I agree. But the surveillance tools have been around for A LONG TIME, and people haven't really complained much about it. The thing is whenever people ask questions about how the surveillance is performed and how to respond to it, the answer (in the USA) has traditionally been something like "It's your employer's equipment, they can do whatever they want with their equipment-- don't do anything on it unless you want the man to know." Now, "the equipment" is at home. I don't think that makes much difference, but yeah, there's some interesting edge cases like turning on camera/microphone in employee home without employee consent. It makes me wonder about countermeasures. Is there a way to know if you're being screenshotted or some enterprise shit-ware is logging stuff? Yes, it's always true that it "could happen". I would like to know if it IS happening. Is that even possible?

HumblyTossed 6y ago
> Employees were to install software called Hubstaff immediately on their personal computers so it could track their mouse movements and keyboard strokes, and record the webpages they visited. They were told to put this on their "personal" computers. Not work computers. This is way over the line.
- crispyambulance 6y ago
  Yes, of course, putting something like that on a personal machine is odious. But how do you tell if that or something like it is on your work machine? Look for "hubstaff.dll"? ... half kidding, but seriously how do you tell if there's corporate fuckery on your work machine (eg screenshotting, logging time on URLs, keylogging, etc etc)?
  - hirako2000 6y ago
    Apps for auto mouse movements exist. It's also possible auto feed a stream of recorded video to the cam. If my employer automated stuff to spy on me, I would automate to feed the troll in that same manner.

HumblyTossed 6y ago

I read a comment long time ago: Managers manage while Bosses react. These are clearly bosses not managers.

groby_b 6y ago

And yet, it's perfectly possible to give a focused 8 hours. If you can't give focused 8 hours, give a focused 7 and let's talk about that. But let's stop pretending it's an 8 hour workday then, shall we? The US habit of doing lots of random shit during work is absolutely nuts - because you can't do anything well if you're constantly switching tasks. Oddly, it's perfectly possible to have an environment where both are true - management trusts you to get work done, and you actually get focused work done. It "just" requires maturity on both sides. A willingness to honor an agreement on both sides, as opposed to constantly looking out for #1 only.

squnch 6y ago

Well you have to realize that most managers have no idea why they have it so good. When so many children are starving to death worldwide, why do they live in a 4 bedroom house with a pool? Do they have exceptional talent or intelligence? No. So they fundamentally operate from a place of fear. It’s like Twitter holding onto 140 characters forever — they had no idea why they were so successful, so their approach was “don’t touch it, you might break it.” If you are a heart surgeon or Lebron James you can understand why you are making so much money — you have exceptional skill at something in high demand. The average manager is more like someone who found a bank error in their favor and prays every morning that it isn’t discovered.

luckylion 6y ago
That sounds a bit dismissive. What if they realize "I'm not a super star, but I'm above average in these desired skills. Therefore I get a nice house, but no multi-acre villa like some NBA superstar". I think you're adding a bit too much personal animosity towards management.
- squnch 6y ago
  It's not just management... it's all white collar middle class workers in America. Why aren't they inhaling dust in a coal mine or dying of a preventable disease? None of us really have any idea.
- codemac 6y ago
  And I think you're giving management too much credit. The vast majority of management does not have goals/behaviors they are measured in. I'm still fascinated that it's largely considered impossible to have a VP count how many 1:1's a manager had or how many times they gave positive vs. negative feedback. Imagine if no one kept any statistics for any sports player, and just say "it's too hard, you have to manually count". Most managers should be fired, they largely are flailing around underneath directors who should also be fired, underneath VPs who have so little control over their org they largely are future predictors with no inputs (aka random output). I say this from a place of love - I think they're all working very hard. But I've only ever met 1 manager in my life that counted their small interactions with their reports to try and improve.

TheBobinator 6y ago

Your software records a phone call an employee made while not on the clock? Congratulations, That's a felony. Your software reports on their browser history when an employee is not on the clock, Congratulations, that's another felony. Your terminate someone because the software is saying they aren't at their computers the whole day, that's a class action lawsuit and possibly another felony. And all of it is EASY AS HELL TO PROOVE BECAUSE YOU MADE THE LOG FILES AND INSTRUCTED YOUR IT STAFF TO DO IT YOU DIPSHIT. Think that your employment contract which stipulates you get to watch everything and anything they signed to keep or get their job will save you? Think binding arbitration will save you? Not only will it not save you, but it will make your sentance longer. We have entered a brave new worlds of uncharted territory. One of the key driving factors of bad behaivour of company staff is the consequences of a fertility rate so bad a newborn male child has a 1 in 2 shot at procreating. Many people in "trap" jobs have chosen to live well and die young; if that means fucking your company over for the maximum dollars than so be it, they will do it, and you are going to be forced into putting up with it. The disconnect of plantation management is unbelievable; they think it's honorable capitalism to cannibalize society and lament they have no choice but to do so. They have a choice, they just prefer not having responsability. And that's when they are not intentionally sabotaging you. Piss off your employee and they might let an APT group in on their personal computer who will then attack your infrastructure. And if I were IT Staff, I'd asking the question and Nop'ing that and quoting the law.

tssva 6y ago
In large parts of the US if a company provided phone and/or computer is used to make the phone call or do the browsing none of the actions you listed are illegal. Neither is firing someone because the software said they weren't at the computer. In many states besides being fired for being part of certain protected classes you can be fired at anytime for any or no reason.

pen2l 6y ago

> I don’t see how this makes any employee productive. I'll contribute a counter argument, if only because I don't see it mentioned much. I'm the counter argument. Since I'm at home now, with kids, if I'm not directly on the phone with a coworker or boss, I'm likely not working. Recently our boss mandated that webcams must be on hereon-forward... before today, I would sometimes just have airpods on for the meeting but otherwise be doing stuff (cooking, clean dishes, other chores). Honestly this part I don't really enjoy -- because rarely there is stuff said in the meetings for which I need 100% of my brain head-on. But that's just me with all of my mental disorders and problems, who needs a helicopter boss to be productive. You may be different.

pdonis 6y ago
I think the question is what you are getting paid for. Are you getting paid for time, or are you getting paid for results? If you're getting paid for results, then it shouldn't matter what you are doing every minute, as long as you are producing the results you are expected to produce.

WalterBright 6y ago

There is another aspect to this. Many employees need guidance here and there. A manager told me once that he'd often find his team members working on something that wasn't the critical path, and he'd have to nudge them back on it. Every day. Team members may also be working inefficiently, and the manager observing it can help with that, too. It's not always an adversarial thing.

pdonis 6y ago
> Many employees need guidance here and there. This is best done by regular check-ins, not by monitoring everything an employee does every single minute.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Seeing what someone is doing is different from hearing a description of it. For example, someone may be using the wrong tool for the job. Or he may be using an ineffective sales pitch. Or he may be doing his job by going around the horn rather than using the canal. I'm not saying it's never abusive. Just that it isn't necessarily abusive.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > someone may be using the wrong tool for the job So ask them what tool they are using and why. Or set up a video chat where they can show you what they are doing and you can make suggestions about better tools. > he may be using an ineffective sales pitch So listen in on the sales call and then give feedback afterwards. Still don't see why any of this requires minute by minute monitoring. > I'm not saying it's never abusive. Just that it isn't necessarily abusive. If there are obvious alternatives that are (a) much less intrusive, and (b) much more respectful of the employee's professionalism, then it sure seems to me like minute by minute monitoring is abusive.