8 ms·

I switched my tech company to full WFH. I also implemented detailed surveillance on all employees, which I don’t disclose. It shows me keyboard/mouse activity l

by dsyrk 5y ago

I switched my tech company to full WFH. I also implemented detailed surveillance on all employees, which I don’t disclose. It shows me keyboard/mouse activity levels and window update rates. It’s very interesting information, I have much better insight how and when people work, which are very different from each other. I also have other productivity measures and now I can really understand when someone is not working vs stuck or having difficulties. I expect for slackers this coming world will be harder to hide in.

xvector 5y ago
That’s ridiculous, and only proves my point that management is obsessed with meaningless metrics and what employees do with their free time rather than whether they’re completing their assigned duties or not.
- dsyrk 5y ago
  I feel very empowered by WFH as a manager. I get gamed much less by the developers I manage. For instance I assign a duty or task as you mention, and I can now clearly see if anytime was spent on it or not. So during my progress reviews if a developer says he is still working on it, been a bit more complex than he expected, yet I can clear see when he was active on the system, and due to proprietary nature of our software, you can’t really spend much time that is useful outside our system, so if I see only 1-2 hours actively working, my activity data is second granularity, and I have statistical reports and graphs written up in R, so I know with absolute precision, but they don’t know. I now know clearly who lies and who doesn’t. I don’t tell the ones who lie that I know. Instead I just focus on the technical issues on their task, sometimes I just do it for them, to humiliate them.
  - infinitezest 5y ago
    If you're getting "gamed" by your staff, the issue might not be with the developers' working habits...
    - leesalminen 5y ago
      That this manager chooses to “humiliate” certain employees is also indicative of the root cause of the issue.
      - dsyrk 5y ago
        They get pretty embarrassed when I complete their assignment in 2 hours after our meeting an assignment which should have taken them maybe one day but they have supposedly been working on for the last 8. It’s a very effective technique and so far has been applied to more junior employees with great success.
        ryder9 5y ago
        sure that happened lol, you're great at making things up aren't ya
  - ddingus 5y ago
    >Instead I just focus on the technical issues on their task, sometimes I just do it for them, to humiliate them. Well, that is one hell of a viscous cycle, isn't it?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    There is something you might be missing. I'm a developer. Quite a bit of my development time is not spent at a computer. It's spent working things out in my head while walking or jogging, or even just wandering around the house.
tazjin 5y ago
^ this is a troll post
- faeyanpiraat 5y ago
  My outrage blinded me of that possibility, thank you for bringing me back to reality
  - dsyrk 5y ago
    If you have a minute could you describe better your outrage, for me the levels expressed are fascinating. All I’m describing is a system for WFH that automatically measures if someone is actually working on the system. Other workers clock in/out, Uber drivers paid by time, many jobs measure productivity in many ways automatically and often unknown explicitly by the workers, and certainly not with their consent. What makes people react so intensely? I guarantee you this is being done for real as I describe and there isn’t any law against it as people imagine, those laws are about video, audio, and communication surveillance that could be used by employers to violate employee privacy, but it’s legally delusional to believe that employers would be restricted from measuring if employees paid to WFH are actually working at home, and also delusional to believe the company has to disclose what it uses to measure productivity to their employees. This explosive thread, created by me on a whim with a dystopian imagination has been quite interesting in the strong reaction provoke and I gladly take all the downvotes for it’s entertainment.
- dsyrk 5y ago
  successful then, I’ve even been reported to the FBI! The outrage being generated is actually fascinating. Why do developers see their work as so special compared to other labor? For example many workers clock in/out. Fast food workers are tracked precisely. Uber drivers are paid precisely. I think it’s very interesting that the idea someone could watch exactly how much time they spend working at their computer, which they are paid to work on, would get them so incredibly outraged. Special butterflies it seems to me.
leesalminen 5y ago
Seriously? I would never, ever consider doing that to my employees. It’s plainly obvious if someone is doing their work or not without tracking their mouse movements. What’s the name of your company so I can tell everyone I know to avoid it like the plague? My company is gingrapp.com. We’re hiring and would never subject anyone to this.
- dsyrk 5y ago
  I can see you must be a sharp knife. I conceal my surveillance from my employees but I should tell you the name of my company so you can tell them?
  - stragio 5y ago
    People like you ruin planet earth, really, try to put more trust in people. Oh and if you didn't yet, watch Black Mirror.
    - leesalminen 5y ago
      Exactly. Why employ people you don’t trust? It sounds very tiring. I certainly don’t have time for it running a successful, fast-growing company. I’ve employed people before who eroded my trust in them. I either fired them or nudged them to find a new job, depending on the severity of the thing they did to make me not trust them.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        > Why employ people you don’t trust? Sometimes the unions/courts require a company to document incompetence for a certain number of months before being able to let a person go. I don't agree with these requirements, but can see how they could incentivize surveillance apps.
      - dsyrk 5y ago
        You must be fairly young and idealistic. It’s really hard to know people well enough to be able to trust them. Especially in this new WFH environment are you going to know your employees after a few skype calls? I’ve been in tech for over 25 years now and a manager for last 15, the level of deceit one comes across is mind blowing. In one case we had an employee we all liked and thought well of, did decent work, extremely friendly, and we caught him trying to copy all the company’s code to a USB drive attached to his workstation under his desk. People are crazy you never know what they will do.
howaboutnope 5y ago
So either you live in a place where human rights don't exist, or will be in an entirely new world of pain and humiliation once you are found out. And in the meantime, since can't own up to your snooping, you can't act on it at ALL without parallel construction, i.e. without being a liar and a cheat. What you gain by this is only valuable to those who can't lead and inspire. What you lose is invaluable yet unknown to you. Sad.
- dsyrk 5y ago
  Care to explain how a private employer collecting telemetry data on their own computer system whom the employees are paid to work on would be violating human rights and why would I feel pain or humiliation? We log everything in many situations. We also have full keylogging and all command logging via auditd. There is a lot of idealistic and childish responses to my approach, including yours. I’m not snooping anything by monitoring our computer systems in the way I do.
  - howaboutnope 5y ago
    You treat people like toddlers, you can't even look them in the eye and tell them that, and then call me childish? Anything else, you anonymous coward? The fact that you can't tell that to the people you do it to says it all. No, I don't care to explain to you what was your responsibility to look into before you even put it into action. > I’m not snooping anything by monitoring our computer systems in the way I do. You just spoke of monitoring people, not systems. You spoke of "slackers". Now you're already backpedaling. I hope you get caught, and sued into the fucking ground.
    - dsyrk 5y ago
      What in the world are you talking about? You honestly believe I can be sued for monitoring employee activity on a private businesses computer systems? The level of entitlement expressed by some HN commenters is unbelievable. Snooping would be somehow spying on their private computer or information not their usage of their work system. We have every right to record everything and anything. I’ve actually considered expanding it to include periodic screenshots, maybe once per minute. There is nothing for us to be “caught” you have no legal or ethical grounds. My guess is I’ve touched a nerve with you because you have realized if your manager could see such data then your scam might be up.
WalterBright 5y ago
That only works until someone writes a "boss" app that pretends to click keys and move the mouse. Back in the 80's, many computer games had a "boss" key which would pause the game and throw up a screen that looked like a spreadsheet.
- dsyrk 5y ago
  I agree it will be spoofed if employees know what is being measured. It’s the main reason we don’t disclose it. I can already see the people who will spoof it because many of the employees make sure to connect each day, but then often just leave it and never type anything almost the whole day. I’ve also thought about adding additional telemetry data like, unique commands run, num files accessed, web access stats, etc. The last 15 months of data is pretty interesting data set with only basic activity measure and I’d imagine would be even more interesting with better context.
  - the_gipsy 5y ago
    Has it ever occurred to you, to measure the actual work?
    - dsyrk 5y ago
      Of course I do that to and did that before the pandemic. I review all code commits and review reports and results from the system. I also track completed tasks and assign them complexity level. Am I stupid or something? How would I know who is completing tasks or not. This was how we operated before WFH, the change is implementing direct surveillance telemetry on employee activity on the system. Another improvement is that collaboration is all now over internal chat, which I can review these discussions and get a sense of level of collaboration. When I overlay all the information it gives me an extremely good idea of what is actually happening.
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        You're a troll. I don't believe you have a job, much less manage other people.
ratsforhorses 5y ago
Have you seen an increase in productivity?
- dsyrk 5y ago
  Absolutely, I’m able to use the insights to work to increase productivity. Remember I don’t disclose I can see this. It has let me better manage cases, first the slacker that assumes because I’m old and a manager I’m stupid and they can BS me and not work, but also importantly find the hidden skilled developers, there have been a few that have completed complex tasks very quickly considering their activity on the system, so I can ramp up their load and complexity, wheres before they had hidden from me how good they really were.
  - learc83 5y ago
    Your posts are clearly designed to elicit as much outrage as possible. Either that our you need treatment for paranoia. Not only are your incompetent employees screwing you over, but your competent employees are also out to get you by “hiding” their abilities from you. Come on.

by dsyrk 5y ago

xvector 5y ago

That’s ridiculous, and only proves my point that management is obsessed with meaningless metrics and what employees do with their free time rather than whether they’re completing their assigned duties or not.

dsyrk 5y ago
I feel very empowered by WFH as a manager. I get gamed much less by the developers I manage. For instance I assign a duty or task as you mention, and I can now clearly see if anytime was spent on it or not. So during my progress reviews if a developer says he is still working on it, been a bit more complex than he expected, yet I can clear see when he was active on the system, and due to proprietary nature of our software, you can’t really spend much time that is useful outside our system, so if I see only 1-2 hours actively working, my activity data is second granularity, and I have statistical reports and graphs written up in R, so I know with absolute precision, but they don’t know. I now know clearly who lies and who doesn’t. I don’t tell the ones who lie that I know. Instead I just focus on the technical issues on their task, sometimes I just do it for them, to humiliate them.
- infinitezest 5y ago
  If you're getting "gamed" by your staff, the issue might not be with the developers' working habits...
  - leesalminen 5y ago
    That this manager chooses to “humiliate” certain employees is also indicative of the root cause of the issue.
    - dsyrk 5y ago
      They get pretty embarrassed when I complete their assignment in 2 hours after our meeting an assignment which should have taken them maybe one day but they have supposedly been working on for the last 8. It’s a very effective technique and so far has been applied to more junior employees with great success.
      - ryder9 5y ago
        sure that happened lol, you're great at making things up aren't ya
- ddingus 5y ago
  >Instead I just focus on the technical issues on their task, sometimes I just do it for them, to humiliate them. Well, that is one hell of a viscous cycle, isn't it?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  There is something you might be missing. I'm a developer. Quite a bit of my development time is not spent at a computer. It's spent working things out in my head while walking or jogging, or even just wandering around the house.

tazjin 5y ago

^ this is a troll post

faeyanpiraat 5y ago
My outrage blinded me of that possibility, thank you for bringing me back to reality
- dsyrk 5y ago
  If you have a minute could you describe better your outrage, for me the levels expressed are fascinating. All I’m describing is a system for WFH that automatically measures if someone is actually working on the system. Other workers clock in/out, Uber drivers paid by time, many jobs measure productivity in many ways automatically and often unknown explicitly by the workers, and certainly not with their consent. What makes people react so intensely? I guarantee you this is being done for real as I describe and there isn’t any law against it as people imagine, those laws are about video, audio, and communication surveillance that could be used by employers to violate employee privacy, but it’s legally delusional to believe that employers would be restricted from measuring if employees paid to WFH are actually working at home, and also delusional to believe the company has to disclose what it uses to measure productivity to their employees. This explosive thread, created by me on a whim with a dystopian imagination has been quite interesting in the strong reaction provoke and I gladly take all the downvotes for it’s entertainment.
dsyrk 5y ago
successful then, I’ve even been reported to the FBI! The outrage being generated is actually fascinating. Why do developers see their work as so special compared to other labor? For example many workers clock in/out. Fast food workers are tracked precisely. Uber drivers are paid precisely. I think it’s very interesting that the idea someone could watch exactly how much time they spend working at their computer, which they are paid to work on, would get them so incredibly outraged. Special butterflies it seems to me.

leesalminen 5y ago

Seriously? I would never, ever consider doing that to my employees. It’s plainly obvious if someone is doing their work or not without tracking their mouse movements. What’s the name of your company so I can tell everyone I know to avoid it like the plague? My company is gingrapp.com. We’re hiring and would never subject anyone to this.

dsyrk 5y ago
I can see you must be a sharp knife. I conceal my surveillance from my employees but I should tell you the name of my company so you can tell them?
- stragio 5y ago
  People like you ruin planet earth, really, try to put more trust in people. Oh and if you didn't yet, watch Black Mirror.
  - leesalminen 5y ago
    Exactly. Why employ people you don’t trust? It sounds very tiring. I certainly don’t have time for it running a successful, fast-growing company. I’ve employed people before who eroded my trust in them. I either fired them or nudged them to find a new job, depending on the severity of the thing they did to make me not trust them.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      > Why employ people you don’t trust? Sometimes the unions/courts require a company to document incompetence for a certain number of months before being able to let a person go. I don't agree with these requirements, but can see how they could incentivize surveillance apps.
    - dsyrk 5y ago
      You must be fairly young and idealistic. It’s really hard to know people well enough to be able to trust them. Especially in this new WFH environment are you going to know your employees after a few skype calls? I’ve been in tech for over 25 years now and a manager for last 15, the level of deceit one comes across is mind blowing. In one case we had an employee we all liked and thought well of, did decent work, extremely friendly, and we caught him trying to copy all the company’s code to a USB drive attached to his workstation under his desk. People are crazy you never know what they will do.

howaboutnope 5y ago

So either you live in a place where human rights don't exist, or will be in an entirely new world of pain and humiliation once you are found out. And in the meantime, since can't own up to your snooping, you can't act on it at ALL without parallel construction, i.e. without being a liar and a cheat. What you gain by this is only valuable to those who can't lead and inspire. What you lose is invaluable yet unknown to you. Sad.

dsyrk 5y ago
Care to explain how a private employer collecting telemetry data on their own computer system whom the employees are paid to work on would be violating human rights and why would I feel pain or humiliation? We log everything in many situations. We also have full keylogging and all command logging via auditd. There is a lot of idealistic and childish responses to my approach, including yours. I’m not snooping anything by monitoring our computer systems in the way I do.
- howaboutnope 5y ago
  You treat people like toddlers, you can't even look them in the eye and tell them that, and then call me childish? Anything else, you anonymous coward? The fact that you can't tell that to the people you do it to says it all. No, I don't care to explain to you what was your responsibility to look into before you even put it into action. > I’m not snooping anything by monitoring our computer systems in the way I do. You just spoke of monitoring people, not systems. You spoke of "slackers". Now you're already backpedaling. I hope you get caught, and sued into the fucking ground.
  - dsyrk 5y ago
    What in the world are you talking about? You honestly believe I can be sued for monitoring employee activity on a private businesses computer systems? The level of entitlement expressed by some HN commenters is unbelievable. Snooping would be somehow spying on their private computer or information not their usage of their work system. We have every right to record everything and anything. I’ve actually considered expanding it to include periodic screenshots, maybe once per minute. There is nothing for us to be “caught” you have no legal or ethical grounds. My guess is I’ve touched a nerve with you because you have realized if your manager could see such data then your scam might be up.

WalterBright 5y ago

That only works until someone writes a "boss" app that pretends to click keys and move the mouse. Back in the 80's, many computer games had a "boss" key which would pause the game and throw up a screen that looked like a spreadsheet.

dsyrk 5y ago
I agree it will be spoofed if employees know what is being measured. It’s the main reason we don’t disclose it. I can already see the people who will spoof it because many of the employees make sure to connect each day, but then often just leave it and never type anything almost the whole day. I’ve also thought about adding additional telemetry data like, unique commands run, num files accessed, web access stats, etc. The last 15 months of data is pretty interesting data set with only basic activity measure and I’d imagine would be even more interesting with better context.
- the_gipsy 5y ago
  Has it ever occurred to you, to measure the actual work?
  - dsyrk 5y ago
    Of course I do that to and did that before the pandemic. I review all code commits and review reports and results from the system. I also track completed tasks and assign them complexity level. Am I stupid or something? How would I know who is completing tasks or not. This was how we operated before WFH, the change is implementing direct surveillance telemetry on employee activity on the system. Another improvement is that collaboration is all now over internal chat, which I can review these discussions and get a sense of level of collaboration. When I overlay all the information it gives me an extremely good idea of what is actually happening.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      You're a troll. I don't believe you have a job, much less manage other people.

ratsforhorses 5y ago

Have you seen an increase in productivity?

dsyrk 5y ago
Absolutely, I’m able to use the insights to work to increase productivity. Remember I don’t disclose I can see this. It has let me better manage cases, first the slacker that assumes because I’m old and a manager I’m stupid and they can BS me and not work, but also importantly find the hidden skilled developers, there have been a few that have completed complex tasks very quickly considering their activity on the system, so I can ramp up their load and complexity, wheres before they had hidden from me how good they really were.
- learc83 5y ago
  Your posts are clearly designed to elicit as much outrage as possible. Either that our you need treatment for paranoia. Not only are your incompetent employees screwing you over, but your competent employees are also out to get you by “hiding” their abilities from you. Come on.