5 ms·

This would be the point where I quit and find another job.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Victerius 5y ago
If you work remotely, there's a 100% chance you're already being monitored without your consent. It doesn't matter if you work for FAANG, a startup, or a government. And, no, you won't be able to find an alternative employer that offers remote work and doesn't monitor you. An employer can also deny that they're monitoring you, and there's nothing you can do about it.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  Could you be less cryptic, please?
- _joel 5y ago
  What if you own the equipment you work remotely on and have not installed anything (inbuilt OS VPN doesn't count)?
- altdataseller 5y ago
  There’s different levels of monitoring. Having a webcam so your every movement can be seen is drastically different than monitoring whether you have moved your mouse, or are online (ie your Slack status) The first would be a non-starter for me and I would quit if that was done. The latter, I would probably be OK with.
  - slimsag 5y ago
    you would really be okay with your employer monitoring mouse movement, and using that as a metric to determine if you are working or not?
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      This seems to be part of Microsoft Teams.
      - slimsag 5y ago
        Really? And people here are okay with this?
        perl4ever 5y ago
        I mean, I'm not aware of centralized tools built in to Teams that are used to systematically evaluate people, and if they exist, I wouldn't necessarily expect they are being exploited by my organization. What I was referring to was simply that there is a little color coded status symbol by a person's chat icon, which is green if they are active, and turns yellow if they are not doing much. However, if you have a meeting or appointment on your calendar, or you are presenting/videoconferencing it goes to red, so you really don't have to be green or yellow any more than you want to.
        justinlloyd 5y ago
        >I'm not aware of centralized tools built in to Teams that are used to systematically evaluate people, Oh boy are you wrong.
        perl4ever 5y ago
        I'm not wrong about my own awareness. I think I recall threads on HN about such things existing. But I'm not aware of how to use them or that my organization is using them. It wouldn't shock me if they were, but my prior is no more than 50%. I observe that people around me usually don't use 99.9% or more of Microsoft software features.
        justinlloyd 5y ago
        Technically you are correct about your awareness. My apologies. But in context, MS Teams has extensive dashboard analytics, some of it promoted under the guise of "employee wellness" but mostly used for command and control and monitoring, and there are several addons that add even more extensive tracking and analytics, e.g. ActivTrak.
- billsnow 5y ago
  What none of these three points are true.
- xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
  This is not true. We don't monitor any of our employees directly, across the world. We have audit logs for activity to internal services, of course, but that's different than monitoring workers. If you need to keep a log of what applications a user is running and when, or what websites they're visiting, then you have security issues elsewhere. If you solve those issues, then it makes no difference what the worker is doing. And if they're not doing work when they should, it's not exactly rocket science to figure that out. We've been doing that for hundreds if not thousands of years.
- GauntletWizard 5y ago
  I expect my boss to be monitoring me. I expect him to have reports of what I'm doing, what I'm working on, and who I'm talking to. All of those can be collected by talking to me, and few can be automated from the chat and email programs I use for company activities. The tooling they're talking about in this article is a whole other level - surreptitious screenshots and logs of which programs are open. Camera shots without warning. My boss should know what my work-product is like and what my coworkers and customers think of my performance. They should expect me to be presentable with a moments notice while I'm on the clock, but I can do that while I'm sitting on my couch in my underwear. Quite frankly, the ability to remotely trigger a camera without warning is a nightmare - for the employers. It's a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen. Someone will time their shots (or simply take one a second and more when they see something salacious), and it will leak. There's no business need for these tools and we should make clear in our reactions no jury would question large judgements in harassment suits for use of this software.
- garren 5y ago
  Maybe you can elaborate? 100%? I’ve worked remotely for 3 companies over the past decade as an SWE. I’ve got admin access to my workstation, hardware usually comes from the office or new in a box shipped to the door, nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t think monitoring is even remotely the norm, but I can see how it could be. I recall MS Teams has some kind of “productivity” monitor that could definitely be abused and eventually normalized. The companies I’ve worked remote for can generally tell if you’re slacking off by whether or not you get shit done. No need (or time) for monitoring nonsense.
- derekp7 5y ago
  I can confirm 100% that I am being monitored, without having any remote monitoring tools installed. I periodically send my boss status reports on items that are still outstanding. If there is something blocking me I will mention that too. If there are more tasks then I can fit in a given time frame, I send that along along with what I see the priorities as well as results of me negotiating priorities with various stake holders. And there are various team meetings where questions are ask and relevant answers are delivered. And when it comes to annual review time and raises, I fill out a self evaluation (to point out various high impact accomplishments and how I measured up to the annual goals), and my manager either agrees, disagrees, or adds to this list to justify a given pay raise and/or promotion. Is this what you meant by monitoring?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- perl4ever 5y ago
  On the glass half full side: As the police have found, being monitored can actually help in the event of false accusations of misconduct. Furthermore, if you are monitored and nobody has a problem with your performance, now you have evidence (even if you don't have it, it's discoverable) should they try to change the rules or the enforcement of them. I really can't count the number of times my manager thinks something is wrong and I have to patiently dig up emails to prove it's not. Furthermore, as long as people don't really hate you for some reason, every time you successfully defend yourself against a false accusation should be some banked goodwill. I've heard stories about how in olden days subordinates would have to take notes longhand to protect themselves from the bosses rewriting history. Sounds like a lot of work.
  - gausswho 5y ago
    Do you recommend software for the purpose of self-monitoring for this purpose? It doesn't phone home to employer but rather to your own personal surveillance record?
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      That doesn't sound worthwhile to me, because of the official records which would carry more weight anyway. People used to take notes to prove their boss wrong when he said "I never said that!" because they weren't under surveillance.
      - gausswho 5y ago
        Take your example of the ineffectiveness of the note taking defense in support of a dispute. What would it take to overcome that and still retain control of the recording hosting/mechanism? What features would be necessary so that self-recorded records rise to equal authority with corporate records? Will they ever? What about recorded through a 'notary' service offered by a tech giant that you already resign any sense of privacy with? A hopeful example of the value of self-recording: Car dashcams are relevant for insurance claims. Or are they?
- saratogacx 5y ago
  Very much not true. I'm a manager at an F50 company and we have no monitoring tools out side of normal security scans of outgoing e-mail content and such. I couldn't even get stats on employees hours at their laptops if I wanted to. I watch what is produced, if it is good and constant there isn't a problem. Yes, there are many options for companies to do this but for most it is not worth the investment in time/money/maintenance to let you catch a low performer potentially a bit earlier than just using their output as your yardstick.
- stuckkeys 5y ago
  reading this comment made my IQ drop. If you do not disclose that information you can get in a lot of shit.
actually_a_dog 5y ago
I'm with you. But, that's easy for me (and maybe you) to say, since I'm a SWE and can get a remote job without any BS monitoring reasonably easily. Note that while 80% of workers are against such monitoring, nearly half of workers 18-34 are being monitored. This suggests that perhaps just "quit[ting] and find[ing] another job" may not be so easy for these people.
MrWiffles 5y ago
I actually had this exact talk with my manager pre-emptively about a month ago. I told him that I wouldn't quit that very day, but that I'd fight the hell out of it and immediately look for another job and immediately jump at the first employer who DOESN'T do this. Shots fired: you want to hang on to talent, you fucking respect them, AND their rights.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

If you work remotely, there's a 100% chance you're already being monitored without your consent. It doesn't matter if you work for FAANG, a startup, or a government. And, no, you won't be able to find an alternative employer that offers remote work and doesn't monitor you. An employer can also deny that they're monitoring you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

actually_a_dog 5y ago
Could you be less cryptic, please?
_joel 5y ago
What if you own the equipment you work remotely on and have not installed anything (inbuilt OS VPN doesn't count)?
altdataseller 5y ago
There’s different levels of monitoring. Having a webcam so your every movement can be seen is drastically different than monitoring whether you have moved your mouse, or are online (ie your Slack status) The first would be a non-starter for me and I would quit if that was done. The latter, I would probably be OK with.
- slimsag 5y ago
  you would really be okay with your employer monitoring mouse movement, and using that as a metric to determine if you are working or not?
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    This seems to be part of Microsoft Teams.
    - slimsag 5y ago
      Really? And people here are okay with this?
      - perl4ever 5y ago
        I mean, I'm not aware of centralized tools built in to Teams that are used to systematically evaluate people, and if they exist, I wouldn't necessarily expect they are being exploited by my organization. What I was referring to was simply that there is a little color coded status symbol by a person's chat icon, which is green if they are active, and turns yellow if they are not doing much. However, if you have a meeting or appointment on your calendar, or you are presenting/videoconferencing it goes to red, so you really don't have to be green or yellow any more than you want to.
        justinlloyd 5y ago
        >I'm not aware of centralized tools built in to Teams that are used to systematically evaluate people, Oh boy are you wrong.
        perl4ever 5y ago
        I'm not wrong about my own awareness. I think I recall threads on HN about such things existing. But I'm not aware of how to use them or that my organization is using them. It wouldn't shock me if they were, but my prior is no more than 50%. I observe that people around me usually don't use 99.9% or more of Microsoft software features.
        justinlloyd 5y ago
        Technically you are correct about your awareness. My apologies. But in context, MS Teams has extensive dashboard analytics, some of it promoted under the guise of "employee wellness" but mostly used for command and control and monitoring, and there are several addons that add even more extensive tracking and analytics, e.g. ActivTrak.
billsnow 5y ago
What none of these three points are true.
xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
This is not true. We don't monitor any of our employees directly, across the world. We have audit logs for activity to internal services, of course, but that's different than monitoring workers. If you need to keep a log of what applications a user is running and when, or what websites they're visiting, then you have security issues elsewhere. If you solve those issues, then it makes no difference what the worker is doing. And if they're not doing work when they should, it's not exactly rocket science to figure that out. We've been doing that for hundreds if not thousands of years.
GauntletWizard 5y ago
I expect my boss to be monitoring me. I expect him to have reports of what I'm doing, what I'm working on, and who I'm talking to. All of those can be collected by talking to me, and few can be automated from the chat and email programs I use for company activities. The tooling they're talking about in this article is a whole other level - surreptitious screenshots and logs of which programs are open. Camera shots without warning. My boss should know what my work-product is like and what my coworkers and customers think of my performance. They should expect me to be presentable with a moments notice while I'm on the clock, but I can do that while I'm sitting on my couch in my underwear. Quite frankly, the ability to remotely trigger a camera without warning is a nightmare - for the employers. It's a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen. Someone will time their shots (or simply take one a second and more when they see something salacious), and it will leak. There's no business need for these tools and we should make clear in our reactions no jury would question large judgements in harassment suits for use of this software.
garren 5y ago
Maybe you can elaborate? 100%? I’ve worked remotely for 3 companies over the past decade as an SWE. I’ve got admin access to my workstation, hardware usually comes from the office or new in a box shipped to the door, nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t think monitoring is even remotely the norm, but I can see how it could be. I recall MS Teams has some kind of “productivity” monitor that could definitely be abused and eventually normalized. The companies I’ve worked remote for can generally tell if you’re slacking off by whether or not you get shit done. No need (or time) for monitoring nonsense.
derekp7 5y ago
I can confirm 100% that I am being monitored, without having any remote monitoring tools installed. I periodically send my boss status reports on items that are still outstanding. If there is something blocking me I will mention that too. If there are more tasks then I can fit in a given time frame, I send that along along with what I see the priorities as well as results of me negotiating priorities with various stake holders. And there are various team meetings where questions are ask and relevant answers are delivered. And when it comes to annual review time and raises, I fill out a self evaluation (to point out various high impact accomplishments and how I measured up to the annual goals), and my manager either agrees, disagrees, or adds to this list to justify a given pay raise and/or promotion. Is this what you meant by monitoring?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
perl4ever 5y ago
On the glass half full side: As the police have found, being monitored can actually help in the event of false accusations of misconduct. Furthermore, if you are monitored and nobody has a problem with your performance, now you have evidence (even if you don't have it, it's discoverable) should they try to change the rules or the enforcement of them. I really can't count the number of times my manager thinks something is wrong and I have to patiently dig up emails to prove it's not. Furthermore, as long as people don't really hate you for some reason, every time you successfully defend yourself against a false accusation should be some banked goodwill. I've heard stories about how in olden days subordinates would have to take notes longhand to protect themselves from the bosses rewriting history. Sounds like a lot of work.
- gausswho 5y ago
  Do you recommend software for the purpose of self-monitoring for this purpose? It doesn't phone home to employer but rather to your own personal surveillance record?
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    That doesn't sound worthwhile to me, because of the official records which would carry more weight anyway. People used to take notes to prove their boss wrong when he said "I never said that!" because they weren't under surveillance.
    - gausswho 5y ago
      Take your example of the ineffectiveness of the note taking defense in support of a dispute. What would it take to overcome that and still retain control of the recording hosting/mechanism? What features would be necessary so that self-recorded records rise to equal authority with corporate records? Will they ever? What about recorded through a 'notary' service offered by a tech giant that you already resign any sense of privacy with? A hopeful example of the value of self-recording: Car dashcams are relevant for insurance claims. Or are they?
saratogacx 5y ago
Very much not true. I'm a manager at an F50 company and we have no monitoring tools out side of normal security scans of outgoing e-mail content and such. I couldn't even get stats on employees hours at their laptops if I wanted to. I watch what is produced, if it is good and constant there isn't a problem. Yes, there are many options for companies to do this but for most it is not worth the investment in time/money/maintenance to let you catch a low performer potentially a bit earlier than just using their output as your yardstick.
stuckkeys 5y ago
reading this comment made my IQ drop. If you do not disclose that information you can get in a lot of shit.

actually_a_dog 5y ago

I'm with you. But, that's easy for me (and maybe you) to say, since I'm a SWE and can get a remote job without any BS monitoring reasonably easily. Note that while 80% of workers are against such monitoring, nearly half of workers 18-34 are being monitored. This suggests that perhaps just "quit[ting] and find[ing] another job" may not be so easy for these people.

MrWiffles 5y ago

I actually had this exact talk with my manager pre-emptively about a month ago. I told him that I wouldn't quit that very day, but that I'd fight the hell out of it and immediately look for another job and immediately jump at the first employer who DOESN'T do this. Shots fired: you want to hang on to talent, you fucking respect them, AND their rights.