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What is so bad about catching people taking unauthorised breaks?

eCa 4y ago
Would you like to live in a society where the laws are the same as they are now, but it’s impossible to break them and not be caught? (I know I’m jumping right to where the slippery slope ends.)
- Negitivefrags 4y ago
  If we lived in such a society I would imagine we would be a bit more careful as we drafted laws. It would also be a lot more equitable due to the lack of selective enforcement.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Even if getting there from the current state of affairs by rigorously enforcing laws to the letter is possible, it would come with a very heavy price on people while the laws get reformed.
- kleinsch 4y ago
  Taking the other side - you’d rather live in the society we have today where policies/laws are selectively enforced based on whether cops/supervisors have a good relationship with you, are biased re your race/gender, etc?
  - jjj123 4y ago
    Perfectly executed laws would also have biased outcomes, likely worse than the current system. There’s a good quote that goes something like “the law treats all men equally: the rich man and the poor man are punished the same for stealing bread to feed their family.”
    - plasticchris 4y ago
      The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. Anatole France
  - piuantiderp 4y ago
    Yes, it'd foster good social relationships. Oh wait, engineers don't need no one....
- tossaway0 4y ago
  That's the difference between living in Munich or São Paulo, or New York and Miami. Different societies have different tolerances for what's on the books and what gets enforced. Personally, I prefer less on the books and proper enforcement, but many people like a lot on the books and just as many loopholes.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
toss1 4y ago
The same thing that would be bad about using your phone GPS location sensors to automatically send you speeding tickets every time you wander >1mph over the limit. Even without intending to, everyone would go from a ticket or two per decade to dozens of tickets on every commute. "But the law is still the same!?!" Of course it is, but changing from poorly scalable human-required surveillance to always-on, fully-scaled electronic surveillance, changes it from completely reasonable to massively oppressive. If everyone's productivity is fine, and people take unauthorized breaks, no one will notice, all is cool. If one or two people are noticeably unproductive, the manager will likely investigate and fix the unauthorized breaks, which is also fine. But with constant electronic surveillance, it's no longer about meaningful productivity differences, it is about oppression.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  It's still up to the manager to choose what to do about it. A reasonable manager would accept the occasional smoke break, but do something about hour long naps.
  - detaro 4y ago
    Centralized automated system like this often is not something someones (direct) manager uses, but that gets pushed down from higher up the chain. Larger disconnect, less human consideration taken, with an extra helping of "well the system says..."
  - kelnos 4y ago
    In line with what a sibling comment says, it stops being about the person themselves, and what their actual performance is, but about adherence to arbitrary rules. The computer says you took X number of unauthorized breaks this past year, so no raise/promotion for you. Employee has still been getting their assigned job done, and has been doing it perfectly well, and has stellar feedback from customers? So what! It's the rules that matter more. Often a manager will not have any say over these things. "The metrics speak for themselves!" Regardless, I don't think we should design systems with the assumption that the people in charge of them will be compassionate and reasonable. There are a lot of petty, corrupt (in the moral sense, not financial) people out there in positions of power over others.
toofy 4y ago
for starters the idea of “unauthorized” in terms of taking a couple minutes to yourself is questionable. i have never worked in an office environment where people didn’t routinely unwind for a couple minutes. the way we’re treated in an office setting vs those outside an office is in a lot of ways disturbing. a couple years ago my friends dad lost his job of 25 years because he was caught sneaking around a corner, out of eyesight of his foreman, to eat a candy bar. he had been warned about these “unauthorized” snack breaks in the past. this idea is entirely foreign to any of us who sit at a computer coding or doing whatever desk job that sometimes we don’t stop to think of how ludicrous some workers are treated—my entire post college career, if i wanted to eat a candy bar, i just ate it. were a decision to come down in just about any office full of engineers which said “unless authorized, you cannot drink or eat anything. if any unauthorized stoppage of typing occurs, there will be consequences.” people would be justifiably outraged. but they’d be “catching” “unauthorized” non-typers. the idea that someone somewhere decided to put trackers on human beings is wild.
- stockboss 4y ago
  > the idea that someone somewhere decided to put trackers on human beings is wild. did you forget about cellphones?
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    I suspect OP didn’t. That everyone has accepted that owning a phone means you can be tracked with accuracy most the time, both digitally and physically, is pretty wild.
fknorangesite 4y ago
> What is so bad about catching people taking unauthorised breaks? Your profile indicates that you've commented on HN on a weekday. Don't worry - this behavior has already been reported to the authorities.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  Not the OP, but a lot depends on the context. If both pilots left the cockpit mid-flight in order to chill with the stewardesses, I would be fine with them being barred from working as pilots ever again. I couldn't care less if a receptionist catches a quick smoking break during a slow hour.
  - fknorangesite 4y ago
    In a discussion that started with "hotel staff in the stairwell", which of your two examples do you think is more representative?
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      Unfortunately, the latter one, I agree.
kelnos 4y ago
It's more about the negatives of pervasive electronic surveillance. The marginal benefit to the business of catching employees taking a break (which, honestly... they're probably all overworked and should have more breaks anyway) does not outweigh the downsides of our inexorable slide toward being monitored as we do everything.
- drstewart 4y ago
  >which, honestly... they're probably all overworked and should have more breaks anyway And your best solution to this is building automated lighting systems that omit functionality? That's your grand plan? Reminds me of people that complain about seats being removed from buses to make more room for passengers because homeless people sleep on them. When you're trying to solve things via tertiary order effects you should consider if that's the real issue at hand .

eCa 4y ago

Would you like to live in a society where the laws are the same as they are now, but it’s impossible to break them and not be caught? (I know I’m jumping right to where the slippery slope ends.)

Negitivefrags 4y ago
If we lived in such a society I would imagine we would be a bit more careful as we drafted laws. It would also be a lot more equitable due to the lack of selective enforcement.
- int_19h 4y ago
  Even if getting there from the current state of affairs by rigorously enforcing laws to the letter is possible, it would come with a very heavy price on people while the laws get reformed.
kleinsch 4y ago
Taking the other side - you’d rather live in the society we have today where policies/laws are selectively enforced based on whether cops/supervisors have a good relationship with you, are biased re your race/gender, etc?
- jjj123 4y ago
  Perfectly executed laws would also have biased outcomes, likely worse than the current system. There’s a good quote that goes something like “the law treats all men equally: the rich man and the poor man are punished the same for stealing bread to feed their family.”
  - plasticchris 4y ago
    The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. Anatole France
- piuantiderp 4y ago
  Yes, it'd foster good social relationships. Oh wait, engineers don't need no one....
tossaway0 4y ago
That's the difference between living in Munich or São Paulo, or New York and Miami. Different societies have different tolerances for what's on the books and what gets enforced. Personally, I prefer less on the books and proper enforcement, but many people like a lot on the books and just as many loopholes.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

toss1 4y ago

The same thing that would be bad about using your phone GPS location sensors to automatically send you speeding tickets every time you wander >1mph over the limit. Even without intending to, everyone would go from a ticket or two per decade to dozens of tickets on every commute. "But the law is still the same!?!" Of course it is, but changing from poorly scalable human-required surveillance to always-on, fully-scaled electronic surveillance, changes it from completely reasonable to massively oppressive. If everyone's productivity is fine, and people take unauthorized breaks, no one will notice, all is cool. If one or two people are noticeably unproductive, the manager will likely investigate and fix the unauthorized breaks, which is also fine. But with constant electronic surveillance, it's no longer about meaningful productivity differences, it is about oppression.

BurningFrog 4y ago
It's still up to the manager to choose what to do about it. A reasonable manager would accept the occasional smoke break, but do something about hour long naps.
- detaro 4y ago
  Centralized automated system like this often is not something someones (direct) manager uses, but that gets pushed down from higher up the chain. Larger disconnect, less human consideration taken, with an extra helping of "well the system says..."
- kelnos 4y ago
  In line with what a sibling comment says, it stops being about the person themselves, and what their actual performance is, but about adherence to arbitrary rules. The computer says you took X number of unauthorized breaks this past year, so no raise/promotion for you. Employee has still been getting their assigned job done, and has been doing it perfectly well, and has stellar feedback from customers? So what! It's the rules that matter more. Often a manager will not have any say over these things. "The metrics speak for themselves!" Regardless, I don't think we should design systems with the assumption that the people in charge of them will be compassionate and reasonable. There are a lot of petty, corrupt (in the moral sense, not financial) people out there in positions of power over others.

toofy 4y ago

for starters the idea of “unauthorized” in terms of taking a couple minutes to yourself is questionable. i have never worked in an office environment where people didn’t routinely unwind for a couple minutes. the way we’re treated in an office setting vs those outside an office is in a lot of ways disturbing. a couple years ago my friends dad lost his job of 25 years because he was caught sneaking around a corner, out of eyesight of his foreman, to eat a candy bar. he had been warned about these “unauthorized” snack breaks in the past. this idea is entirely foreign to any of us who sit at a computer coding or doing whatever desk job that sometimes we don’t stop to think of how ludicrous some workers are treated—my entire post college career, if i wanted to eat a candy bar, i just ate it. were a decision to come down in just about any office full of engineers which said “unless authorized, you cannot drink or eat anything. if any unauthorized stoppage of typing occurs, there will be consequences.” people would be justifiably outraged. but they’d be “catching” “unauthorized” non-typers. the idea that someone somewhere decided to put trackers on human beings is wild.

stockboss 4y ago
> the idea that someone somewhere decided to put trackers on human beings is wild. did you forget about cellphones?
- lostlogin 4y ago
  I suspect OP didn’t. That everyone has accepted that owning a phone means you can be tracked with accuracy most the time, both digitally and physically, is pretty wild.

fknorangesite 4y ago

> What is so bad about catching people taking unauthorised breaks? Your profile indicates that you've commented on HN on a weekday. Don't worry - this behavior has already been reported to the authorities.

inglor_cz 4y ago
Not the OP, but a lot depends on the context. If both pilots left the cockpit mid-flight in order to chill with the stewardesses, I would be fine with them being barred from working as pilots ever again. I couldn't care less if a receptionist catches a quick smoking break during a slow hour.
- fknorangesite 4y ago
  In a discussion that started with "hotel staff in the stairwell", which of your two examples do you think is more representative?
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    Unfortunately, the latter one, I agree.

kelnos 4y ago

It's more about the negatives of pervasive electronic surveillance. The marginal benefit to the business of catching employees taking a break (which, honestly... they're probably all overworked and should have more breaks anyway) does not outweigh the downsides of our inexorable slide toward being monitored as we do everything.

drstewart 4y ago
>which, honestly... they're probably all overworked and should have more breaks anyway And your best solution to this is building automated lighting systems that omit functionality? That's your grand plan? Reminds me of people that complain about seats being removed from buses to make more room for passengers because homeless people sleep on them. When you're trying to solve things via tertiary order effects you should consider if that's the real issue at hand .