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At a prior megacorp that I just quit from for their return to office strategy people would come into the office, swipe their badge at the entrance, log in to t

At a prior megacorp that I just quit from for their return to office strategy people would come into the office, swipe their badge at the entrance, log in to their machine, lock the screen, and go home to work.

taeric 3y ago
A lot of places have badge in and out readers nowadays. Bolted in during pandemic to "help make sure we don't have too many people in the office for safety." Kept because of course it was kept.
- tivert 3y ago
  > A lot of places have badge in and out readers nowadays. Bolted in during pandemic to "help make sure we don't have too many people in the office for safety." Kept because of course it was kept. I've been joking with my coworkers that we should pool our badges, and just rotate one person who goes in and swipes everyone's badges in, works a day, then swipes them out.
  - taeric 3y ago
    It is not uncommon to have an attendant posted at badge in locations. Such that... this wouldn't really be hard to put a stop to. And that is assuming you couldn't just spot it in the data. As I said in other response, I have no doubt these things can and will get gamed. I don't like the seeming escalation that is implied by this, though. Why start down that slope, if we can avoid it? (Valid to argue that the start down that pat was the badge readers, I think. But at some point, the last step has to stop being justification for the next.)
    - r00fus 3y ago
      Are you serious? You’d need one attendant for each badge-in location. My work building has like a half dozen of these entries for fire reasons. Feasible in high rises maybe not in the PNW or Bay Area.
      - taeric 3y ago
        Usually the badge-in spots were grouped at entryways? So, not one attendant per badge reader, but not uncommon to have a choke point that had one. If only for security reasons. Even without an attendant, there would be a camera. And this would present an obvious cluster of badge ins that can be easily inspected.
        fnordpiglet 3y ago
        I think it depends on the company too and how much $$$ they have to spend on such things, but generally there’s an attendant at the entrance badge in points. They not just monitor the entry for people hopping the turnstile, but also greet guests and provide guest badges.
- soligern 3y ago
  I mean you could just follow someone else out. Alternatively leave, stand outside to badge in and then never enter.
  - taeric 3y ago
    Both of those would be trivial to see on the data, though? I have no doubt these things can and will be gamed by more than a few folks. But I also have no doubt it would be rather easy to figure out most of them.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    The second one was controlled for by monitoring if you logged in.
- tzs 3y ago
  Some way to keep a count of the number of people in the building can be useful. I've seen occasions where someone checks to see if anyone else is still in the building, misses the one other person who is still there, and so arms the security system when they leave.
  - 5555624 3y ago
    In case of an emergency -- fire, earthquake, active shooter, etc -- it helps to know if people are in the building. Having been in two of those situations and fire drills, it helps to know who was in the building and if they got out.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  Oh yeah we had that. But the query for compliance didn’t track how long you were in the office. Eventually it was updated and people had to be more clever. But the fact was while I was there they never got more than 35% compliance with the mandate. They were escalating the stakes and threatening performance review problems etc when I left. At some point I just decided it wasn’t worth being at a place that values controlling my body more than my contribution. If that’s the case they can have neither.

taeric 3y ago

A lot of places have badge in and out readers nowadays. Bolted in during pandemic to "help make sure we don't have too many people in the office for safety." Kept because of course it was kept.

tivert 3y ago
> A lot of places have badge in and out readers nowadays. Bolted in during pandemic to "help make sure we don't have too many people in the office for safety." Kept because of course it was kept. I've been joking with my coworkers that we should pool our badges, and just rotate one person who goes in and swipes everyone's badges in, works a day, then swipes them out.
- taeric 3y ago
  It is not uncommon to have an attendant posted at badge in locations. Such that... this wouldn't really be hard to put a stop to. And that is assuming you couldn't just spot it in the data. As I said in other response, I have no doubt these things can and will get gamed. I don't like the seeming escalation that is implied by this, though. Why start down that slope, if we can avoid it? (Valid to argue that the start down that pat was the badge readers, I think. But at some point, the last step has to stop being justification for the next.)
  - r00fus 3y ago
    Are you serious? You’d need one attendant for each badge-in location. My work building has like a half dozen of these entries for fire reasons. Feasible in high rises maybe not in the PNW or Bay Area.
    - taeric 3y ago
      Usually the badge-in spots were grouped at entryways? So, not one attendant per badge reader, but not uncommon to have a choke point that had one. If only for security reasons. Even without an attendant, there would be a camera. And this would present an obvious cluster of badge ins that can be easily inspected.
      - fnordpiglet 3y ago
        I think it depends on the company too and how much $$$ they have to spend on such things, but generally there’s an attendant at the entrance badge in points. They not just monitor the entry for people hopping the turnstile, but also greet guests and provide guest badges.
soligern 3y ago
I mean you could just follow someone else out. Alternatively leave, stand outside to badge in and then never enter.
- taeric 3y ago
  Both of those would be trivial to see on the data, though? I have no doubt these things can and will be gamed by more than a few folks. But I also have no doubt it would be rather easy to figure out most of them.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  The second one was controlled for by monitoring if you logged in.
tzs 3y ago
Some way to keep a count of the number of people in the building can be useful. I've seen occasions where someone checks to see if anyone else is still in the building, misses the one other person who is still there, and so arms the security system when they leave.
- 5555624 3y ago
  In case of an emergency -- fire, earthquake, active shooter, etc -- it helps to know if people are in the building. Having been in two of those situations and fire drills, it helps to know who was in the building and if they got out.
fnordpiglet 3y ago
Oh yeah we had that. But the query for compliance didn’t track how long you were in the office. Eventually it was updated and people had to be more clever. But the fact was while I was there they never got more than 35% compliance with the mandate. They were escalating the stakes and threatening performance review problems etc when I left. At some point I just decided it wasn’t worth being at a place that values controlling my body more than my contribution. If that’s the case they can have neither.