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If the only indicator that these employees "needed" to go was the simulated keyboard activity then either: a) the employees met all required KPIs and delivered

If the only indicator that these employees "needed" to go was the simulated keyboard activity then either: a) the employees met all required KPIs and delivered well and were just meeting some dumb policy while actually being totally fine, and therefore shouldn't have been fired; or b) the company has literally no way to tell if someone is actually useful and many of the people not using such devices could easily be far worse performaers. In either case, firing someone based on this sort of monitoring or information should be illegal.

mlhpdx 2y ago
> firing someone based on this sort of monitoring or information should be illegal. What would be a justifiable (won't get me in jail) firing in your mind?
- Youden 2y ago
  Consistently failing to meet KPIs.
  - YetAnotherNick 2y ago
    Do people directly work on the KPIs on your org? As in there is individual KPI for each person without any outside blocker etc.? And is the KPI so evenly distributed to each team member? What about other unknowns in the KPI. At least in the companies I worked with, KPIs are manager/lead level items and it is divided into tasks that is handed out to individual team member.
- ziddoap 2y ago
  Not meeting the job description requirements, failing to deliver, consecutively under-performing KPIs, etc.
  - NewJazz 2y ago
    My KPI is how much keyboard mashing my monkeys do! More keyboard mashing brings us closer to writing Shakespeare!
- mlhpdx 2y ago
  FWIW, I’ve decided to let folks go for failing to act in good faith, and for failing (or unwillingness) to learn from mistakes. That’s it. I admire the folks who have such quality KPIs. And, yes, I’ve been forced to deal with others’ decisions to let folks go as well (primarily missing growth targets), but very rarely.
mistrial9 2y ago
its a fine argument made well, but no.. the job description and the work as directed are the agreement between the employee and the company. IANAL it seems that the fundamentals here are abusive or unwinnable terms of employment, fundemental labor rights that may not be overridden, and yes, slacker or cheating employees who may be gaming their supervision and what to do about that. History is full of outrageous "agreements" by the powerful applied to the powerless, so there have to be labor laws that set an even playing field. Distributed work across legal jurisdictions is an opportunity to push those labor agreements and avoid consequences. On the other hand, there have always been cheaters among workers and that wont go away, either. Modern technology has opened a pandora's box of constant surveillance that was not practical or even possible previously. There have to be new agreements on labor practices. It is a political problem. Compounding the urgency of this situation in an advanced economy is the looming implementation of AI to replace workers, and to enable a few workers to do the work of many, many more of the past. This time around, middle-managers are included in those that are replaceable, or perhaps even mid-level leadership i.e. "your boss is an AI"
cm2187 2y ago
Even if the employee is excellent, the deceit is enough to justify the firing. There is a requirement in the financial industry of being of good character and even minor things could result in loss of employment. There was a story a few years ago of a UK banker being banned from the city for fleecing train fares, even after he offered to repay the train company.
- kangda123 2y ago
  There was an even crazier detail to this story. While he thought he's fleecing tfl, he ended up paying more than he would have if tapping out properly.
  - ragebol 2y ago
    But the intention was there. And if you're a banker, (intend to) steal but still end up paying more, maybe you're not a good banker, lol.
- dehrmann 2y ago
  Right; it's not necessarily that they weren't working, but that they lied about it. The fake customer accounts scandal is also in Wells's recent memory, so this can make sense.
- meiraleal 2y ago
  > There is a requirement in the financial industry of being of good character and even minor things could result in loss of employment. Ha! That's a funny joke you hid in the middle of your comment.
michaelt 2y ago
> the company has literally no way to tell if someone is actually useful You say this like it's easy, but it's actually very hard for most white-collar jobs. Is that guy who's closing lots of tickets just picking the easy ones - or fobbing off customers with unhelpful responses? Is that guy who took two weeks to make a two-line change incredibly unproductive? Or did they explore hundreds of avenues to finally stamp out a bug that had stumped dozens of other engineers for months? Is that guy who's overseeing an external project and hasn't raised any issues a veteran with the foresight and initiative to solve problems early, and the expertise not to need hand-holding? Or are they simply not looking for issues? Is that guy reviewing grant proposals taking the time to carefully read through every last one and fully comprehend all the technical details? Or are they skimming a few then funding the famous researchers at the well known universities, same as last year? For a great many jobs, the main form of monitoring is how productive the worker's line manager feels they are. An extremely flawed measure.
- ziddoap 2y ago
  Any manager worth their pay should be able to address all of these scenarios without much difficulty. I definitely don't classify any of your scenarios as "very hard". Between talking to your reports, auditing some small portion of their work, and reviewing historical data, you'd be able to answer all of your hypothetical situations with fairly high confidence. Certainly higher than just vibe-based feelings or how many keys were pressed per minute.
  - michaelt 2y ago
    If the managers don't get taken in by charismatic bullshitters, sure. If the managers don't have super busy schedules, leaving them little time for "auditing work" and "reviewing historical data" If the managers aren't managing workers who know much more than them, meaning they're poorly equipped to understand how hard a given task is. If the managers have perfect vision into untracked work like prioritising tickets, helping people in other teams, interviewing, coaching new starters, performing code review, working on cross-team standardisation efforts and so on. If the managers don't feel looking over people's shoulders or demanding webcams be turned on in meetings would seem distrustful and intrusive. If the managers have time to keep track of everyone's health, wellbeing and equipment so when a spot check finds periods of low productivity it can't be explained away by a broken keyboard or wifi problems or having the flu that week. If the managers think firing one person is guaranteed to let them hire someone better, with no hiring delays or freezes. If the managers don't feel they're buddies with the people on their team, who they eat lunch with every day, and they have far greater affection for the corporation they work for. And if the managers don't benefit from having a larger empire, incentivising them to respond schedule slips by hiring more people Then yes, the manager could indeed address many of these scenarios.
ratg13 2y ago
Why are these the only options? Visit /r/overemployed on Reddit and you’ll find a large community of people teaching each other to do stuff like this so they can collect 2-3 full-time salaries.

mlhpdx 2y ago

> firing someone based on this sort of monitoring or information should be illegal. What would be a justifiable (won't get me in jail) firing in your mind?

Youden 2y ago
Consistently failing to meet KPIs.
- YetAnotherNick 2y ago
  Do people directly work on the KPIs on your org? As in there is individual KPI for each person without any outside blocker etc.? And is the KPI so evenly distributed to each team member? What about other unknowns in the KPI. At least in the companies I worked with, KPIs are manager/lead level items and it is divided into tasks that is handed out to individual team member.
ziddoap 2y ago
Not meeting the job description requirements, failing to deliver, consecutively under-performing KPIs, etc.
- NewJazz 2y ago
  My KPI is how much keyboard mashing my monkeys do! More keyboard mashing brings us closer to writing Shakespeare!
mlhpdx 2y ago
FWIW, I’ve decided to let folks go for failing to act in good faith, and for failing (or unwillingness) to learn from mistakes. That’s it. I admire the folks who have such quality KPIs. And, yes, I’ve been forced to deal with others’ decisions to let folks go as well (primarily missing growth targets), but very rarely.

mistrial9 2y ago

its a fine argument made well, but no.. the job description and the work as directed are the agreement between the employee and the company. IANAL it seems that the fundamentals here are abusive or unwinnable terms of employment, fundemental labor rights that may not be overridden, and yes, slacker or cheating employees who may be gaming their supervision and what to do about that. History is full of outrageous "agreements" by the powerful applied to the powerless, so there have to be labor laws that set an even playing field. Distributed work across legal jurisdictions is an opportunity to push those labor agreements and avoid consequences. On the other hand, there have always been cheaters among workers and that wont go away, either. Modern technology has opened a pandora's box of constant surveillance that was not practical or even possible previously. There have to be new agreements on labor practices. It is a political problem. Compounding the urgency of this situation in an advanced economy is the looming implementation of AI to replace workers, and to enable a few workers to do the work of many, many more of the past. This time around, middle-managers are included in those that are replaceable, or perhaps even mid-level leadership i.e. "your boss is an AI"

cm2187 2y ago

Even if the employee is excellent, the deceit is enough to justify the firing. There is a requirement in the financial industry of being of good character and even minor things could result in loss of employment. There was a story a few years ago of a UK banker being banned from the city for fleecing train fares, even after he offered to repay the train company.

kangda123 2y ago
There was an even crazier detail to this story. While he thought he's fleecing tfl, he ended up paying more than he would have if tapping out properly.
- ragebol 2y ago
  But the intention was there. And if you're a banker, (intend to) steal but still end up paying more, maybe you're not a good banker, lol.
dehrmann 2y ago
Right; it's not necessarily that they weren't working, but that they lied about it. The fake customer accounts scandal is also in Wells's recent memory, so this can make sense.
meiraleal 2y ago
> There is a requirement in the financial industry of being of good character and even minor things could result in loss of employment. Ha! That's a funny joke you hid in the middle of your comment.

michaelt 2y ago

> the company has literally no way to tell if someone is actually useful You say this like it's easy, but it's actually very hard for most white-collar jobs. Is that guy who's closing lots of tickets just picking the easy ones - or fobbing off customers with unhelpful responses? Is that guy who took two weeks to make a two-line change incredibly unproductive? Or did they explore hundreds of avenues to finally stamp out a bug that had stumped dozens of other engineers for months? Is that guy who's overseeing an external project and hasn't raised any issues a veteran with the foresight and initiative to solve problems early, and the expertise not to need hand-holding? Or are they simply not looking for issues? Is that guy reviewing grant proposals taking the time to carefully read through every last one and fully comprehend all the technical details? Or are they skimming a few then funding the famous researchers at the well known universities, same as last year? For a great many jobs, the main form of monitoring is how productive the worker's line manager feels they are. An extremely flawed measure.

ziddoap 2y ago
Any manager worth their pay should be able to address all of these scenarios without much difficulty. I definitely don't classify any of your scenarios as "very hard". Between talking to your reports, auditing some small portion of their work, and reviewing historical data, you'd be able to answer all of your hypothetical situations with fairly high confidence. Certainly higher than just vibe-based feelings or how many keys were pressed per minute.
- michaelt 2y ago
  If the managers don't get taken in by charismatic bullshitters, sure. If the managers don't have super busy schedules, leaving them little time for "auditing work" and "reviewing historical data" If the managers aren't managing workers who know much more than them, meaning they're poorly equipped to understand how hard a given task is. If the managers have perfect vision into untracked work like prioritising tickets, helping people in other teams, interviewing, coaching new starters, performing code review, working on cross-team standardisation efforts and so on. If the managers don't feel looking over people's shoulders or demanding webcams be turned on in meetings would seem distrustful and intrusive. If the managers have time to keep track of everyone's health, wellbeing and equipment so when a spot check finds periods of low productivity it can't be explained away by a broken keyboard or wifi problems or having the flu that week. If the managers think firing one person is guaranteed to let them hire someone better, with no hiring delays or freezes. If the managers don't feel they're buddies with the people on their team, who they eat lunch with every day, and they have far greater affection for the corporation they work for. And if the managers don't benefit from having a larger empire, incentivising them to respond schedule slips by hiring more people Then yes, the manager could indeed address many of these scenarios.

ratg13 2y ago

Why are these the only options? Visit /r/overemployed on Reddit and you’ll find a large community of people teaching each other to do stuff like this so they can collect 2-3 full-time salaries.