My hard line is I won’t work for any company that enables the ability for the company to to turn on a web cam or microphone in my home. Web tracking software, key loggers, and automated screenshots is is the norm, unfortunately. I have a personal computer right there if I don’t want to be tracked, so that doesn’t matter to me.
If you feel like you need these monitoring tools as a leader or manager perhaps take a long hard look in the mirror in regards to your own management abilities. I know what employees are doing their job and doing it well by the timeliness and quality of their deliverables and the amount of imitative they are taking. If an employee is not meeting expectations have a conversation with that employee and figure out why. The only thing monitoring software does is make everyone feel disrespected.
With this type of surveillance and the push to go back to the physical office, a lot of companies are wising up to employees who were taking multiple jobs remotely. What’s sad is that it ruins it for the rest of us, who were honest and diligently working one remote job. This is why we can’t have nice things.
It's a small minority of course. But you'll even get people here vehemently arguing that essentially all is fair in love and war and screw companies anyway. So you get subreddits and news stories--which probably make it perceived as a far bigger problem than it actually is--which leads at least some companies to take action. As you suggest, you have selfish pricks ruining things for everyone.
To be clear, a small moonlighting gig that's in keeping with business rules is fine. A second full-time job is almost certainly not.
It is your problem no? If someone takes 2-3 jobs BUT still producing enough, what does it matter? If a company has a problem with it and punishes everyone, again, it is a 'you' problem.
If I am laid off (company doesn't give a shit about me), will you give me part of your salary? No right? So why the f should I care if my actions (assuming they are legal) affect you? 2 salaries? Yay, I will get to retirement in half (or less even) time. Have a problem? Well change companies or do it the same. If your company punishes everyone for a couple individual actions, they don't know how to manage people or even who is working two jobs, just a suspicion. Change jobs, but let the people that can and prefer to work 2/3 jobs, finally had an opportunity to get ahead alone. It is your problem, not theirs
No it isn't my problem. The company I work for knows that I have a business. Because they were originally my customer. I was honest and completely transparent with them, so there was no issue. Completely different if I had kept the business and not told them about it.
It's about integrity, something many people lack here in America today. And I very much doubt they are producing enough. They are likely working 10 hours a week per job. Being both an employee and a business owner that has employees, integrity is critical to any type business relationship. It may not seem like it, but trust me, it is paramount.
Simple, because most likely your employment agreement says that you should be devoting your full time and attention to your job for 40 hours a week or whatever. If you're pulling 80 hour weeks across two companies, there's theoretically nothing wrong with that[1], and I suspect those are not the type of people the parent poster is against. The same applies to businesses. If you had a contract with a vendor promising that you'll be their sole client, and it turns out they're actually working for other companies, that would be unacceptable as well.
[1] unless your employment agreement also specifices some sort of exclusivity.
Interesting how some workers know and like the monitoring tools on themselves. Many of the debates on HN and elsewhere around this technology are split between psychologies. Many hate to be watched and controlled while others want the opposite. Being on one side of the spectrum, I was long puzzled at the other side's position until I came to accept it. I still try to understand how people have come to their position. The lyrics come to my mind, "Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be used by you."
In the episode, you here about people who like the monitoring as it "levels the playing field" and reduces the perceived performance (eg: slackers that get promoted), leaving only the concrete performance as monitored by such tools
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that position personally, just exposing it
It’s a long episode, but it is in fact mentioned in a lengthy segment near the end that some workers interviewed liked the accountability and focus the monitoring provided.
What’s the argument for the other side? I can see how someone would put up with it in exchange for some other benefit (money, unique company) but not how they would want it for its own sake.
I've noticed that the same sort of people who support workplace surveillance are also the ones who insist they love open offices and pair programming. I think they appreciate having another person to "fall back" on when they get stuck somewhere. If their boss is constantly monitoring them, and they're unable to solve a particular problem, the boss might wander over and say, "hey Bob, you've been on this spreadsheet for a while, let me show you this formula that might help". Or at least, that's the only explanation I can think of that makes sense.
I'm the opposite - I learn best by studying and tinkering (what with having 6 years of higher education steering me that way and all...). Nothing kills that off faster than having somebody looking over your shoulder saying, "why are you looking at the HTTP specification, somebody else already knows how that works".
I listened to the podcast episode yesterday. Apparently some (I think they only cited one person as a source) people use it as a form of motivation and focus. They also said some women view it as a type of equalizer. But the ultimate takeaway was that the systems and the data are inherently not very accurate in their measurements.
if it's transparent and includes everyone including whoever is in charge it creates objective data to judge performance by. Just like pay transparency if it's universal it's a good way to make compensation more meritocratic. Catching slackers isn't a bad thing, Only doing it in one direction is.
Readit News
https://twitter.com/WeBuildNPR/status/1484190346217148418
If you feel like you need these monitoring tools as a leader or manager perhaps take a long hard look in the mirror in regards to your own management abilities. I know what employees are doing their job and doing it well by the timeliness and quality of their deliverables and the amount of imitative they are taking. If an employee is not meeting expectations have a conversation with that employee and figure out why. The only thing monitoring software does is make everyone feel disrespected.
To be clear, a small moonlighting gig that's in keeping with business rules is fine. A second full-time job is almost certainly not.
If I am laid off (company doesn't give a shit about me), will you give me part of your salary? No right? So why the f should I care if my actions (assuming they are legal) affect you? 2 salaries? Yay, I will get to retirement in half (or less even) time. Have a problem? Well change companies or do it the same. If your company punishes everyone for a couple individual actions, they don't know how to manage people or even who is working two jobs, just a suspicion. Change jobs, but let the people that can and prefer to work 2/3 jobs, finally had an opportunity to get ahead alone. It is your problem, not theirs
It's about integrity, something many people lack here in America today. And I very much doubt they are producing enough. They are likely working 10 hours a week per job. Being both an employee and a business owner that has employees, integrity is critical to any type business relationship. It may not seem like it, but trust me, it is paramount.
[1] unless your employment agreement also specifices some sort of exclusivity.
Deleted Comment
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that position personally, just exposing it
Perhaps not the wisest opinion, but so it goes.
I'm the opposite - I learn best by studying and tinkering (what with having 6 years of higher education steering me that way and all...). Nothing kills that off faster than having somebody looking over your shoulder saying, "why are you looking at the HTTP specification, somebody else already knows how that works".