[HN Gopher] 'Bossware is coming for almost every worker': the so...
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'Bossware is coming for almost every worker': the software is
watching you
Author : bryanrasmussen
Score : 34 points
Date : 2022-04-27 18:06 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| kurupt213 wrote:
| I think it's unrealistic to expect to be allowed to work from
| home and not be monitored by accountability tools
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > Computer programmer and remote work advocate David Heinemeier
| Hansson has been waging a one-company campaign against the
| vendors of the technology. Early in the pandemic he announced
| that the company he co-founded, Basecamp, which provides project
| management software for remote working, would ban vendors of the
| technology from integrating with it.
|
| I'm looking for other examples like Hansson as research for my
| next book "Ethics for Hackers", since a key audience is
| entrepreneurs and developers taking a principled, active stand
| against technofascism and pathological control fetishes.
| guilhas wrote:
| These softwares would sound interesting for personal monitoring,
| and share interesting stuff, like the old Wakoopa
|
| But your boss filming you all day to see if you're picking
| boogers instead of working sounds scary
|
| Management loves to implement these kinds of control that they
| don't have to go through
|
| Anyway I can spend an entire day configuring my home server and
| no one can tell if I am working or not
| arran-nz wrote:
| Reminds me of Manna, a profound story which covers this theme.
|
| https://marshallbrain.com/manna
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I predict we'll soon have virtual USB keyboards provided by a
| Raspberry PI with an open source "productivity simulation"
| software running. If companies want people to score highly on
| activity metrics, some workers will do just that: Score highly on
| the metrics.
|
| I mean for some jobs, work has been mostly performative for quite
| a while anyway, so then this is the logical next step.
|
| Slightly unrelated: I'd also love an app that modifies my webcam
| stream so that I'm always staring at the camera. That way, I can
| read blogs and nobody will notice.
| mc4ndr3 wrote:
| I have to fill out two timesheets in separate systems. What the
| fuck, 2022? I would have expected society to move beyond
| timesheets at all in this millennium. But the bean counters
| always win.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Timesheets are a fact of life, like taxes. Timesheets also have
| to exist in some organizations specifically because of taxes.
| Many organizations capitalize software.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I require my employees to check in and out using an online
| time-tracking tool. Not because I'm evil, but because my office
| safety insurance requires me to document when people come and
| go, presumably so that they can refuse paying for someone
| falling off their chair in their free time. Plus I need precise
| per-day hour metrics for tax filings.
| scsilver wrote:
| Could you elaborate on the tax aspect?
| krageon wrote:
| It is your prerogative to not work with a company that
| requires you to track people who don't have much of a choice
| (because let's face it: Laziness is evil, and most
| corporations are just as lazy :) ).
| raxxorrax wrote:
| Just quit these companies. Market allows for it and when you do
| clearly communicate the reason. Also building tools to disrupt
| the metrics should be easy. Company time of course. If they ask
| for a high score a dependable worker delivers.
|
| I wish they would name the large retailer. This is valuable
| information for workers to be informed. It is no libel in this
| case.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| No, "Just quit these companies" is the 100% worst possible,
| least effective response. They act collectively, you realize?
| So the worker should fight the metric. Just ask one other
| worker who is as angry as you are, one with lower status than
| you ideally, and tell your employer "BOTH OF US are quitting if
| you add bossware to EITHER of us!" Makes it a little better,
| two versus one. Or hey, if some bosses in the company you work
| for add it and others don't, Oh Hey, just change department! No
| need for collective action if the boss doesn't act
| collectively.
|
| A poster that used to frequent this forum said, "always fight
| the metric." You always have to fight the metric, in the end
| you will be JUDGED and that JUDGMENT will determine your
| status. Metrics are all harmful.
|
| And beyond that, never buy into promotions, they're a mirage.
| There will be no promotions for the most part now that the
| population has peaked in the Western World. You get I don't
| know, $15000 and that's what you live on.
|
| And Mexico is fusing with America at this point.
|
| I should explain. There is en masse immigration under the
| smiling eyes of the president, but like an order of magnitude
| greater than it used to be. Order of magnitude (literally 10x)
| for Brazilians, Haitians, Cubans, Venezuelans, Colombians.
| Mexicans? Who knows. Hard to count if there's no counting.
| There's no counting. You just walk and you're in. No
| enforcement. In fact the biggest form of enforcement is the
| Feds cracking down on "la migra" meaning Department of Homeland
| Security.
|
| So let us not speak of problems, opinions, whether it's good or
| bad. But the concept of the American worker earning a premium
| wage purely because of his nationality is vanishing if it has
| not vanished already. I heard it described as a luxury the
| United States could afford to keep its people happy. Or did
| once.
|
| So now we enter a world of much lower incomes than Americans
| had, but also with much greater uniformity. What do you get?
| You get $15000. Run out of money? Budget better! Don't eat for
| a few days! It is always better to fast than accept offers of
| credit.
| daly wrote:
| Easy fix. hit F1 :-)
|
| Humor, for those too young to know about the "boss" key in games.
| bloqs wrote:
| I always knew bosskey as a tiny windows app uses for switching
| screens at school. Fantastic.
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