[HN Gopher] The rise of workplace surveillance [audio]
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The rise of workplace surveillance [audio]
Author : kennethfriedman
Score : 83 points
Date : 2022-08-26 05:08 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| For those who prefer text, the original report the podcast is
| based on was pretty interesting:
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/14/business/work...
| or https://archive.ph/Bejv1
| JohnFen wrote:
| I genuinely cannot imagine any job worth being constantly spied
| on.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Why bother working with a company that doesn't trust you?
| thebeastie wrote:
| Might need the money...
| [deleted]
| kornhole wrote:
| 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."
| EastSmith wrote:
| I am not sure I've ever heard someone being happy for being
| monitored at work.
| noarchy wrote:
| Yeah I suspect it isn't exactly a 50/50 split between "both
| sides" of this issue - not that the article necessarily
| argued that, of course.
| sebdufbeau wrote:
| 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
| 1123581321 wrote:
| 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.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| 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".
| Barrin92 wrote:
| 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.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Makes sense--thank you.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| These kinds of things rarely include the people in charge--
| maybe middle-managers, sometimes, but not the _actual_ big
| shots. See also:
|
| - Open office plans, except the bosses get offices (there
| are exceptions, as with any of these other points, but
| that's the norm)
|
| - Drug testing.
|
| - Anti-moonlighting rules or other onerous contractural
| restrictions or claims on time off (these kinds of things
| apply to higher-ups more often than the other two, but it's
| still common for them to be universal for the "peons" while
| the C-suite is allowed to have their hands in several pies
| at once)
|
| In general, being less-surveilled and less-restricted at
| work (and off work) is a perk of higher-status positions in
| a company. It's a social class thing, essentially. This
| tendency predates computerized surveillance.
| clpm4j wrote:
| 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.
| buffet_overflow wrote:
| My concerns are:
|
| 1. Is this system calibrated down to the role and task at
| hand? Even just in tech, someone doing more design work is
| going to look different from the backend folks. Doubly so
| if one project is just starting while the other is midway.
|
| 2. How can we understand the potential bias already in this
| system? It's a black box by design, at what point is it
| reviewed and by whom?
|
| 3. Even if it's fine today, who is to say how it will be
| tuned tomorrow? Do you think new management would just
| leave it alone?
|
| 4. Do you think the people running this system are applying
| it to themselves equally?
|
| IMO, this is a poor replacement for having a manager that's
| a human being and treats you like one too. I'm sad for
| people that can't find options away from these things, and
| can't vote with their bodies and leave.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Makes sense--thank you.
| mise_en_place wrote:
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.
| jrjarrett wrote:
| Why not?
| ghaff wrote:
| Because of what the parent said. They're probably making
| life harder for their coworkers even over and above
| encouraging companies to put these monitoring systems in
| place. (Assuming, of course, that it's not considered
| perfectly legit as part of employment contracts/business
| ethics.) And, just to go all-in, if I had a co-worker doing
| this and I knew it wasn't allowed, I'd probably rat them
| out. In fact, I expect it's entirely possible I'd be in
| breach of some ethics guidelines if I didn't.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| Why is ok for employers to have more than one employee, but not
| the other way around?
| ghaff wrote:
| So work as a part-time contractor in that case. The issue
| isn't working for more than one company--many do--but being
| dishonest about it.
| gruez wrote:
| 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.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Those are really not comparable things.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| That was my first thought - I hate this, but I understand why
| they're doing it.
| bwestergard wrote:
| Glad I'm a union software developer and don't need to worry about
| this.
|
| https://twitter.com/WeBuildNPR/status/1484190346217148418
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