Big Brother At Work May Not Be A Bad Thing

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I don't know why but something tells me that you guys might not agree with this lady at all. Probably because you are bullies. ;)

But so long as everyone knew they were being monitored and understood what for, I don't see why it should be such a terrifying idea - except perhaps for those who bully, shout at or harass others and who have until now been getting away with it. Far from making work less civilised, the arrival of Big Brother could make it more so.
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Ah the old "if you're not doing anything wrong it's OK to be monitored" argument. That's not old.
 
Totally worth the cost, because then I wouldn't have to worry about the 1% of my coworkers that suck being assholes without repercussion. And I don't think there's any chance that micro-managers, government spying, or just plain bored middle management would start abusing it in any way.

Corporate babysitters are the best kind of babysitters, right?
 
Woman do not generally understand how guys interact. If you were to be monitored, something that is innocent between 2 males might be considered bullying or inappropriate when heard by a third party. Not to say males aren't inappropriate, but we tolerate that.
 
Like there are no bullies in any Dictatorship now. I guess you could just rename the death squads as monitering compliance officers.
 
kumquat said:
Ah the old "if you're not doing anything wrong it's OK to be monitored" argument. That's not old.
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It's more pointed than that. Its saying we're going to use this for thought policing purposes, descent against you boss, politically incorrect expressions, so somebody who knows how to game the system or higher ranked in the system can fuck you hard and you can't retaliate, etc.

My only consolation is that most of the people who want this, think they are clean when nobody is. They tend to think political correctness works on a point system and their participation in enforcement gives them a halo. They usually end up bit hard.
 
Why don't we just go straight to the brain chip process and skip this silly bullshit of controlling people.

 
The problem with the theory is that what if the people watching are worse than the people being monitored? That's reason enough to scrap such an idea from the start.
 
I have an issue with "monitoring" but not "logging".

Honestly I probably have seen more cases of employees abusing any trust an employer gives them than management abusing logging or tracking systems. Maybe I have been lucky.

I have always felt that logging of email/chat/internet access was a smart move for a company. Got a slacker employee whose co-workers say is surfing all day. Check their logs to find out how valid the complaints are.

I do not condone the level of monitoring they mention though... tone of voice in all conversations really?

I also do not agree with benchmarking these types of things... "Johnny, I have a report you spent 1% longer on facebook then is allowed."? Just stupid, that is the managers job. Sure have metrics for work done... if an employee can keep those up, what do you care?
 
-Talking with a woman, saying we should ban bossy cause its hurtful
-Saying you can't ban words, sure you shouldn't say things to hurt people, but banning words is silly
-Says I have "Internalized Misogyny" because "You just hate woman cause you're some dickless virgin"

I forget, WHY did you guys want to ban bossy again?
 
Unfortunately, Corporate America is like High School with cubicles/offices with all the variety of employees and attitudes. And thus requires some level of babysitting. How much and what kind is the key and depends on the userbase. I agree with Dandrik, that for the most part in environments up the Medium biz, logging should be plenty, maybe some basic category restriction, i.e. pr0n, hate, etc. So you have records if there are complaints and/or efficiency issues with people. But the full-on active watching/tracking/active alert stuff is a bit rediculous and has a cost in both the technical hardware/software side of as well as the human productivity and therefore payroll side of things. Is that cost worth the gain? Or are they just put in place to justify spending/employment?
 
This is a british twat, they champion government CCTVs on every lamp post.
 
Carouselambra said:
Woman do not generally understand how guys interact. If you were to be monitored, something that is innocent between 2 males might be considered bullying or inappropriate when heard by a third party. Not to say males aren't inappropriate, but we tolerate that.
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This is the workplace, not the bar dude...
 
ktk said:
This is the workplace, not the bar dude...
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And? I don't know where you have worked but all of my jobs have had a group of guys that bust on each other to a varying degree. Currently I work with a bunch of ex-military guys that do not sensor much.

All the backroom IT groups I've had contact with have had similar experiences.
 
Carouselambra said:
Woman do not generally understand how guys interact. If you were to be monitored, something that is innocent between 2 males might be considered bullying or inappropriate when heard by a third party. Not to say males aren't inappropriate, but we tolerate that.
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Yeah, males "tolerate that," which is sad. For the most part, males have absolutely no idea how ingrained their sexist attitudes and beliefs are.
 
kumquat said:
Yeah, males "tolerate that," which is sad. For the most part, males have absolutely no idea how ingrained their sexist attitudes and beliefs are.
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I guess I'm guilty of being ingrained with sexism. Although the parallel is beyond me. I happen to enjoy the back and forth between a group of males.
 
Ducman69 said:
This is a british twat, they champion government CCTVs on every lamp post.
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Ironic since they also have the highest crime rates in the world.
Can't wait until they can save us from our selves. :rolleyes:
 
"Above all, for the system to work, you would need to have some faith in the regime that implemented it. But then, if you don't have any faith in the regime, the chances are that you are done for anyway."

No, no, no, no, no.... on so many levels no.
 
This person does not understand at all the nature of bullying, or the creative capacity of humans to be a bully (men and women).

Monitoring will not solve bullying, in fact it will make it far more insidious and worse, as it will push it into the shadows, where it can do more damage and leave people feeling even more helpless to deal with it.

Kumquat, same can be said for the flip, most women have no idea how ingrained their (sexist) attitudes and beliefs are. Your comment only serves to make matters worse not better, it isn't us vs them, its us and us.

We are amazingly close to equality in the western world, we are on the last 10%, the hardest to change, and it will take time. Polarizing the issue will not move us forward, only backward.
 
Carouselambra said:
I guess I'm guilty of being ingrained with sexism. Although the parallel is beyond me. I happen to enjoy the back and forth between a group of males.
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I enjoy back and forth between males, too. What I don't enjoy is "back and forth" that objectifies people or is sexist. Being "between guys" doesn't make it OK.
 
hmmm. not sure if I want to be monitored at work while watch porn and masturbate. :eek:
 
kumquat said:
I enjoy back and forth between males, too. What I don't enjoy is "back and forth" that objectifies people or is sexist. Being "between guys" doesn't make it OK.
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I'm sorry if I implied in anyway that male banter was somehow sexist or objectifying people. What I was referring to was when two males are talking and busting on each other, a third party might think one of the two is being bullied. When in reality both are mutually agreeing to bust on each other because, in my experience, that's what males do.

I believe you made a leap to something that I was not talking about. If women are present, the topic of conversation changes. In my opinion, not because of sexism, but out of respect. If you were being monitored you would not have that control over who is hearing your conversation.
 
WhyYouLoveMe said:
"Above all, for the system to work, you would need to have some faith in the regime that implemented it. But then, if you don't have any faith in the regime, the chances are that you are done for anyway."

No, no, no, no, no.... on so many levels no.
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Agreed. Faith should work both ways. If you're being productive and making your boss look good, why should it matter so much what you do during a break or some downtime? So long as you're not hurting anyone else, that is. There are a lot of states in the US that have protection for which employers can fire you at any time for any reason. Having a surveillance system like this would just make it much easier to excuse their actions.

Most places I've worked for have had zero-tolerance policies in place for harassment of any kind, and encourage both the victim and witnesses to report any occurrence. I currently work for an organization that employs 80% females and I have never seen or heard of this policy being abused in anyway, to the 20% male population or otherwise.

The meritocracy line is a bunch of hoopla, too. I don't know what kind of sweatshops they run over there in the UK, but here in the US I have never worked under any management that did not know what their staff was accomplishing. I have never witnessed any promotion that wasn't deserved, in my opinion.
 
kumquat said:
Yeah, males "tolerate that," which is sad. For the most part, males have absolutely no idea how ingrained their sexist attitudes and beliefs are.
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Or maybe its perfectly natural and shouldn't be pointed out as some horrible flaw?

"Bullying", "trash talking" and "picking on" one another is a way for people to address issues that others have. You ostracize the weak, or force them to become strong. Today's society says let them be weak and meager, be unproductive and useless; because we can't hurt their feelings. And look at how amazing and efficient its made the world. (it hasn't).

If I told a female coworker that she's a fatass, needs to hit the gym or go on a diet; or that she is slow at doing her work, I'd be looking for a new job. I tell a male coworker the same thing, they might actually take it as good advice and pick up the pace / get in shape, because they realize they should. It doesn't matter the tone or words used.

The "PC" nature of the workplace is already overbearing, and has merely become a tool that the unproductive useless members of the world use to get by in life.

Call me sexist, but my experience in the healthcare industry has shown me that even in a female dominated workplace, the males are almost universally better at what they do, better at handling stress, willing to take responsibility for mistakes, and open to criticism.

This stuff, it does create equality though. Most certainly. That (usually male) worker is now less motivated, more paranoid, and ultimately less efficient; because he has to dance around all that PC bs and "big brother" crap.... thus lowering him to the same level of productivity of his lazy, complaining (usually female) coworker. Yay! Progress!
 
lilbabycat said:
Or maybe its perfectly natural and shouldn't be pointed out as some horrible flaw?

"Bullying", "trash talking" and "picking on" one another is a way for people to address issues that others have. You ostracize the weak, or force them to become strong. Today's society says let them be weak and meager, be unproductive and useless; because we can't hurt their feelings. And look at how amazing and efficient its made the world. (it hasn't).

If I told a female coworker that she's a fatass, needs to hit the gym or go on a diet; or that she is slow at doing her work, I'd be looking for a new job. I tell a male coworker the same thing, they might actually take it as good advice and pick up the pace / get in shape, because they realize they should. It doesn't matter the tone or words used.

The "PC" nature of the workplace is already overbearing, and has merely become a tool that the unproductive useless members of the world use to get by in life.

Call me sexist, but my experience in the healthcare industry has shown me that even in a female dominated workplace, the males are almost universally better at what they do, better at handling stress, willing to take responsibility for mistakes, and open to criticism.

This stuff, it does create equality though. Most certainly. That (usually male) worker is now less motivated, more paranoid, and ultimately less efficient; because he has to dance around all that PC bs and "big brother" crap.... thus lowering him to the same level of productivity of his lazy, complaining (usually female) coworker. Yay! Progress!
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lol, well said.

I'm sure you will be chastised for your views though.
 
kumquat said:
I'm not sure you understood the comment I was responding to OR my comment itself.
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You keep saying its a male problem

Wrong, being an asshole is a human problem, not a male problem

Lets bring up my experience again shall we?

I was talking to a woman who wanted to ban the word bossy, because "Words hurt" etc, and its insulting

I said the problem wasn't with bossy, it was with the word, and wanting to ban the word bossy is just silly

She then proceeded to say I didn't agree with her because I had "Misplaced Misogyny" and I didn't understand woman because I was "A dickless loser who'll forever be a virgin"

She wanted to ban the word bossy because it hurt woman's feelings, yet she had zero care if she hurt MY feelings

Again, being an asshole is a HUMAN problem, not a sexist problem
 
kumquat said:
I enjoy back and forth between males, too. What I don't enjoy is "back and forth" that objectifies people or is sexist. Being "between guys" doesn't make it OK.
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Oh god, just off the top of my head

-Roseanne and her friends talking about Patrick Swayze running around half naked and how hot he was
-Tons of time Jill and her friends talked about watching football because they liked to see the tight asses on the men
-Peg on Married with Children oogling, flaunting or fawning over any guy she found hot, regularly talks about it with Marcy
-Sharon Osborn cackling like a fucking freak and laughing cause a woman threw a man's dick down the garborator

Why is ok for them to make all those comments?

I'm not going to bring up anecdotal evidence, but just based on that above, that woman can repeatedly oogle and reduce men to sex objects on TV and nobody bats an eye, but I guarantee if some guy on TV laughed at a woman getting her breasts cut off, he'd be fired at warp 10
 
ShamisOMally said:
You keep saying its a male problem

Wrong, being an asshole is a human problem, not a male problem

Lets bring up my experience again shall we?

I was talking to a woman who wanted to ban the word bossy, because "Words hurt" etc, and its insulting

I said the problem wasn't with bossy, it was with the word, and wanting to ban the word bossy is just silly

She then proceeded to say I didn't agree with her because I had "Misplaced Misogyny" and I didn't understand woman because I was "A dickless loser who'll forever be a virgin"

She wanted to ban the word bossy because it hurt woman's feelings, yet she had zero care if she hurt MY feelings

Again, being an asshole is a HUMAN problem, not a sexist problem
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Women are spoiled beyond belief. It is so ingrained, they can't even see it and have no clue how to be any different. Makes it hard to deal with them in a straightforward constructive manner. But if you want to prey on it in a manipulative way like a lot of politicians, etc., you can create a whole world of strife where none existed before.
 
If you endorse a potentially harmful/intrusive/abusive power on the premise that it'll be OK because only the good guys will be using/abusing it. . . congratulations. . . you're a fucking idiot.
 
lilbabycat said:
Or maybe its perfectly natural and shouldn't be pointed out as some horrible flaw?

"Bullying", "trash talking" and "picking on" one another is a way for people to address issues that others have. You ostracize the weak, or force them to become strong. Today's society says let them be weak and meager, be unproductive and useless; because we can't hurt their feelings. And look at how amazing and efficient its made the world. (it hasn't).

If I told a female coworker that she's a fatass, needs to hit the gym or go on a diet; or that she is slow at doing her work, I'd be looking for a new job. I tell a male coworker the same thing, they might actually take it as good advice and pick up the pace / get in shape, because they realize they should. It doesn't matter the tone or words used.
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This is kinda BS... have you ever played a MOBA game? Honestly this question in and of itself, if you ever answer in the affirmative... it would mostly refute your argument. You shouldn't need to go any further than that to know that not everything that humans pick at is actual valid criticism. Some humans are just petty and have an overinflated ego. That includes their views and their take on everything, including how a person should be. You see that throughout schools, with the lack of open-minded individuals... fortunately most of those are discarded into the lower ranks of society, but some of that trash makes it to a standard job, without changing their core values. And those people may end up being a boss, worst case scenario. That list of possible shortcomings are just the tip of the iceberg, too.

Anyway point is, some people are just idiots. But the worst thing is that they don't understand they are, and rather they refuse to have the capacity to understand that they are being idiots. Should you take "criticism" from such people? I wouldn't. Why take criticism from people who can't admit their own shortcomings? Those idiots from MOBAs might be some of the people in your work group. Luckily the team I'm a part of is pretty good all around. Very open minded. That isn't always true, though.


Not that I agree with who you're quoting. There is no such thing as a human society that isn't sexist. Males and females are fundamentally different, both mind and body. If they weren't, sexism would never have come about in the first place. I don't understand how you would develop one standard set of interactions that would somehow work for both sexes. Would it end up actually improving society? Would it satisfy both sexes more than the current system? And who would decide whether it's entirely unbiased towards males and females?
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
This is kinda BS... have you ever played a MOBA game? Honestly this question in and of itself, if you ever answer in the affirmative... it would mostly refute your argument. You shouldn't need to go any further than that to know that not everything that humans pick at is actual valid criticism. Some humans are just petty and have an overinflated ego. That includes their views and their take on everything, including how a person should be. You see that throughout schools, with the lack of open-minded individuals... fortunately most of those are discarded into the lower ranks of society, but some of that trash makes it to a standard job, without changing their core values. And those people may end up being a boss, worst case scenario. That list of possible shortcomings are just the tip of the iceberg, too.
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MOBAs aren't really a good thing to look at... kids playing a game on the internet?
StoleMyOwnCar said:
Not that I agree with who you're quoting. There is no such thing as a human society that isn't sexist. Males and females are fundamentally different, both mind and body. If they weren't, sexism would never have come about in the first place. I don't understand how you would develop one standard set of interactions that would somehow work for both sexes. Would it end up actually improving society? Would it satisfy both sexes more than the current system? And who would decide whether it's entirely unbiased towards males and females?
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Good point though. There's really no getting around sexism to a degree. We've gone pretty far and trying to get the last bit really won't work because well, we'll always be split up into two groups.
 
lilbabycat said:
Or maybe its perfectly natural and shouldn't be pointed out as some horrible flaw?

"Bullying", "trash talking" and "picking on" one another is a way for people to address issues that others have. You ostracize the weak, or force them to become strong. Today's society says let them be weak and meager, be unproductive and useless; because we can't hurt their feelings. And look at how amazing and efficient its made the world. (it hasn't).

If I told a female coworker that she's a fatass, needs to hit the gym or go on a diet; or that she is slow at doing her work, I'd be looking for a new job. I tell a male coworker the same thing, they might actually take it as good advice and pick up the pace / get in shape, because they realize they should. It doesn't matter the tone or words used.

The "PC" nature of the workplace is already overbearing, and has merely become a tool that the unproductive useless members of the world use to get by in life.

Call me sexist, but my experience in the healthcare industry has shown me that even in a female dominated workplace, the males are almost universally better at what they do, better at handling stress, willing to take responsibility for mistakes, and open to criticism.

This stuff, it does create equality though. Most certainly. That (usually male) worker is now less motivated, more paranoid, and ultimately less efficient; because he has to dance around all that PC bs and "big brother" crap.... thus lowering him to the same level of productivity of his lazy, complaining (usually female) coworker. Yay! Progress!
Click to expand...

jpm100 said:
Women are spoiled beyond belief. It is so ingrained, they can't even see it and have no clue how to be any different. Makes it hard to deal with them in a straightforward constructive manner. But if you want to prey on it in a manipulative way like a lot of politicians, etc., you can create a whole world of strife where none existed before.
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Pretty much this.

Can we just start lynching the people who keep telling us we have to be "PC"? They seriously do not belong in the gene pool.
 
chockomonkey said:
MOBAs aren't really a good thing to look at... kids playing a game on the internet?
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There are a lot more older people playing MOBAs than you think. I'd say a lot of people are in college at least. I know at GA Tech it was pretty huge... and this was just after it launched; it launched while I was there; now it's probably even bigger. Either way the behavior I was referencing wasn't unique to that game type. That game type was just an example of it where it generally got taken to the extreme. Hubris and whatnot is present throughout all ranks of human society, and can be a part of group dynamics anywhere. Growing up takes some edge off of it... well actually no, in some cases people grow up worse than they were.

That's not to say it's static. I've had my dark times too. The important thing is being able to apologize and acknowledge your own shortcomings. The problem is that a lot of people can't do that... and it's a one way ride from there. Everything is someone else's fault.
 
Aireoth said:
This person does not understand at all the nature of bullying, or the creative capacity of humans to be a bully (men and women).

Monitoring will not solve bullying, in fact it will make it far more insidious and worse, as it will push it into the shadows, where it can do more damage and leave people feeling even more helpless to deal with it.

Kumquat, same can be said for the flip, most women have no idea how ingrained their (sexist) attitudes and beliefs are. Your comment only serves to make matters worse not better, it isn't us vs them, its us and us.

We are amazingly close to equality in the western world, we are on the last 10%, the hardest to change, and it will take time. Polarizing the issue will not move us forward, only backward.
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You left out the fact that a system like this can also be uysed as the tools to bully. I mean bully's have never baited anyone into getting in trouble before by 'politely' antagonizing them, right?

I predict a few things.

First, the monitoring systems will suck at doing what they say. Primarily because any vaguely social task you choose to automate basically means you don't give a shit about that task other than what it costs you. Automating it pretty much means you don't intend to have anyone in place to actually DO anything about what this system might reveal.

Second, I don't think the process of increased monitoring is intended to do what it says at all. The intent isn't to create a better workpalce, the intent is to mitigate cost. The socially acceptable version of this is claiming it will mitigate costs of harassment suits. This is bullshit unless your company is just completely awful, retaining data to CYA just would be cost prohibitive compared to settling for most places. More realistically the intent of the system is to permit you to craft a multiple choice style rule set as terms of employment, and to log any infractions creating an environment where you can dismiss everyone for cause at any time for something like "you talk to too many people too loudly on a daily basis, the computer said so." This means that there are basically zero repercussions for abusing your workforce. IT doesn't mean that the author of the article will finally be able to say "see, my grocery list wasn't really a big deal", it will mean that when her boss says it's suck my dick or no more job, and she says no, he can go sorry we have to let you go over those grocery lists and any claim you make to the contrary can be brushed off as retaliatory for justifiable discipline. That you only have to log infractions for, and that is cheaper. Form the corporate level, the motivation will be to maximally reduce unemployment payouts, severance packages, and wrongful dismissal lawsuits.

Third, it will totally fuck up productivity. The average office tend to slide past the point of diminishing returns regularly anyway. No more mental breaks in the day. The fantasy football pool? Nope no more. Sure, that one asshole who spent 6 hours a day talking about that with other people rather than burnign 30 minutes here or there and being more productive for it could probably do with getting canned, but you are going to stress out those other 14 employees who played the game with him in the deal. And that is best case.
 
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