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State-Sponsored Solitaire?
jefu writes "According to this story the state of North Carolina may be considering banning solitaire on state owned machines. It seems that state workers are now perceived as having replaced leaning on brooms with playing solitaire or minesweeper. The story provides coverage of both sides of the issue, noting that playing solitaire (or other games) may provide workers with a way to burn off some stress, but that this kind of activity is likely to be perceived as time wasting. My favorite bit (especially as April 15th draws ever closer) is where the author notes that fifty percent of the time an IRS employee is on the computer they are playing games, shopping online or gambling."
It sounds to me like the real problem is that government workers aren't able to hit Alt-Tab fast enough. Once we address that, then the problem will be neatly swept under the rug.
I'm a big tall mofo.
It's only a matter of time before they ban Slashdot.
... and with this regulation fell the last obstacle to Linux acceptance in North Carolina.
All I can say is that it's a good thing Windows doesn't come with Tetris.
... work there?
I can see it now: employees sneaking in 52-card decks into the office and playing solitaire on their desk. Boss walks buy, they quickly throw their keyboard on top of it and get back to work. Gotta "burn off stress" somehow.
I just hope Minesweeper addicts don't resort to planting landmines in the office to get their fix.
fifty percent of the time an IRS employee is on the computer they are playing games, shopping online or gambling.
So, if we ban Solitaire, the IRS employees will probably spend more time gambling. Whose wise idea was that, I wonder?
Nope, do you realize how many employees gambling it takes to lose all of the taxpayer money? They get billions in each year, they need to do something with it! Although I guess that whatever money they spend on gambling they get part of back when taxes come due... Damn them, even when they lose they win!
Wait.
Not May 15?
GOD DAMN IT
We have a cartoon on the door of the IT room that shows some users playing solitaire on their desks with actual decks of cards. The caption reads "Our systems are down, we have to do everything manually."
at sourceforge will be popular =)
OH&S SITE INSPECTOR: So, how many people work here?
IRS SECTION MANAGER: Oh, about half of them.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
I once had a classmate in gradschool who had worked for the IRS for 10 years. He was the least competent individual in the class by far, and had the attitude of a real prick too, but for some reason we became friends (as he constantly needed help with his work, for one thing) and hung out until the end of the program.
In class, the subject of people surfing the net at work, etc. came in class, and a scalding study naming the IRS as a huge offender was cited.
This fellow vehemently denied that this type of activity took place, claiming that (in addition to being overworked) a large number of IRS employees were unable to use computers, let alone surf the net... Imagine that, a government agency with computer illiterate employees! Anyways, he went on to contradict himself by claiming that there was a real productivity problem, but instead of surfing the net, they were having wild sex in the boiler rooms.
From watching him fight with his PC in class and go after really ugly women when we went for beers, it dawned on me that he might be telling the truth.
To be honest, I'm not sure which bothers me more. If they were a competent organization full of digitally inclined workers, we'd probably all be suffering a lot more come tax time than we do when they're fucking away our tax dollars.
So whats the moral of my story? You can't pay your taxes and expect the feds to do anything useful with them. Thank you and goodnight.
I'm not playing Solataire... I'm studying the Terrorism Deck of Cards...
Looking for:
M'Balz Es-Hari
Graabir Boubi, and
Haid D'Salaami
Hous Bin Pharteen, his cousin I-Bin Pharteen, and their close companion I-Zheet M'Drurz
Shaif Hirboush.. Al-Suq Akweer.. Mustaf Herod Apyur Poupr. I hope I got that right! Awan Afuqya.. Yul Strokheet Al-Wauch.. Apul Madeek - who we believe will be targeting adult bookstores sometime in the near future. And this man, the notorious Yuliqa M'Diq, A.K.A. Uwana M'Diq, A.K.A. Usuqa M'Diq. Uh.. thank you, that is all... [SNL]
These are IRS employees. Almost none of them are ever doing anything you want them to be doing, except occasionally the people who change the ink cartridges on the refund-check-printing machines. The more time they spend playing solitaire, the better.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Let the IRS play all the games they want. The more games they play the less time they have to audit me.
What if the worker is a programmer?
Sometimes she or she will be waiting for a compile to finish or for the Java Virtual Machine to start up.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Check this out,
Setting is a place I used to work at, a gov't place. We were contractors installing and administrating the network and servers.
A coworker and myself had to go to the 2nd floor of this other building, to fix one of the fiber optic drops (They ran 10mbps fiber to the desktop, we had to remove the included Intel 10/100 NICs and replace them with $400 10baseFL nics).
We came in, everything was call. But we had forgotten a tool. The workers were mostly quiet, as the cubes didn't allow us to see them. The old barrick buildings turned offices had a spacious and hollow feel on the 2nd floors. It was my coworkers turn to go get the piece or part we had forgotten. So hung tight as my coworker left.
The minute the door shut and his footsteps were heard thumping down the stairs, I could hear the mouse clicks increase. Immediately I could hear the Space Cadet pinball game from multiple computers. It was fairly funny. As my coworkers footsteps were heard coming up the stairs, all of the game noises went away as the games were minimized.
I said really loudly "DOUDE, you MISSED ALL THE ACTION"
Many gov't jobs = welfare/wealth redistribution.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
Following their success boosting productivity by banning brooms...
--
make install -not war
Q. How many people work at Your Government Department?
A. About a third.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
J
Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit.
That gives me a cunning idea.. re-write a solitaire clone and distribute it on all your companies machines, have it produce such a statistic and send it to a server, keeping the employee's name tied to each statistic is optional depending on local privacy laws and how much fun you want to have..
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Time for MS to remove solitare, and sell it as a stripped down version of XP for buisnesses and state/federal employees to use.
:(){
Paluminum.net
Most people I know think I'm psychic just because I know how to play minesweeper. They don't get that there's actually a logic to it, so they think I have really good luck.
Perhaps Solitaire is a blessing. Imagine if instead the IRS had nothing to do. They might get bored and start doing an audit on YOU!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Some of us have the coveted job of taking all the data on paper tax forms and typing it into the computers. I assure you, none of us in data entry have time to make a phone call, let alone play solitaire. I'm hoping for another dot com bubble so I can get a salary job playing air hockey.
This remembers me of an old joke.