Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

State-Sponsored Solitaire?

Posted by timothy on from the callous-indifference dept.

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."

3 of 331 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Karl Marx? Identity? by 5ynic · · Score: 5, Informative

    Marxian theories have, on the contrary, largely proven correct since his death. Marx did not argue "for" violent overthrow, but rather that violent attempts to overthrow capitalism were at his time of writing inevitable - and therefore not worth arguing "for" or "against".

    --
    ceci n'est pas un sig
  2. Re:How can you 'ban' solitaire? Easy, fire employe by joeljkp · · Score: 3, Informative

    Maybe in the private sector, but in government (as the article discusses), it is extremely hard to get someone fired. Hearings, evidence, the prying eyes of watchdog groups...

    Some people call it government waste, others call it job security.

    --
    WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
  3. Re:This is STILL stupid. by garcia · · Score: 4, Informative

    The fact is that you cannot command a person to work for eight (if they're lucky) solid hours. Or as Scott Kirwin put it in the article, "Managers [have] lost sight that workers are real people, not robots."

    You have never worked in a call center have you? They have supervised slave labor down to a science. Outside of taking advantage of 3 minute leeway for phone logins and clock punches there was very little time available for screwing off.

    They had all the computers locked down, no applications installed other than those you needed for your job, remote screenshot ability, and apparently an alert when you were surfing on a page other than the ones that were permitted.

    You were scored on your performance and adherence to the time schedule.