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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."
I admit it. I have had to delete Gnome Games and Windows Solitaire/Minesweeper/Freecell/Hearts from my machines at work. I just couldn't get any work done before.
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
Would that mean the IRS employs 50% too many workers?
Slightly OT but... Where I attend they have locked down the Windows machines to the point where you can't do much of anything. Only professors/administrators can use the floppy drive. Mspaint, Solitaire, and Firefox are amoung the banned software (they claim this software is abused). Thankfully, the admin has is using less restriction on my account because he realizes mspaint and firefox can be useful, and not just for abuse circumventing the porn-blocker. I realize there is not likely anything productive to do with Solitaire, but banning of software in general is extremely irritating when you don't have your laptop with you.
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KDE/Gnome come with a lot more games by default than Windows.
Man I was playing Solitare and Minesweeper back in tha day! Day meaning 1995 or so, but the point is, its time for those of us /.ers to acend and transcend. Theres plenty of flash games on the internet that provides way more fun, not to mention it can be easily concealed by clicking on your toolbar to show your fileing those TPS reports.
I assume that there are dozens of online solitaire games avaiable. Unless they take the extra step of blocking all game related websites, the whole thing is pointless.
You are overanalyzing the problem. All you have to do is have the official poilicy of "no games" and then you are free to fire someone playing at work. OK, maybe they have to get a warning first.
The "no games" policy should be accompanied with a "no unauthorized installs" policy.
I have worked at a lot of companies, and one common theme among them is almost always, "Let's get rid of the games." As a sysadmin, I've actually been the one tasked with implementing it. However...
I think these policies are, in a word, stupid. If someone is going to waste time, they're going to waste time. If it's not on a game of Solitaire, it will be on some other non-work activity. 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."
Every time I've been asked to delete the games off of machines, I've expressed extreme disapproval. I've tried to explain until I'm blue in the face that it will not increase productivity. I've tried to explain that if you treat employees like they're four years old by taking away their toys, it will only cause resentment and a resulting LOSS of productivity. I've tried to point out that small Solitaire breaks (or any other mindless activity) actually help a lot of people get back into a more productive mindset going forward. I've also tried to point out that games such as Solitaire help people new to computers learn their way around. For example, it taught my mother, who had only used DOS-based accounting software, how to use a mouse. Sure, it sounds simple to you, but keep in mind that she had no idea what left-clicking, dragging-and-dropping, minimizing and maximizing, etc. were, but she was up to speed within a few minutes thanks to Solitaire.
But in general, all that stuff makes no difference to management. Since companies have layed off and outsourced to the point where they can't function any more, all that matters is that we have to be productive 24x7. Barring that, all that matters is that we have to LOOK productive 24x7.
So stupid...
CN, anti-smoking crusader
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Agreed, but I'd like to introduce a slight cautionary note. For some jobs I simply disbelieve that it is possible to be productive 100% of the day for 100% of all working days. I always love these productivity studies which say "600,000 man days of work are lost to <daft activity x> every year, employers say <daft activity x> must be banned from the workplace to ensure productivity rises."
Which, of course, it doesn't because 600,000 man days of work are now being 'lost' by the employees switching to <daft activity y> instead. That 600,000 days was an illusion - the productivity was never there to be had, in some jobs it's impossible for people to work as if they were machines. I including programming in this by the way.
I don't play games at work, but I certainly browse the web and spend some time talking to my wife over SMS messages. In days when desktop internet access wasn't common, I'd do crosswords at lunchtime or go for coffee breaks. Granted some of the figures mentioned sound extreme, but still - 100% of everybody's time isn't always a realistic target.
Cheers,
Ian
I've been saying this to no avail for years now. I wish someone would start listening.
I get so frustrated at management trying to pass off their responsibilites to the IT folks at companies. Simple example: Internet content filtering. I work at a large (Fortune 100) company, and I handle second-level support calls. One common theme that generates hundreds of calls a month (it is multinational) is, "I need access to such-and-such a site for legitimate business purposes, but it says that it's blocked due to (whatever reason the content filtering company had classified it)." So we have to get on a directly-connected machine, check out the site, verify that the person actually needs access, get approval from the person's manager, put in a request with the guy who manages the content filter, wait a few days until he can get around to it, then call the person back and let them know that the site has been allowed.
That's an awful lot of work to keep the very few people who may browse porn at work from browsing porn at work, and it's a major pain in the ass to the honest people trying to do their jobs. I haven't done a formal study, but it must cost the company thousands of dollars every month (maybe more) in the cost of the service plus the man hours spent going through this exercise. How much would the company lose if they just stopped content filtering? Significantly less.
But that doesn't matter. Management looks at this as an IT issue, not a management issue. If they push this responsibility onto us, that's one less thing they have to do, and one more level of blame that separates them from potential violators of corporate policy.
Going back to topic, games are the same way. If someone goofs off all day playing Solitaire, management looks at it as a problem with the computer or a problem with the IT department. Funny, they never seem to see it for what it really is: a problem with the employee or a problem with the employee's manager.
I can safely say that I don't think this would fix anything. People are creative. If it's not solitaire, it -will- be something else. I read one comment that said something along the lines of 'once you're in [state gov't], you actually have to TRY and get fired'. I believe that too. I know quite a few people that could be more way more productive than they currently are. But it's not just the games. It's the phone, or the email, or the internet, or the conversations in the hall. Passing this bill will only make people spend more time doing those other things. Jimmy
In any work environment, whether private sector or public, there is slack time. What would be the macro-economic impact of eliminating all that slack time from the workplace? Mass unemployment? Cheaper goods and services? A shorter workweek?
What would be the impact on the distribution of wealth?. What would be the impact on the quality of life, considering that most of us have to go to work most of the days of our lives?
You agreed to pay me such and such an amount to do such and such each week. Now you find out that I can do it in ten hours, when you thought that it would take me 40, so you want to punish me by reducing me to 10 hours pay? You just eliminated any incentive I had to be efficient.
Which, of course, it doesn't because 600,000 man days of work are now being 'lost' by the employees switching to instead. That 600,000 days was an illusion - the productivity was never there to be had, in some jobs it's impossible for people to work as if they were machines. I including programming in this by the way.
That is a very good arguement. I work for a company that realises this: Most of our staff doesn't take coffee breaks, or real lunchtimes. Instead, we prefer to sit spend half of our lunch hour eating and the other half shooting eachother in video games.
Productivity is higher than if we simply ate our food and went back to work - our minds are refreshed because we took a moment away from critical thinking (IT/Programming job, BTW).
I'm glad I work for a company like that now, and I wish other companies would realize that as well.
There'd be a lot less depressed people in the world if more companies treated employees like humans, rather than bottom lines.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
Uhm, no, it's pretty much like that in many big companies as well. If you've been reading slashdot, you could have read about the support guy that tapped a managers computer and found that he only spend 10% of his time working. I'd have to say that's about how much I worked in my last full time job. (Which I tried to get fired from, but eventually just had to quit.)
Computers have helped productivity so much, but many companies still have all these jobs for people. It's a shame really, because the whole business world could run on an hour or two instead of the 8+ hours that many people need to see you in the office.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Before: users spend x hours playing solitaire.
After: users spend x hours trying to get solitaire working again.
All my management courses drilled into my head the idea that you can only expect six hours of productivity from an employee per day. I don't see any point in fighting it. Why piss them off in the process?
I am my employer. I run a one-man contracting business. And whilst my current client requires me to put in x hours it's true, they aren't really paying for that. They're paying me for results.
And I provide them. Yes, including Slashdot and SMS, all fully known about by my client. If I dropped the web browsing or stopped sending the odd SMS my productivity wouldn't go up - I'd just have to find something else to distract me when needed. When programming, you can't just stare at a computer screen for 8 hours a day and expect to just keep typing (or drawing UML diagrams or whatever else). It's utterly unrealistic - humans just don't work that way.
no one can really go a straight 8 hours, but the breaks you're taking should be trips to the WC or the like, not something trivial and pointless like reading webpages or doing crossword puzzles.
It's a very long time since I was a schoolboy asking permission to use the WC - I use it as and when I choose. Similarly, it is my decision whether to continue banging my head against a brick wall on a particular problem, or whether to just take a quick distraction by maybe reading a web page or nipping off to fetch some coffee from outside before returning to the task with a fresher mind. It is my client's decision as to whether they find my approach acceptable, and for that only the results count.
I'm not advocating lazing your life away at work, but I am rejecting the notion that only work-related things can happen at work. For some jobs that's true - as a summer job when I was still at University I used to work as a kitchen helper, loading vast amounts of cutlery and dishes into an industrial dishwasher as quickly as possible, then getting the servings ready for the waitresses to send out again. I enjoyed that job as it happens, and not a crossword to be seen. But then it wasn't necessary - it was mindless work and you could just get on with it. Programming, and many other jobs, simply aren't like that.
Cheers,
Ian
I'm at home, cooking dinner. But I do read /. at work, though I wouldn't say I slack off 50% of the time. Besides, is it wrong to slack off for four hours in a day if you produce more in the other four hours than people who 'worked' eight hours that day? Note that thats a drastic example, but it's not far from the truth sometimes. And I should know, I'm a state employee.
Jimmy
If I spend 45hrs at work, then I can waste 5hrs doing what I like.
Sometimes in our techy jobs, our minds need downtime/idle waste time to keep us on the ball. You cant ask an athelete to nonstop run 200miles a day can you. Consider reading the web like training/stretching for a runner.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Until the harassment lawsuits start.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
Some people aren't paid by how much the do, but being there to do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done.
e.g. Firemen.
Granted, firemen are usually municipal not state workers. But they have lots of goof-off activities at the station to fight boredom.
Gee, nothing else to do since they took our T.V. and foosball away. Let's wash the shiny trucks AGAIN!
Face it, that time you're SMSing your wife and doing crossword puzzles is time you're stealing from your employer.
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As a manager, I have a lot of light to shed on this subject.
Essentially, every time we call in an "efficiency expert" who advises us to cut back on the number of breaks employees get, I shrug it off. An employer with any experience at all knows better than to count productivity simply in "man-hours." Man-hours of work are little more than a theory figure for comparison purposes, but they don't have any real value. When I try to weigh employee productivity, my equation isn't simply "ManHoursWorked/ManHoursPossible". It's something more like "ManHoursWorked*WorkDonePerHour/WorkDonePossible"
Of course, the real equation isn't THAT simple either, but it does say a lot. If I'm a fun-nazi to all my employees, all it does is create general resentment toward both myself and the job. Unhappy employees have a MUCH larger tendancy to do poorly at work, and slack off even more when I'm not watching. On the other hand, if I'm somewhat lenient about my policy, letting my employees take breaks when they feel it's necessary, they're happy and tend to get more work done in the time they work. End result, I have more more work done at the end of the day. (Which of course makes my salary go up every couple years, so it works out well for me too.) If someone tells me that my employees are "stealing" time from me, I laugh and don't worry about it, because the time they DO put in is much more valuable.
It has for some time been obvious to me that government bureaucracy is the *real* welfare program in America. It's a jobs program for people who can't get work in the private sector.
You feel like you have to try to get fired, until you see your first major staff reduction. When you're in, you're in, but they feel no attachment to you. The slackers are the first to go in budget tightening. And every budget gets tightened from time to time.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
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.
Isn't that a good thing?!
Considering that the IRS is far more likely to investigate/harass poor or average-income taxpayers as opposed to the rich, I see them wasting their time as a plus.
Now, if we could only spread this idle time-wasting idea to the Pentagon, maybe Iraqis and other people who are under the thumb of the empire could breath a little easier...
Pretty sure its just the Federal Wire Act, and even thats somewhat a grey area on legality.
The IRS, well so far as I know, they just want your money whether you be crack dealer, bookie, or online gambler. I'm pretty sure its set up so they wont report you to other arms of govt.