Slashdot Mirror
Fired for Solitare At Work
schlick writes "The Associated Press is carrying a story about a NYC employee fired after Mayor Michael Bloomberg noticed a game of solitare on the employee's desktop at work." From the article: "Greenwood, who earned $27,000 a year and had worked in the office for six years, said in a telephone interview that he limited his play time to his one-hour lunch or during quick breaks when he needed a moment of distraction. 'It wasn't like I spent hours and hours a day playing, because I had plenty to do,' Greenwood said. 'If I had been working at something exhaustively for two hours, I might get a cup of coffee and play for a minute but then go right back to my work.'"
If you can get fired for playing solitaire, then you can (and most likely will) get fired for anything. Some employers randomly fire people. It's unfortunate. Solitaire is just an excuse though. Excuses are easy to find.
of the rest of the undeserving rich who haven't the slightest clue about how work gets done.
Office assistant Edward Greenwood IX was going over some papers at his desk as Bloomberg made the rounds with his photographer, greeting workers and posing for pictures. When the mayor reached him, Greenwood stood, they shook hands and the photographer snapped a photo.
-- and --
"I expect all city workers, including myself, to work hard," the mayor said. "There's nothing wrong with taking a break, but during the business day, at your desk, that's not appropriate behavior."
Yep, workin' hard there, Mr. Mayor. Workin' hard.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Smoking. Co-workers that smoke use up far more time than those that blow off steam with Solitare. When you see an employee playing Enemy Territory, *then* you need to worry.
Can we all agree that this guy is lying. Of course he played for more than a few minutes. We all have our necessary distractions. I browse Slashdot. My boss downloads hockey fights and forwards me Nigerian email scams (I kid you not!).
Every good manager knows that employees need a bit of time to themselves. Just look at Google's policy for working on personal projects and what a great benefit that policy is to both Google and its employees.
At my last job we had short Unreal Tournamet sessions one day a week and nakednews.com viewings in the morning, and everybody was really happy with their job. Everybody got a lot of great work done.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Smokers take their 15 minute morning and afternoon breaks. And they will band together to ensure that no one imposes rules against them. Hell, unions have even been used to protect the glorious smoke break. But what about non-smokers? Ever since I quite smoking I have also quit taking 15 minute breaks. Now, when I need a break, I hit slash dot, check my email, and try to let my brain relax. So yeah, some hard ass could can me for "abusing web privledges", but I can point out to him how my web browsing is inplace of smoking, and by browsing the web I am saving him thousands of dollars in sick time and increased health insurance premiums.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I think you're right. There are a lot of people within the slashdot community which probably would loose their jobs if their Resource Use Agreement was enforced. I know I could end up in hot water one day for it. Thankfully I have an excuse, albeit weak, that I am monitoring IT trends - which loosely couples with my position.
I would personally like to see a study on how many people are compliant with their agreements. From a survey of my cube-buddies; I know we would all fail. At the same time, I don't usually stop for lunch, so I don't see the harm in taking a thought-break - without which, I am sure my productivity would drop.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
The problem isn't that it's not within their rights (in my state, we have at-will employment and you can be fired for damn near anything). The problem is that some employers fail to recognize that eight full hours of productivity isn't a realistic goal. In this case, he claims to use solitaire for a "quick distraction." When I'm stuck on a problem, I take a walk, play a game of Sudoku, or check Slashdot. Sometimes it's a change of scenery that refreshes me. Other times its simply a change of perspective. In either case, it's important to realize that any employee who consistently claims to be productive for 100% of his time is lying.
I've worked for employers that didn't understand this. Burnout and turnover rates were astonishingly high. Meanwhile, I've worked for employers that recognized the value of this kind of freedom/flexibility. They also realized the non-value of an employee that needs to get away.
Solitaire/minesweeper/Sudoku or the occasional "why don't you go home early" often translates to a refreshed and more productive employee tomorrow.
I'm sure a lot of places of similar policies. To me, though, the disconcerting part of this story isn't that someone got fired for playing solitaire, it's that the mayor came in and fired somebody of whose work performance he was ignorant based on one impression. This guy could have been the most productive person in the building for all the mayor knew. If I was in charge of this employee I would have been seriously pissed if someone came in and decided to fire my employee. It's arrogance and micromanagement taken to an extreme height. On the other hand it appears this guy new the mayor was coming to shake his hand and have a photo taken and left the game up--that's really not so bright.
"...The Republican mayor stopped by the city's legislative office in Albany a few weeks ago ..."
Cost of living in Albany is considerably lower than NYC. Original article also implies this guy had been reminded of the computer policies in 2004. Sounds like a repeat offender, and moreover he embarrassed the boss in front of company.
Oh come on.
The frickin' MAYOR is coming to your office. Not of Paducah, KY, but of New York City. He probably hasn't been there for three years. Don't you think you'd better make yourself a little more presentable?
Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
... are allowed to take a 5-10 minute break every hour in order to get their fix? Is someone waiting outside to fire them for wasting time?
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
It really is unreasonable to have such policies without some kind of technical help to enforce them. It doesn't need to be bullet proof - it just makes things easier for the employees honestly trying to follow the policy.
A related issue is the monthly limit on total bytes transferred with my cable company TOS. I wouldn't mind it, if only they provided a meter on their website somewhere where I could see how much I had left for the month. Without that, I am just guessing and hoping they don't get strict on me all of a sudden. I know I could build a system to track it myself using iptables - but haven't got around to it yet.
...has fired people for sitting down at work and for even using a cell phone in a private break area away from guests.
Sounds to me like it's time to get a new job.
If you are good at what you do, then why are you putting up with these kind of working conditions?
My recomendation is to quit NOW
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
If a big-time politician came wandering through my cube, (and a couple have) you have two obligations: clean up your desk, and greet the distinguished visitor with a smile. If your boss asked you to work during the tour, let's not be an idiot about it - find some work, or at least repeat some work you've already done. The VIP doesn't know the difference. "Sir, I'm working on an analysis of the workload levels of the T&M contractors the city hires to see if we're getting a good return on our contracts." Never mind it was something you did 3 months ago.
Oh, and don't act like you aren't the BOFH that opens up old network statistics charts or network snoops, pouring over them when the big boss comes in. "Sir, I'm tracking through some anomalous network activity our SOA layer got during last night's advertising during the Olympics opening ceremony."
Anybody caught doing something stupid when a VIP is in the room deserves what they get. It's like seeing a cop in the median a mile ahead and then getting the bright idea to shift four lanes of traffic and pass on the right. You're begging for it. "My cell phone rang and I was just trying to honor good road safety rules, officer." Yeesh.
If this is a policy at NYC, the whole desktop management team should have been fired too, for leaving the game available for users.
You have to love it, Canadian person. Look at the postings on this page; they are siding WITH THE MAYOR against one of their own. That's where our unions are.
I've been immersed in this culture my whole life, and it takes a short shock of outside air to look at it anew. We've a country that hates "socialism" so much that they organize to keep inions OUT of their workplace. The salaries shrink, pensions disppear, healthcare is repeatedly slashed for current employees and denied to new, "temporary" employees who never will become permanent. And they will side with the employers every time.
There's a book, "What's the Matter with Kansas?", which, altho not really being about Kansas, addresses this all-pervasive phenomenon here in the south. Wage slaves vote against their own interests, and those of the families, because of their distaste of "socialism" and "big government".
It's a waterfall to the bottom of the gorge. The center ain't holding, and we're all being flushed, except for the very tippy top of the social scale, which is swimming in money and will pretty much own everything.
Got any room up there for expats? I'm thinking WAY up north, given the warming to come. A place without cameras on every street, a scenario the Mayor of Chicago is bringing to fruition. Our new transit passes will track our movements, we're to be watched at all times, they're reading our email and listening to our phones down here. I didn't waste all that time growing up to live in a prison populated by cowards overseen by the paranoid and greedy.
"Who the hell's going to argue with that? Seriously?Who the hell's going to argue with that? Seriously?"
Me.
I guess I'm unusual.
Terry Pratchett once observed that cows are herded by men that, if the cows every thought about it, the cows could convert into a damp smear on the ground in two seconds.
But the cows never think about it. They are cows. Rebellion never crosses their minds, so they let the pink monkeys herd them into slaughterhouses.
(plaitive tone) why are we all cows? people died for over a hundred years to create unions so that employers couldn't treat people like peons on a feudal estate. Why do you hate yourselves so much?
ironically though, spending hours on /. is less likely to get you canned than 1 min of solitare. Why? because it's not a "game" so the PHB is less wise of it.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
If there is software he's not supposed to be using while he's at work, why is it even installed? It is quite simple to supress the installation of all of the "Games". How's this for logic, Mr Smarty Pants Mayor...If you don't want your employees playing games, DON'T INSTALL THEM....DUH!!!! I really don't see why an employee should be fired for using software that you provided him with, even if it is a game.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
Basically, the guy got really unlucky and got made an example of. I hope he finds some way to get compensation, but it isn't likely.
+++ATH0
Your eating fast food doesn't give me diabetes.
I'm fine with laws that protect people from each other. I'm against laws that attempt to protect people from themselves. Seems simple enough to me.
at least smoking tends to kill quickly.
Emphysema and heart disease are slow enough.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Believing in a rigid class structure is simply an incorrect mindset that feeds itself the poison you've spewed in your comment. It would certainly help to achieve your aims, because a leftist society requires a rigid class structure to keep the workers in line, but what you're talking about is wishful thinking, not a valid observation.
These elite shape our culture over decades to make it suit them. They are capital. We are labor. Our interests are for the most part, directly opposed.
This is only in a society where there is enforced stratification, which isn't the case at all. Anyone, with proper application of willpower, can bring themselves into the level of the so-called elite. No one has a magic barrier preventing this. Only people who refuse to raise themselves up are stuck.
And anyway, if you thinks American culture is driven by a so-called elite you obviously haven't noticed any popular entertainment over the last fifteen years.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
yes I used to wonder why that was. Not-blocking Slashdot is very typical for all kinds of sensitive sites I worked at: defence contractors, three-letter agencies, etc. Then I realized: security folks and sysadmins have to read something too.