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.'"
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.
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.
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.
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.