Slashdot Mirror
Judge Rules in Favor of Websurfing at Work
MirrororriM writes "According MSNBC article, a judge has ruled in favor of a worker that was repeatedly warned for surfing the internet on company time. Only a "reprimand" is a fitting punishment - not termination. From the article: 'It should be observed that the Internet has become the modern equivalent of a telephone or a daily newspaper, providing a combination of communication and information that most employees use as frequently in their personal lives as for their work.'"
Wow... cool!
Funnypics
You won't be able to use this as binding precedent against an employer unless you live in New York. The cost of bringing a wrongful termination suit to establish a corresponding precedent in your jurisdiction may be more than you can afford. Worse yet, employment laws tend to vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Masturbating in the conference room can't be far off! I'll get my job back yet, you bastards!
I once read a book by an anally retentive time management consultant. Yes, that was his job. He would always have his watch set 3 minutes fast to "be ahead of the world", and would always make todo lists, and would always be doing something while waiting, and all that jazz.
The most ironic thing was that he said that he encouraged his employees to bring puzzles, books, needlepoint, or whatever they wanted to occupy their time when they were done with their work.
Why? Well, because people will stretch a project until the deadline or miss the deadline completely. By having a carrot in front of them saying "I can goof off when I'm done with this", he was able to tell when they were done with their tasks, and assign them a new one. He got more work out of these people by encouraging them to goof off than not.
Its just as irrational to assume that 100% of ones working time is going to be 100% productive work. Its more on the order of 10% to maybe 30% depending on the kind of work. Also, for a lot of white-collar and professional/skilled labor people, they do things and think about things outside of their work that helps them do better work.
How many slashdotters out there have private projects or even outside of work computing interests if you work on computers for a living? Doesn't this stuff help you at your job? If your job encouraged private projects, as Google does, do you think your job would be more fulfilling and productive?
Unfortunately, the only people who will read this article are those who are surfing the web at work. The people too afraid to surf the web will never hear the liberating news.
What if you terminate the employee for not getting their work done?
It does seem rather obvious, doesn't it? I suppose all this business about unrestricted employee Internet access harming businesses indicates how poorly most companies are managed.
Newspaper, book, goofing off on Slashdot, crossword puzzles, phone gossip, water cooler loitering. The bottom line ought to be: are you getting your work done, or not? Hell, plenty of people don't goof off in tangible way, but still manage to waste hours every day and avoid getting work finished. I've also encountered plenty of folks who "work" 50 hour weeks but manage to get almost nothing done.
It seems like managing for outcomes is a helluva lot easier, too. If you're spending time as a manager trying to figure out if your employees are surfing the Web, that's time you could be spending checking your employees' actual work output.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
My advice: Grow up. Be professional.
I agree fully.
Remember that time you called me late one evening because something was acting up on your servers? Tough shit, I'm no longer on the clock.
You want me to work a few minutes late to help keep a client happy? Sorry, it's 5:01 pm, and you're not paying me to work one second more than 9-5.
You're a bit short-staffed just when I have some time off planned? Aww, too bad. This is my vacation time, and there's simply no way I'm willing to be flexible about anything involving my personal life.
I'll tell ya what - when I'm on MY time, using MY car, or in MY house - then I tell YOU what I can and can not do. If you don't like it, then use YOUR time, YOUR car, and YOUR skillset..
My advice: Grow up. Be professional. This cuts both ways. The employer who runs a punch clock sweatshop is just as much of an ass as the employee who thinks they can surf the Internet for 5 hours a day while at work. Oh, and you have some seriously incompetent employees, and management, if you've honestly improved working conditions with your act.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.