Presence Systems Number One On Federal Wish List

coondoggie writes to tell us that top among feature requests for any next-gen communications system among federal network managers is the ability to identify and notify employees in real time. "Federal interest in presence technologies 'may come from the fact that agencies want to know where their workforce is to be able to look at the effectiveness and the efficiency of what they're able to do,' says Aaron Heffron, vice president of Market Connections. 'They want to be in contact with them at all times.'"

Comments

This will be the end of civilization

[LowbrowDeluxe]

Seriously, no one gets anything done in any job with their manager looking over their shoulder. Just think about it, every time the boss wanders into your office you stop what you're doing. And if you didn't, they'd start in with 'advice' until your productivity was shot to hell anyway. key-loggers and such are another great example. Any place I've ever been that used key-logging people spent more time trying to either get around it, or do the bare minimum WPM than they did in actual honest work. An invention that lets a boss micro-manage every employee on a second-by-second basis is going to bring our society grinding to a halt.

Re:This will be the end of civilization

[QuantumG]

I'm a programmer. When the boss comes into my cube I stop what I'm doing so I can ask him what he wants. If he says "oh nothing, just seeing what you're up to" I say "I'm working, fuck off".

Micromanaging

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Is anyone at all skeptical of the profitable return, to the taxpayers, for the amount of money which will be spent on this type of micromanaging technology at the absurd level? The strain of micromonitoring employees will cause more harm and discord from people succumbing to the extra pressures without their usual outlets. Whether or not those outlets are on or off the clock, technically speaking, is irrelevent when considering that humans are not machines. Every human in every system, whether it be monks in a monastery, coders in a huge borg-like cube fortress, or workers on an assembly line, learns how and where they are able to sneak a few extra moments for themselves, by themselves, without the glaring eye of big brother breathing down their neck. Technologies like this tout performance gains and efficiency ratings which can only be expected of machines--not of humans--because humans inherently steal time for themselves.

Given that the advertised technical merits of these expenditures in no way properly align with ten thousand years of knowledge of basic human and social psychology the only explanation for these programs is: pork barrel boondoggle.

Stop wasting taxpayer money on high tech corporate welfare!!!

Note that 'emergency response' was listed first

[going_the_2Rpi_way]

Before everybody gets all worried about employee privacy (which I agree is a legitimate concern), consider the applications this would have for first responders, particularly in cases where more traditional networks and or critical infrastructure components may fail.

Until a specific application is discussed, dismissing the technology as invasive seems premature.

This is a great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets start with congress.

Re:Because gosh...

[mooingyak]

I don't get why you had to make the distinction between an employee and a "citizen".

Because it's a much different issue if an employer wants to track their employees while they're supposed to be working than a government tracking its citizens. That the employer in question is the federal government should not matter.