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Microsoft Patent Aims To Curb Obnoxious Employee Behavior
theodp writes "GeekWire reports that a pending Microsoft patent for monitoring workplace behavior would do Dwight Schrute proud. Three Microsoft inventors propose curbing obnoxious workplace habits in an equally obnoxious fashion — using a computer device for monitoring and analyzing workers' interactions over video conferences, telephone, text messages and other forms of digital communication to look for patterns of negative and positive behavior, and assigning behavior scores to employees based on what the system finds. Bad behavior, Microsoft explains, might include wearing dark glasses in a video conference, wearing unacceptable clothing to a business meeting, cutting off others during conversation, prolonged monologues, and even how one nods one's head in agreement, shakes one's head indicating disagreement, and makes hand gestures."
Sorry Microsoft but your patent has to be denied. I already patented having an annoying boss, if you persist with this you will be hearing from my lawyers.
But how can they tell in a videoconference video if I'm not wearing any pants?
On another note, years ago I missed the annual staff meeting when I was out sick. One of the topics was dress code. I was called in to the director's office to hear that part as it was deemed important. When he got into specifics, he said, "no printed t-shirts with inappropriate expressions on them, no open-toed shoes, no thongs." I replied, "No thongs? But how can they tell?!" He thought for a minute, and once it clicked, his face turned white as a sheet as he burst out, "FLIP FLOPS! No Flip flops!"
It's funny to make a PHB turn white as a sheet...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Only if the face is all black except for a little bit of white around the mouth... That could get you sent to sensitivity training...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
that if anyone complains of my obnoxious behavior, I can cite them for violating Microsoft's patent claims. Microsoft, can I please get a license?
My blog
He doesn't really work there anymore...
The world turned upside-down when dearly-beloved Steve Jobs started locking down hardware to prevent any non-Apple-Approved changes, and Kommissar Gates went to Africa to kill disease-carrying mosquitoes...
(with apologies to Jon Stewart)
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I didn't realize Gene Simmons posted on Slashdot.
I am officially gone from
These days you patent the idea, not how to do it. I already have patents on FTL, nuclear fusion, Robotic prostitutes, and teleportation. It doesn't matter that I don't know how to do it I just put 'a method of ________' at the start and then be as vague and no specific as possible and even throw in some buzz words.
Like most famous inventions, the exact moment this invention happened has been very accurately recorded. It was exactly on the day a top sidekick of Ballmer decided to quit Microsoft to join Google. The CEO discovered the ballistic properties of office furniture and how effectively they can be projected to affect employee behavior and give feedback to the employees about the management's attitude towards them. But it was not a simple joy ride to the patent office. Much more serious development and testing took place. Tables were too heavy. Paperweights were too ineffectual. After a decade of hard work, the invention has paid off and now Microsoft has obtained a patent "for a tool that can give feedback to the employee about their actions and behavior which can also be sat upon to work when not used in that capacity."
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The Army may like meetings and PowerPoint too much, but at least everyone wore the same damn thing and swearing at each other was considered an art form.
If there is no God then free will is an illusion.
Security camera footage + Kinect technology + massive computational power and behavioral logic = "JETSON!!!!!"
The Borg Gates would have been more apt.
Your reply has been deemed obnoxious by our scanning software.
-Microsoft.