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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."
The Borg Gates would have been more apt.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
If anyone notices bad behavior, there is no need for additional monitoring. But if noone notices it, there is no harm done. What's the point?
Why doesn't Microsoft patent a way to curb their own obnoxious patent bullying?
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
The only ones that ever complain about something like that are the fat girls out of jealousy.
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
You don't seriously think managers will be monitored, do you?
So it's "bad behaviour" to wear dark glasses during a videoconference. Is it also "bad behaviour" to bring your guide-dog into the v/c, too?
A lot of these attributes seem to be culturally insensitive and would be prohibited in many workplaces as being discriminatory
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
After all, if bad behavior can be so easily detected, Bill Gates and Steve Balmer would both be flagged - and having been flagged repeatedly, be the target of employee lawsuits for creating a toxic work environment. Bring it on!!!
Should your own employer use similar methods, then you can take revenge by ratting them out to Microsoft, who can then either sue your employer for patent infringement, or forbid them altogether to use methods infringing on this patent.
This is a perfect disguise for getting patents on human behavior.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
This is not as simple as this. If we could accept wearing shorts, short sleeve shirts and sandals to business meetings in hot weather we could save a lot of energy on air conditioning, dry-cleaning, ironing, transportation, etc. And by this we would prevent global warming, catastrophic climate change, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.
Why only suits and ties, the clothing of 19th century British peasants, is supposed to be acceptable?
Managers have managers. Yes they will.
This is all a big reason I want to retire as early as I can. No one even tells jokes at work anymore lest some thin skinned frightened little bunny gets offended. Performance reviews are increasingly focusing on "behaviors" instead of technical competence and accomplishments. A person can't just show up and do a good, honest job anymore. We have to prove (somehow) we Act With Integrity and Value People and Frolic In The Sunshine or whatever. Everyone just sits there staring at the self-appraisal forms baffled as to what to put in the blanks.