Slashdot Mirror
Survey Says Bosses Fear Being Filmed By Employees
New submitter Cazekiel writes "If you think your boss is a fearless, miserable beast whose only worries lie in how well his company or business competes, think again. The 'Business Video Behavior Project' survey conducted by Qumu reveals that those in-charge are growing more and more paranoid about something the Average Joe fears just walking down the street nowadays: employees who will 'secretly film him with his metaphorical pants down and then post the footage for public delectation.' It would seem that it doesn't matter if you're powerful, wealthy and lording over hundreds of cubicles; they know the internet exists, everyone has a cell phone camera and thick wallets don't make discarded banana peels magically move out of their path." The company that paid for the study, note, promises to "securely distribute business video simultaneously over multiple Edge routes," so they probably don't mind some workplace paranoia.
No, he's scared you might use your new technological tools to make naughty videos -- the worst of which would be to secretly film him with his metaphorical pants down and then post the footage for public delectation.
My brilliant idea is that if you're a boss BEHAVE APPROPRIATELY, ethically and fairly. It's not that hard.
You know, the courts may not be working any more, but as long as everyone is videotaping everyone else, justice will be done.
- Marge Simpson
If you didn't treat your employees like crap then you wouldn't worry about this.
His is something along the lines of "the building is burning".
Because I work in a secure facility, where cellphones, cameras, and anything that transmits are banned. If someone videotaped them, the one with the videocamera would be fired immediately. I guess because I am used to working in this kind of environment, I hadn't thought of this being a problem.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Isn't there a French saying to the effect of "No man will check under his wife's bed unless he himself has hidden under a woman's bed."?
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
I'm sure. Most employees would fear being filmed by their bosses as well, if they thought that was likely.
It has much more to do with recording/distributing copies of something that might show ones deficiencies than it has to do with behaving ethically.
It's the same reason people have a fear of public speaking.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Like taking a picture of SJ's Mercedes parked in a handicapped spot in front of 1 Infinite Loop Drive?
Doesn't seem to have stopped him much.
The company that paid for the study, note, promises to "securely distribute business video simultaneously over multiple Edge routes," so they probably don't mind some workplace paranoia.
So, what, they are proposing that companies pay for the secure distribution of their employee's secret boss videos? A delicious thought, but I don't see that as a rapidly expanding enterprise market.
Boss doesn't want to be filmed on the toilet. Nor do cashiers. Correlation |= causation. The fact that bosses don't like the same thing that potato farmers and pre-school teachers don't like isn't really news.
Gently reply
On the excesses of managers has been long overdue. In the case of the corporation I work for (a major player in film, a #1 three letter TV network, radio and publishing), the HR Departments have been instructed to take any sort of abuse by managers very seriously. It only makes sense to weed out the people who may potentially create a situation where a lawsuit is all but assured. The bosses should be scared because they can no longer act like bullies and buffoons with impunity.
queue of comments saying that a boss has the same privacy rights as a person in... 3.. 2.. 1... ...
0...
-1... -2... -3... -4... :o
The bosses have been spying on employees for years. Feels kinda different now, doesn't it?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
That's kind of like saying "Survey says employees don't like being filmed by their employers." It would be incredibly stressful being under the microscope all the time. Doesn't matter who you are.
Or was that "The Unexamined Life?" I can't remember.
But only if people would stop being hypocrites and decide that the things they do themselves are appropriate for others to do.
You can do nothing legally, morally, or ethically wrong at work and still not want to be filmed because you still can do things that people will hate on you for or make fun of you because.
Like maybe when you listen to music, you rock out and dance in your chair. You don't even know you do this, but you do. Suddenly there's a video of it online and people mock you for it, including people who do it themselves! They are fine to mock others for it, but would themselves not want to be mocked for it.
Trust me, if I put some cameras on your for a week, I could find enough footage in there that you wouldn't want other people to see. You probably do nothing wrong, but you do things that are embarrassing in one sense or another. If I've the video to pour over, I can find it, and with a NLE I can cut it down to just the shit you don't want others to see.
Worse still if I've got audio with it. I can get you saying shit out of context and unguarded. Don't tell me you've never badmouthed someone behind their back. Maybe you didn't even do it that directly, you said something like "For such a brilliant guy sometimes he's such an idiot about things because he jumps to conclusions too fast. I wish he'd slow down and think things through." I cut that to just "he's such an idiot."
Just remember if you aren't willing to have surveillance on you all the time at work, ask yourself why. Those same reasons apply to everyone.
Works great, and all the executives act highly polite when they see it on me.
Fear my life streaming!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
No reason only ordinary people should go through life feeling like an amoebae under a microscope.
I enjoy the occasional article posted to Slashdot about law enforcement organizations lobbying against police being videod ( it is time to retire the word "filmed" as obsolete ).
I love the irony of the authorities, at least some of them, being told what they tell us.
"Gee officer, if you are doing your job and following all the rules then you have nothing to be worried about"
I don't think the Slashdot community is thinking of the consequences of this: a crackdown on handheld digital devices in the workplace. This was already a reality at a firm I did business with in India. Workers there had to check their cellphones and tablets at the security desk on their way into the office each day. This was in effect to protect the intellectual property and other secrets (bank account numbers, medical records, etc) that the staff worked with each day.
This simple fear could end BYOD efforts here, if it's as pervasive as the article suggests.
The article is misleading. People, whether employees or managers, or even CEO's, would prefer not to be filmed. For some, its vanity (my hair!), some its privacy, for others it is fear, and for a small portion, it is guilt.
Very few people *want* to be filmed and held accountable for their actions. Usually that comes with a tradeoff, like a large salary, professional training, groomers, and so forth.
but this never would have occurred to me. And I don't think my project manager would have thought about it either. At least here, we're way to busy working. If this is a real problem anywhere, there's only going to be one cause. Not enough to do. My advice for any manager who is legitimately worried about this: get busy, and this problem will magically go away. It's uncanny.
And one of them might be: No recording devices on company property. Another is: Anything recorded on company time/property belongs to the company.
I've worked at an outfit* where these were the rules. In addition, management refused to contact employees via anything other than company phones, voicemail, e-mail, pagers, etc. In other words, no records were to be left of any business on anything they didn't control.
*At one point, they were assessed a civil penalty of $500 million for ethical violations. It was civil only because they claimed they were unaware of the applicable federal regulations. Folllowing that, they carried on as before, but secured all intra-company communications that could demonstrate intent associated with subsequent activities.
Have gnu, will travel.
I make dog jackets and I just performed a survey. (The participants were lImited to my existing customer base if you're interested). They apparently have a deep fear of their dogs getting cold. We need a press release on this immediately. Alert MSNBC, Foxnews, and TMZ immediately.
"But they're scared, people. They're scared what you might do with your little video tools. They're scared that you might catch them, film them, embarrass them, and therefore destroy them. " Oh yeah, they're real scared. Make the little workers feel slightly empowered for a few minutes, so they'll feel better about running on their little hamster wheels . FYI...there's nothing you could ever do with any of it, because as an employee, you have virtually no legal rights. The most you and all your pitiful co workers might get is a much deserved giggle. Now get back to wage-slavery...the lot of you chattel.
I don't allow any cameras, camcorders, audio, or any other recording or data storage device into the building. The security company I employ does 100% search of everyone entering the building (metal detector and millimeter wave backscatter), and requires all employees and visitors to surrender such devices in order to be given access to the building.
There is also no access to the Internet from inside the building, except from approved terminals, and IT Security scrubs everything in and out.
It has nothing to do with paranoia about getting caught doing something. It is about protecting company assets from espionage and theft.
My grandfather was a senior executive at a large electronics company doing business in Saudi Arabia. He faced this precise dilemma. He opted for option #1, lost his company a big contract, and was then moved to a more-engineering and less-management position. His replacement presumably paid the bribe (baksheesh), given that his replacement became a vice president.
In Saudi culture baksheesh is NORMAL and EXPECTED. They think the Americans are weird immoral for not doing things that way.
Some bosses don't mind being filmed doing something stupid. Take this boss for example.