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Virtual Boss Keeps Workers On a Short Leash
Gr8Apes writes "Hitachi has created a 'perfect virtual boss.' The company is manufacturing and selling a device intended to increase efficiency in the workplace called the Hitachi Business Microscope (paywalled). 'The device looks like an employee ID badge that most companies issue. Workers are instructed to wear it in the office. Embedded inside each badge, according to Hitachi, are "infrared sensors, an accelerometer, a microphone sensor and a wireless communication device." Hitachi says that the badges record and transmit to management "who talks to whom, how often, where and how energetically." It tracks everything. If you get up to walk around the office a lot, the badge sends information to management about how often you do it, and where you go. If you stop to talk with people throughout the day, the badge transmits who you're talking to (by reading your co-workers' badges), and for how long. Do you contribute at meetings, or just sit there? Either way, the badge tells your bosses.'"
It just takes micromanagement to an entirely new level. No thanks to these.
Guaranteed to get rid of off your employees who have other options!
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
In related news, I am pleased to announce my new "virtual slave" hardware, which intercepts communication from the "Virtual Boss" device to PHBServer and provides an excellent replacement stream of communication indicating you always participate in meetings, visit precisely three fellow employees for ten minutes each day, and never go to the bathroom. ("Virtual Slave eXtreme" will be available soon, with many customization options.)
.... I quit. I for one, do not welcome our Orwellian overlords.
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
Japanese companies have tried stuff like this before, but not so that bosses can harass their employees. They genuinely want to know how to make the business better by finding out how people actually work... You know, like a good boss should.
Obviously the potential for abuse is massive, but I think the article author is projecting their own thinking on to this idea. Aside from anything else abusing it would probably be illegal under Japanese law, as it would be in most European countries.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"Employees appeared to slowly converge on the toilets throughout the morning, where they remained for a few minutes before departing the building and eventually arriving to the nearest large body of water, where they remained for the rest of the day."
"It looks like you're trying to Fire A Subordinate. Would you like me to call Security?"
-kgj
It seems like more people should take a read of Marshall Brain's Manna, a book about this very thing. (Online version).
It goes into what could happen (and given current economics, the rest of us are housed in tiny apartments to keep the away from the owners). And yet, it also details an alternative view where automation is NOT shunned, but instead used to fulfill what people originally dreamed them to do - do all the chores while the humans relax, or speculate, or invent, or do other things.
Quite an informative read if you have a couple of hours.
They are trying to solve the problem of wanting to fire individuals but needing cause, and an application like this is pretty much an automatic paper trail generator that can be mined to fit pretty much any firing.
No, I don't mean "doing their job". I mean they will start to game the system. People who want to slack off have been very inventive and creative when it comes to slacking, so this will be no different. They will come up with ways to tweak that. Don't want to go to a boring meeting? Let a coworker take your badge along. He'll do it for you next time and everyone's happy.
Of course this does not increase productivity, but rather decrease it for the necessary overhead involved to game the system. But hey, I didn't come up with the idea, management gets what management wants, and if they want me to spend time fucking with their spying system rather than work so my "characteristic figures" look the way they should, I give them what they want.
For reference, see the success of the "how many keystrokes did the programmer make today" for measuring the productivity of programmers creating code. It's not that much different from this junk.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It needs a speaker, too.
"Attention worker #47293, you have exceeded your pooping allotment for the day. Exit the stall and proceed back to your desk. Thank you for your compliance."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
True story: My CEO (US company, California) tasked me to install 3 motion-detection CCTV cameras at all of our remote staff locations (3 part timers, in their homes, in eastern Europe), and then review the footage daily to determine if they 'were at their posts' during working hours (and did not take 'too many' breaks during the day). Of course, the reason for this was to 'make sure we are getting what we paid for.' I'm glad this device was not around last year (or will be very expensive THIS year).
No, I did not install the cameras, I just let the issue die. (still have a job, too).
Toil is Stupid. Don't be Stupid.
I can see the reports now:
Employee report #27135: "Employee arrived in the office, turned on their computer, and then crammed himself into a small drawer in his desk for the duration of the work day. He didn't move during this time except to climb out for meetings. Employee emerged from his desk at the end of the day."
Employee report #27136: "After speaking with four other employees in an energetic fashion regarding the new tracking systems, these employees went to the restroom and proceeded to flush themselves down the toilet. It might be worth noting that, following this, unknown individuals sent e-mails from these employees computers insulting their managers, most of HR, and the company executives. These unknown individuals then noted that the flushed employees had quit. As the unknown individuals didn't seem to be wearing tracking badges, it is not known what happened to them next. They either left or are living in the ventilation ducts."
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I have to agree, this goes against everything that is said about good management. Most good MBA schools would disprove of this.
Why?
1. There is a calculated benefit towards (water cooler chats), this increases overall productivity, by allowing informal collaboration and knowledge exchange.
2. The issue between Introverted and Extroverted employees. An introverted employee in a meeting may seem very quite and engaged, however they are there listening and taking in the information, where they may come up with better solution later on. Extroverted may seem like they are engaged however they are just talking a lot of nonsense, and off topic, because they like talking.
3. Employee intensive is Work Environment + Pay. If they feel like their freedom is being taken away from them, it is equivalent to paying them less. If an employee feels like they are being paid fairly they will perform better then one who feels like they are not.
4. Synergy. How can you have Synergy if people are not working together, and knowing each others strengths and weaknesses?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The virtual boss will see - contrary to what the eyes of the real bosses tell them - employees who never get up from their desks, never go to the bathroom, and never hang around in the break room... because those badges are left behind on the desk all the time whenever the employees get up from their desks, go to the bathroom, and hang around the break room.
Because employees will quickly learn to "game" the system, rendering the whole thing useless.
Hell, most of the time those badges aren't even necessary to get into the office, since somebody inevitably will open the door for you. And inevitably the employees are going to discover that their badges are ratting them out.
Not that any of this matters. This is just another way for managers to collect "metrics" on their staff, to prove with the magic of numbers that their staff is working, rather than - oh, I don't know - looking to see if the work is actually getting done. But the latter would actually require the managers to understand what their reports are doing, and that requires knowledge and effort on their part. Better to just rely on computers to create a useless spreadsheet that they can point to during the yearly reviews.
I cannot imagine a better argument for unionization than such gizmos.
Years ago I worked on early mobile field work software on GPS enabled PDAs. Periodically I'd take an installation and training trip so I could hear the stakeholder concerns. One of the concerns I frequently heard from field workers in private was that the boss would be tracking their movements every moment of the day, and he'd use this to go after workers he didn't like. This was new stuff, and it had a bit of a creepiness factor for people who'd never used a computer in their life.
My response was always this: What would *you* do if you wanted to show someone is goofing off instead of working? You'd go to the site where he claimed to have done the work and see if it actually got done. It's what you'd do, it's what I'd do, and it's what your boss does if he has any common sense. If he doesn't, *he's* the one who's goofing off. Field work is hard; traveling around and keying a few bogus entries is much easier, and would be sufficient to fool the system.
With a few exceptions like security guards, you don't need technology to tell if a worker is doing his job. You need to manage your employees by measuring the things you expect them to accomplish.
We are far from having a technological substitute for intelligent supervision. Anything that falls short of that is just pandering to management laziness.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
What problem are they trying to solve? They want to recover the cost of managers. They can't get rid of the technical staff - they actually need them - but they can get rid of that expensive middle tier by automating the tracking part of management. Which all they think there is to management.
Before you all say "Woohoo", think of this: The CIO is now your boss. You are no longer a person, you're a resource. The only way he knows you or of you is a set of numbers on a report. You either make whatever metric they use to gauge your performance or you don't. They don't care if you're sick, or if you're taking care of a child, or if you've got a personal problem - you don't make the numbers and you're gone.
I have a hard time believing someone can be so ignorant of history. Do you think slaves were happy? What about feudal serfs? Or pre-unionized steel workers? Or the children working in textile factories?
He said "happy workers are productive workers". He did NOT say "all productive workers are happy workers". See the difference? What he probably meant was "companies that use policies that keep their workers happy are more likely to have workers that are productive". Sure you can force someone to be productive under miserable conditions but you can get terrific productivity as well by treating your employees nicely.
Capital has never, and will never, care about the happiness of their workers unless those workers force them to care
True and there has been tremendous progress on that front. Working conditions in the US are FAR better in most cases than they were 100 years ago, sometimes to a fault.
Tyranny by government dictators: Bad.
Tyranny by corporate dictators: Good.
Any questions?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
After all, it's the first step of automating management, and replacing all that management types with a bunch of shell scripts.
And who gets to write those shell-scripts in the end? Who? Exactly, we, the techies.
So it may be a slight inconvenience for a time, but in the end we will only have to do what the shell scripts we wrote ourselves are telling us to do. Sounds pretty much like paradise to me.
Yes but will those shell scripts be written with vi or emacs?
It's because the words have been applied far too much to be sheeps clothing for wolves. Some of those that most loudly shout that they are Christian are instead merchants in the temple. It makes others wary of anyone that makes similar noises in case they have an extremist or confidence trickster on their hands.
As for "conservative", when people verbally push how conservative they are in politics it's sometimes part of a shell game to get away with doing something radical. I've got one of those in my state that is really 99% fascist and is trying to change or destroy everything he can - so much for "conservative".
So when you fit the original definitions I can see how it's a bit tough that people assume you are a disguised wolf instead as soon as you mention the label. Maybe don't. Democratic Socialists would be laughed out of this place or called Communists as soon as they bring up their label.
The state I live in has weak labor laws, and the company believes it can do as it pleases. My fellow co-workers and I have been looking for other jobs for a few years now, but the market sucks. (BTW, all of us have at least a bachelors degree, mine is in engineering). There are thousands of jobs around here that pay minimum wage, but almost nothing paying any more than that.
I have an obvious solution for you. MOVE.
That's what I've had to do for years, just to stay employed. My last move was 200 miles. The one before that was 650 miles.
I see my family a week at Thanksgiving and a week at Christmas. Sure that sucks, but it's what I had to do in order to avoid what you're going through.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters