If some of you aren't aware, I'm a network admin as part of a extremely small IT department (it's just me and another guy (my boss, who's the IT Manager). And HR has asked us to start monitoring other people's computers... which includes all the web sites they visit, how long they were at said site, all the applications they've been in as well as how long they were in them. Everything can easily be screenshot. I don't know how I really feel about this. As far as I see it, as long as they aren't breaking the computer, it's none of my f*cking business what they do on it.

Actually, what's really interesting is that the latest issue of Computerworld had an article on this. And a guy pretty much summed up how I felt by saying, "We're IT gues, We're not baby sitter." I looked to see if I couldn't find the article online, but I didn't find it. But it seems some people actually think it's their sworn duty to keep track of this stuff... and it confuses me.

But that's only half my issue. Here's were things get a little (more) dirty. Let's say there's a lady in HR. Her name will be Mrs. Molly. Molly has asked for the past moth of computer use from all the users in the admin building. After doing as she asked, a few days later, a good number of employees were sent home for 3 days without pay and a warning of termination for another infraction.

This work place isn't very big, so everyone kind of knows each other fairly well. And because of having to keep up with this stupid tracking program, I generally know now the kind of places these people go. And the people who were sent home vs the list of people going to non-work related sites just didn't match up. Let's say that there's a lady in the admin building by the name of Ms. Ann. She doesn't really get on the internet at all. And the only time she does is to get data for some excel spreadsheets for the plant or whatever. Maybe looking at local news for the town or whatnot. Things that might not really be directly work related or something. But then we have Mr. Jake... who browses Facebook, Youtube, and generally the works when it comes to non-work related stuff. My problem comes when Ann was sent home and not Jake. And this is after knowing that Ann and Molly have had... words in the past.

So what do you do? To me, it feels like Molly is taking advantage of the system. And I am not okay with that. I just want to rip this software off our network entirely. It just doesn't feel right. And it's not like HR really answers to anyone. Specially not to IT. I'm not sure what I should do... =/

This is quite the pickle.

I have a question, though. Do your coworkers visiting these non-work related sites deter them from doing their work? Meaning, is this all they do for the 8+hours a day they're at their job? Another point I want to make is that this new policy that the company is trying to implement seems to want to enforce a more serious regiment of work ethic, but fails to do that, as it delves more into "invasion of privacy." I really don't know what advice I can give you from this, Lantis. Maybe some of your coworkers (if you have close bonds with them) can give you a few pointers.

seemingly you are, to a limited extent, justifying your dislike of the software by the uses/abuses to which it is put. which in a way is nice because if this were an examination of the ethics of surveillance, I wouldn't be typing right now. ^_^

This is a more practical problem woot. In my response I am making several assumptions, one being that the suspensions without pay were doled out purely on the basis of the information you submitted. If Mz Molly has a whole portfolio of additional information then one or two of the options become less practical.


Just at first glance you have several options, ranging in scope from tepid to small-town-despot. In order:

- you can take this to your boss and let him make a decision. lets call this weaksauce mode. he may have a good idea, but he'll probably just go 'meh, managing the managers isn't my job' and at least you might be able to this whole issue to the back of your mind.

- you could give Mz Molly information broadly reduced in detail, scope, etc. if the situation is that the information given is being used as grounds for managerial fuckery, it resolve your situation if you were able to find a way to give insufficient information for such fuckery. i can see this potentially being difficult, depends how tight a ship you run. if you are generally busy then it may work halfway well.

- take a full breakdown of the information and present it to a halfway honest superior, or hell, give it to the aggrieved parties themselves to take to Mz Molly's superiors if they so wish. Judging by what you've said, I doubt it'd take too long to get some basic comparisons which would demonstrate that Ms Ann, say, was in the bottom 50% of employees when it comes to wasted time or whatever. Hell, throw Mz Molly in there if she wastes a lot of time/you have the balls for it. In short, take more representative statistics and use them to make the point which you wish to see made. Nothing revolutionary, just a simple 'her actions were unjustified based on this evidence' point.


finally, maybe my favourite;

- take a breakdown of the information to someone else, without making any comment whatsoever on Mz Molly's actions and use the data itself to make a case for your being put in charge of this project. I know you hate babysitting, but there are several advantages to this tactic that you might not have considered fully. Firstly, it makes it very easy to manipulate the information and render it harmless. Give out statistics or something in lieu of the no doubt detailed information you're currently providing. Routinely (and very summarily) 'inspect' the information yourself, perhaps. Scroll through it for anything totally out of order and then delete it/store it elsewhere, or just say that you did if you're asked to help crucify any more of your colleagues. There are options, though truthfully I can't justifiably be much more speculative than I already have.

I think that if this information is both a. capable of getting people fired, and b. being abused, you should take some sort of action. I'd be surprised if you were the only concerned person in the company. Hell, I think that even if you weren't keen on taking action, the people who got threatened should be. Possibly you could tell them to request that you let them see any pertinent information relating to their own browsing and take it to an alternative authority figure to check against the average time wasted, etc.


If any of this seems halfway viable, go ahead and email me or whatever. I'd be up for talking this over on msn if it's of any use to you.

Visiting non-work related sites is deterring them from their job. Not doing work is pretty much deterring. And what the hell is everyone so up in arms about "invasion of privacy?" You're on company property, on THEIR time. You aren't granted the right to privacy at a workplace. If you want privacy, check your facebook, bank statements, and personal e-mail at HOME where it's private and you're on your own time. When you're at work, you're attention should be on work, not foofing around the internet enjoying yourself. While I'm not a fan of company executives and people with authority in most cases (many abuse their power), I don't see how the system is wrong. Actually, idealistically, the system is actually a good one. However, there are times where the system is abused. If what Lantis says is true about "Ms. Ann," then Molly has abused the system. When a system is abused or has failures, it's easy to call it stupid or bad or horrible, but look at it from the proper perspective.

To address Lantis, it really depends on what you want to do. If you feel it's the right thing for you to do to bring this up to somebody (the proper authority), then do it. Weigh your options. If you do tell somebody, you might put yourself at risk to be fired. Just decide if you feel the firing was unjust and take it from there.

I think in time they will learn that trying to micromanage at this level actually makes people less productive. I guess I'm much more laissez faire when it comes to these things, but as long as you deliver at the end of the day, I could give a sh*t where you go and what you do on your computer as long as it's not illegal, etc. To me I think this is the stance people should take. Firing people for looking at Facebook is retarded if they're still getting their work done (obviously there are exceptions depending on your industry, since things likes healthcare it makes sense to limit these things because of privacy concerns). These may make sense in a menial production job, but I think anything else these don't make sense.

Tech savvy employees would just setup a VPN or remote desktop connection to their home computer and completely subvert the system, or use a secure proxy. I think a lot of managers use these systems in a misguided attempt to improve production. These systems fail to attack to root of the problem which is typically worker motivation.

I personally would raise this to my boss and find studies that prove the systems to be ineffective and detrimental to worker morale. I have major issues with systems like this, especially if they are not used on everyone at the company and visible to everyone (i.e. what are the managers doing with their time). It basically sends the message that you will never trust your employees. Trust is one of the first steps to having a high performance team. Much more effective, and cheaper, to just tell someone I need these by this date, and if you don't get it done, good bye. Treat your employees like children, and children is what you'll get.