Limitless Worker Surveillance
papers.ssrn.com
papers.ssrn.com
Granted, I work at a remarkably lax institution that cares more about getting the job done and less about managing our lives, but these are habits I picked up working in Silicon Valley and I couldn't even imagine the kinds of perpetual monitoring that some of my friends from college have to put up with.
Nobody cares about how long I'm in the bathroom. They like the software I write. And then we all go home at 5.
Luckily I've never worked at an organization that wanted to own my life to that extent.
I just figured that the best defense against getting fired is delivering value to my employer; they didn't care if I take a HN break as long as my overall productivity stayed high. The same applies now that I'm self-employed, too.
I did tend to use my phone for personal IMs & emails, but that was because we also used GMail for work, and I didn't want to bother with having an incognito window open all the time.
I'm in IT so I know what we monitor.
Also, if one is stuck in traffic one most definitely should not be sending email or a text message because that is dangerous to you and others on the road; it also gives the impression that the company does not care about the safety of people.
If I could not call my boss (or coworker) when I hit bad traffic and have said person send the email for me, I think that there is something wrong with the company or group. What exactly is the problem? Do they think your boss or co-worker are lying?
Anyway, sounds like a company that I would leave and save them the trouble of firing me.
If I had the most average of developers on my team that caused me no grief and seemed to get on well enough with those around him/her, I can't fathom just letting them go like that. However, if we'd had a history of issues, the work was pretty dreadful, and/or the attitude was pretty piss poor, I could see where I'd just raise up my hands and say, "F* it, this person isn't worth the grief."
Either way, assuming you've since landed on your feet it sounds like you're better off not being there- I couldn't stand working for a company that micromanaged me like that.
I've never seen a wellness program that "required" that. Most of them are just designed to bring attention to the issue so that you yourself start to address it (i.e. it is a subtle prod, not a hard shove).
If requiring weight loss has been implemented I'd be interested to read about it. In particular how employers and insurance companies avoid violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
They started out as a way to stop people ignoring their health until it was too hate. Essentially they're designed around giving out health information and requiring annual checkups (either full health check or biometric screening, employee's choice).
We had various stipulations as part of the wellness program:
First off, this is a "optional" wellness program but opting out could cost the typical employee hundreds of dollars.
If you fall within a certain threshold for BMI, blood pressure, and haven't smoked within 30 days you immediately qualify for the health premium discount (or some other custom incentive including PTO, cash, giftcards, etc whatever we negotiated with the group).
If you failed the BMI or blood pressure criteria, you have the option to show improvement in your BMI over the course of a period of time.
If you smoke or can't/won't improve your BMI or blood pressure you immediately fall into the third ring which involves third party programs that you have to prove you attended. Some of which include achieving a particular goal at Weight Watchers, smoking cessation programs, Walkadoo, etc.
Nice choice of words there; that would imply some of the drive was nefarious.
In my case they wanted all the usual vitals (height, weight, blood pressure), along with a couple of blood draws... and if you started reading the little thing you signed along with it, it was unreal what you were signing away. I had co-workers getting calls from the insurance companies nurse practitioners wanting to discuss their vitals. You're basically talking a turnkey Gattaca scenario.
If the intention is truly just to make people aware of potential health risks, partner with GPs and have them do the conversation. I'd be much more comfortable with a "firewalled" abstraction layer between me and the insurance company that doesn't allow for any data sharing.
It makes perfect sense that health insurance companies become the force for healthy lifestyles.
This topic came up for debate recently and the American people chose to stay the course of addressing healthcare through for-profit insurance companies. Why should those companies not act in their self-interest to reduce risk?
Insurance companies are incentivized to promote lifestyles that have less healthcare expenses. This often maps to "healthy lifestyles", but that is not universally true.
> Why should those companies not act in their self-interest to reduce risk?
Because we probably want people to quit smoking and eat better, but those activities cause people to die faster[1], which is cheaper for insurance companies.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.97488...
Firefox provides it's own TLS root certificate store, while Chrome and IE inherit the system's.
I can't remember which vendor it was, but at least one of them was accepting invalid certificates, and re-encrypting the traffic with its own certificate chain. Completely hiding any errors that should have been visible to the end users.
I understand why some scanning tools decrypt SSL traffic and effectively MITM their own system so they can do their job, but when this results in rewriting the chain of credentials to use some phantom authority that isn't who you originally thought you were talking to, that seems a significant downside.