How worker surveillance is backfiring on employers | Hacker News Reader

How worker surveillance is backfiring on employers

bbc.com

30 pointsrntn16 comments

I didn't used to care much about corporate snooping but over the last 5 years I've grown sick of it. Between Google/Android scraping me and employee WFH computers that log in realtime everything I do, every command I run, and what I surf it's absurd.

When I'm in the office, lord forbid you put a sweater over your badge by accident or tuck in t under your shirt so it doesn't get caught between you and your desk There's guys on all choke points: who are you? Where's your badge? I've been there years ...

Software is my business, but it's eliminating public v. private.

> Where's your badge? I've been there years ...

I think the point of requiring that treatment even for people you know is so that if you're suddenly fired, your now-former co-workers won't unwittingly let you back into the secure spaces.

My laid off manager told me exactly this when I asked him why he didn't just ask me to let him in to get some of this things after he was let go, instead of asking me to bring them to him.

Jokes on them, they forgot to change all the door codes after half of our department quit.

You are correct; there is a legit security issue; that is basic command and control. But, good lord, I've with the place for long time.

But that's not all ... it bleeds into a certain spirit of people who want to "help you" but are actually just uptight control freak bureaucrats best exemplified in current Progressive insurance adds on TV. When the old guy unsticks the TV remote from the velcro holder on the TV table and says "We've got a lot of work to do" I chuckle.

Here's another way to look at it: re-read the first 4 chapters of Huckleberry Finn. Like Tom, I've just grown a bit tired of the nudging and constant amount of corporate "in my business." You gotta breath.

A finally, to leave this on a light and humorous note, you may recall the greatest rant of all time: Eddie from AB-FAB in court defending herself against parking tickets and a drunk driving citation. From memory:

"You know, all I was trying to do was a little shopping. Hmm, OK, get a few things done in life only to find out that, without even knowing it, I broke the law. I know the law is there to help, but we're not all idiots. We don't all need nurse maiding. We're not all stupid. Maybe you should just tax the stupid people ... sometimes we just want to run down high street like a bull with fireworks coming out of our nostrals without everybody loosing their mind."

From there she moved on to taxes.

The judge had none of it and threw the book at her.

But it was one hell of rant with a kernel of truth. See yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsohPbnp1b8

I would encourage anyone working at a company who uses surveillance to vote with their feet.

I know that there are some who are not in a financial or personal position to leave.

For the others, bad companies will do whatever they can get away with. There are good companies that trust people to do their job. Don't accept garbage treatment.

Then things like this must be prohibited by law in some fashion. If it's legal, it'll be everywhere eventually. I'll paraphrase the totalitarian principle - if it's not forbidden, then it will inevitably be compulsory.

> Some companies, for instance, have installed time-clocks that scan an employee’s fingerprint to clock them in and out.

This seems, by far, more reasonable than all the rest of the behaviors they mention. What's wrong with doing this?

It does prevent people leaving early and having their buddy "clock them out" which isn't unheard of in some industries. The issue is employers can go too far and end up with Taylorism.

There will always be a difference between the rules and laws that exist and people's behavior. They exist in a state of equilibrium. When laws are enforced to their maximum extent, it disrupts this equilibrium resulting in unintended consequences. The general rule is that systems are flexible to handle a few free-rideea, but eliminating free ridership completely tends to punish the lawful and rule abiding. If this happens too much the lawful become resentful and defect. If that happens too much then the rule makers and enforcers have a much bigger problem on their hands.

Did the Cheka occasionally find counter-revolutionaries? Sure, but they also scooped up a whole bunch of others along with them with disastrous results.

As you constrain allowable behavior, you lose positive contributions from varied working styles, thinking and personalities. Those at the highest levels in the company find out about the losses last, and that is where the constraints are set or mandated.

Which working styles, thinking and personalities would be affected by this particular change?

To a degree, all of them. Even the ideal employee imagined in a no-downsides scenario won’t quite fit, due to limitations and slippage in the execution, and that assumes such a person actually works at the company.

Why in the hell should my company in any way have access to my biometrics like that?

Photographs ok but not fingerprints?

"they believe it ensures the productivity of remote employees"

i think (most) big firms are not doing this simply to monitor if you're at your desk. at the end every high level decision comes down to "increase profits" or "cut expenses".

so i believe they want to monitor how this info they gather can help in cutting expenses.

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