this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 521 points 5 months ago (92 children)

So you did not notice that they didn't actual do anything...? But were happy that their mouse was moving around...?

This is what I fail to get. You give people things to work on. Why do you want to spy on them instead of just looking at the results? Even if someone spends half the time watching YouTube, if all the work is done... who cares?

[–] [email protected] 107 points 5 months ago (32 children)

I know people who use the mouse jiggler. They get all their work done and are good employees.

I'm a manager at a large company and have employees who work mostly from home. I don't bother checking if their picture has a green or yellow mark next to their name. If they respond to my emails quickly and get their overall work done, I'm happy.

[–] [email protected] 76 points 5 months ago (30 children)

Their productivity is naturally increased because they aren't force to re-authenticate on their laptops because they were inactive for 5 minute while reading a report or going to the bathroom. Or worse, if they have multiple laptops because of security or compliance reasons, and one will inevitably be inactive forcing yet another sign in.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

This is the real reason I have one of those damn mouse jigglers. The timeouts on our laptop are CRAZY short, like 5 minutes tops. Just stepping away for some coffee or to take a shit then I have to re-authenticate. Heaven forbid I make myself a toasted bagel or something!

It's even worse as I work 95% inside multiple virtual machines in the cloud that also timeout (and in some cases shut down) so there are multiple layers of password +2fa just to get back to whatever I was doing.

So yeah, $10 USB device from Amazon allows me to not spend a hour a day just having to re-auth.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago

BAGELS ARE FORBIDDEN, WORK SLAVE!!! /s

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I added 10% to my estimate for login and authentication issues. The manager was not amused.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My previous work started cracking down on having us write down what we were up to in the day to the minute. I was doing 5m blocks, got in trouble. I switched to the by the minute bullshit and also logged the time spent logging my time and they were not amused either but couldn't really do anything about it. That whole job was as much time convincing them I was working as time spent actually working, which meant I ended up not working very much because I felt strangled all the time and I had built a bunch of effective ways to lie to them about my day

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You had to log your time to the minute? I would quit instantly if my job got down to 5m increments, fuck that shit. Sounds like it is a former job so you made the right decision getting out of there.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

Yeah it was bad. I really needed that job since I was saving to move to Seattle and most the other jobs paid in rejected potatoes. I was there for a few months after the track by minute stuff happened so not great but I did get out of there

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

How pathetic is the state of business that it wastes so much time we have to do that?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Pharmaceutical sector. They can be very paranoid.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yup, I hate that Microsoft chat programs no longer give you the option of showing available whenever signed in. Has to force it's own system of timeouts and away. So people will start emailing me thinking I'm away when I'm just waiting for a ping. Ended up installing Caffeine and having it press Shift so that the system will recognize that I'm actually alive and available.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

You didn't need admin privileges to install that?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

It was a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure I just put it in the windows Startup folder. It's not installed as a service or anything.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There often are portable versions of programs that you don't have to install.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I just tried. IT is one step ahead, the site is blocked 😂

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Could do it on a personal computer and load it on USB? Idk, just thinking out loud right now

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I could email it to myself, (Flash Drives are prevented) but it's not worth it. I am extremely fortunate that my company does not give two shits about micromanaging, and so no one really cares about my status. It's just annoying to me that it goes yellow so quickly, but it's not worth the risk.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Fair enough, I'm glad you're not being held to arbitrary metrics that show nothing about actual effort or work done.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's one of several reasons I'm still here despite being severely underpaid! 😂 😭

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I get that, sometimes not being harassed is worth a pay cut.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Also unlimited PTO and WFH for anyone who wants to

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's pretty dope. Is the PTO actually usable?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Yep. I have literally never been turned down for PTO. And if I want to cut out early, I just tell my team, and everyone is cool. I should probably clarify that I am on salary.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

God I'm so jealous. I have 28 days worth of hours and minutes plus bank holidays. I'm also salary. I technically work for a spun off part if the government, so if I went to work private I would at least double my yearly earnings, but there wouldn't be stability in my working days, no pension, no built in disability or injury pay etc etc etc. That said, we should be getting paid a lot more than we are.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

We're hiring! No pensions though, and 401k match is 3%. Health benefits aren't bad

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm not moving from Scotland any time soon

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There's several openings in our Leeds office, and most of us work remote

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

As a Stonemason would I have any transferable skills?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

There’s an old but IMO still very relevant white paper by Microsoft titled “So Long, And No Thanks for the Externalities: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users”. It argues that security measures often cost more in employee time (and hence wages) than the potential benefit. It’s an interesting read and I think about it whenever our chief of security cooked up with another asinine security measure.

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