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I'm fine with IT making an effort to keep people from installing all kinds of exotic viruses. I understand that 5 seconds after the IT department lets users install whatever they want, half the computers in the organization will have Weather Buddy Extreme and Adorable Puppy Screensaver (Now with EXTRA VIRUSES!) installed. I get that.So I disagree with that part of the article. What I agree with, though, is the part about just leaving the workers the fuck alone and not treating them like 5 year-olds.I hate working in places where manager types walk around and give a "tsk, tsk" to anyone they catch checking their Facebook page. Those managers aren't ensuring productivity, they're ensuring their workers aren't having fun. But that's not how we as workers should be judged, is it? I mean, if someone can spend half their day reading Facebook and still get an acceptable amount of their work done, who cares? Yes, yes, I understand that those damn Facebook addicts are wasting company time, essentially getting paid to surf the web, but why does that matter, provided work is getting done? You do hire people to get work done, right, and not to fill a seat and have nega-fun? Then manage like it!Give your workers tasks to complete, tell them when those tasks need to be completed, and leave it at that. If they get their tasks done in the alloted amount of time, great. If not, then you need to have a chat to figure out why. If it's because they're wasting time all day instead of doing their work, then disciplinary action might be necessary. I realize that's more difficult than just strolling about the office periodically to make sure no one is having anything resembling fun, but that's why you're paid the big bucks, Mr. Manager.This is all hard to do though, because somewhere along the way, we decided every job everywhere ever had to be paid based on hours worked rather than results. I get paid a set amount each year, but I'm still considered an hourly employee, and I still have to fill out a timesheet. So that hour you spent surfing the web instead of completing your TPS report? You charged the company for that...you made them pay you for something of no value to them. I can understand how a manager might get a little pissed off by something like that, even moreso if the employee doing the time wasting is a highly paid contract employee.But I still maintain that it shouldn't matter. When you hire an employee, you are hiring that person to get shit done for you. Yes, you stated the details of your contract with that employee in terms of hours, but you never really, actually cared about hours; you hired the person to do X, that person said it would take N hours at Y rate per hour to do X, you tallied up how much money that would add up to, and then you decided if getting X done was worth N*Y dollars. If you determine that, yes, it is worth N*Y dollars to get X done, then fuck off and stop hassling the employee about their Facebook time.
