Surf at Work to Get Yourself Fired
Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:46PM EDT
See Comments (11)
You gotta love this story: Employers are cracking down, hard, on doing anything remotely related to personal activities on the job.
No, we're not talking about workers spending all day on eBay and Pogo. We're talking about a woman who was sending emails to co-workers about going to lunch. We're talking about a guy who worked for the state of Virginia and spent a few minutes writing a humorous photo caption for a local newspaper contest.
It should come as no surprise that many of these infractions have been reported by government agencies, those great defenders of the working man, but they're hardly alone. Does sending or receiving five personal emails a day constitute a fireable offense? Or are employers looking for any excuse they can find to trim their ranks? Hey, I understand if you need to get rid of some bad seeds in your ranks (and "employment at will" contracts ensure that you can fire anyone for any reason at any time), but why come up with a lame excuse like "you sent a 'Happy birthday' email to your sister?
It's ridiculous firings like this that make me post about software to get around these rules, though realistically stuff like WorkFriendly won't keep you from getting fired if the IT department analyzes your web history. It only helps keep you safe from prying eyes who happen to see what's on your monitor.
But really: If your company is that worried about people doing anything non-work related on company time, install content filters to prevent people from going to sites you don't want them to. Shoulder half the burden, and stop firing people for such stupid, minor "transgressions" like checking the box scores.
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2 Posted by fjcamp2002 on Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:19PM EDT Report Abuse
It is a very small step from sending a Happy Birthday email to your sister to spending hours instant messaging her or your other relatives and friends. While my employer probably would not fire someone for sending a personal email or two - even though they say they will - I'm not going to bet my job on it. Work at work, play at home.
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3 Posted by cnull on Mon Aug 28, 2006 11:34PM EDT Report Abuse
On the contrary, myanke: I've run numerous businesses and had to deal with work/life balance of my staff for years. But I know what ruling your employees with an iron fist can do to morale and thus productivity... overbearing rules like these are counterproductive and just plain mean.
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4 Posted by gdlind on Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:45AM EDT Report Abuse
if your job is on the computer all day long, like mine, you take breaks by checking yahoo and google news, maybe checking your personal web-based email account. Just think of it as my way of taking the allowed breaks that employees do outside the back door with a smoke break.
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5 Posted by myanke2000 on Tue Aug 29, 2006 10:58AM EDT Report Abuse
What a person does on their break time is none of my business, but when they are getting paid to do a job, then they should do the job. Many of the places that I have worked, smokers took an extra 2 or 3 "smoke breaks" every day. Sure it was only to 3 to 5 minutes per smoke break but theft is theft. Two 3 minute smoke breaks per day adds up to about 26 hours per year. Three 5 minute smoke breaks would be 65 hours. It all adds up and contributes to the actual cost of labor. Is this counterproductive and mean for a business owner to look at these numbers and want to eliminate waste? I don't think so.
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1 Posted by myanke2000 on Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:10PM EDT Report Abuse
Spoken like a person that has never had to hire people for your own business.