"Adam C. Lipscomb" wrote:
> I'm in management at a national telecommunications company, and my company
> allows employees to use the internet at work, with the caveat that non-work
> related surfing be done at lunch and on breaks. I don't enforce this to the
> letter with my staff, but I do keep an eye on their productivity. I know
> when they're working efficiently and when they're slacking - I have to. If
> they're spending their entire shift surfing and not doing their job, I have
> two immediate problems. (1) Money comes out of my department's budget to
> pay someone for *NOT* working and (2) I run a very real risk of a major
> failure occurring somewhere on the network that could cost my company
> >>MILLIONS<< of dollars.
Those two are the least of my worries - I have managed the firewalls and filters
for a number of corporations, and their greatest fear isn't productivity as
litigation. It only takes one clown to be surfing a porn site when another staff
member walks past his terminal and gets offended... Some of the payouts for this
sort of thing have been astounding, particularly in the US.
Oh, and Kristin, a lot of those companies have been tech companies with teams of
programmers, they've never beaten me yet.. (Though one high school kid has...)
Russell Chapman
Brisbane Australia
