On Thu, 21 Sep 2000, Hugh Bragg wrote:
> Who would want to work for a company who doesn't even trust you to do
> your work properly. They may as well hire convicts for the amount of
Who would want to own stock in a company that doesn't even check its
employee's work, has only a 10% work to recreation time, or is a likely
lawsuit target? For better or worse, most of us participate in a market
economy and that requires we factor that in to our models.
> trust company XYZ has. Perhaps it should screen it's employees more
> carefully or have a contract that forbids anything they don't want.
> That way if they are sued, they can sue ABC for breaking the contract.
It's not solely about lawsuit mitigation, it's also about responsibility
to shareholders to ensure that the company isn't accepting undue risk and
is performing at the best level that it can (that's a balance that
includes both worker and employer interests.)
> When I get a PC from work I lock it up as hard as can be. no-one,
> including my boss is allowed to do anything to it. When I leave it is
> still locked and if they want to use their PC again they will have to
> reformat and reinstall everything loosing anything on the disk. They
> may own the data on the disk, but they own the lockdown system too.
If you leave and don't give them the key, it's likely they could sue you
successfully.
> Hey, they can alway pay me to come and move some data about their
> systems if they really need something from it.
>
> If I found I was being monitored without my consent I should probably
> be able to sue the company for violating my privacy, but I would resign
Consent isn't necessary in the workplace for a lot of circumstances. You
should check your local laws and precedents set in your local and district
courts to be sure. Go into a 7-11 or bank and look at all the cameras and
see if anyone's signed anything saying that it's ok to monitor them on the
premesis (esp. the customers.)
> immediately. I wouldn't mind being monitored if I knew what was being
> monitored and it was part of my signed contract.
That's always the best way to do it.
> The definitions being bandied about are pretty strange. If ABC does a
> turd on a keyboard at work, does that belong to XYZ? Yes of course it
> does since if someone else trips on it they sue XYZ not ABC. The same
> is true if a burglar trips on your hose in the back yard and is hurt.
> He can sue you no matter who put it there. You can try to prosecute the
> burglar for trespassing but that doesn't help you footing the medical
> bills.
>
> To monitor or not to monitor? It's not effective.
Actually, it is effective.
> You can monitor all you like but committed flouters will find another
> way. Ever heard of asci art. I've seen some incredibly accurate porno
1. Most of the performance problems aren't with people who'll be caught by
monitoring.
2. If someone deliberately tries to get around monitoring, then they're a
prime candidate for immediate termination once discovered, and you'll
_definitely_ be able to have a "bad apple" defense for any collateral
lawsuits.
> sent by email this way. Looks like junk until you resize, select the
> right font and center it. For all XYZ knows employee DEF is using
> employee ABC's PC to read porn or email company documents while ABC
> is in the toilet.
That's why I advocate making users log into proxies and mail systems.
That provides accountability- even if it's not a token thing and the
accountability is for the password.
> If I was an employee in the U.S. I would periodically monitor logs
> to see if anyone is using anything that might get _me_ into trouble.
> This would be stated in the employment contract. If something is found
> I would warn suspects that they may be breaking their contracts. If it
> continues despite my warnings, employees proven to be guilty would
> be terminated.
>
> There is a lot of leway in "might get me into trouble". I would
> attempt to find out what is a legitimate risk. If there is a problem
> I can say I did everything possible to prevent it.
"Might get me in trouble" also covers shareholder lawsuits for
non-performance.
>
> As far as wasting time goes, if my employee gets the jobs done as
> required, then happy surfing. If that interferes with others trying
> to do their job I can do two things.
> 1. Talk to the individual.
> 2. Get more bandwidth. Many jobs require surfing. They should all be
> able to do it at the same time so this makes sense.
If 80% of the bandwidth is personal use and you have to make the jump from
$800/month to $8,000 a month for the next incremental bandwidth increase,
do you honestely expect the employer to cover that cost without any
accountability? If a single department has everyone using some streaming
video service, should the other departments necessarily suffer?
End-to-end QoS fixes this, but it's not a pretty solution if you're not
the one assigning bandwidth.
> > Also, a lot of people use privacy notices on their sinatures. I'm not
> sure if this helps but I don't think a company can legally read this
> mail?
Sure they can, so long as they don't give the user any expectation of
privacy (at least in the US.)
Paul
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Paul D. Robertson "My statements in this message are personal opinions
[EMAIL PROTECTED] which may have no basis whatsoever in fact."
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