F-Chat blocked @ work!

Thanks Al - never too old to learn.

 

The lack of productivity and personal BS done on an employers dime (ie. mine) forced me to stop ALL web surfing in our workplaces.

Just remember, when you are being paid to do a job, your employer is buying your time to do that work, not paying you to sit there and do your personal stuff, web surf, etc. Do this on your own time, or own your own company and do it whenever you want.

 

...and as a business owner I have terminated employees for that BS as well. When you go from collecting a paycheck to actually running a business and paying the bills, watching employees waste your money is extremely anoying. If you were paying the bills, you would feel the same way.

 

Dino, your post is just perfect. Couldn't agree more.

Regards,

Milton

 

IMHO, it's easy to select an all or nothing solution. Some employees put in long hours and/or have long commute times so a little safe surfing during their break goes a long way towards boosting morale. Besides, if I can provide secure access for them to pay bills and take care of some errands then I'm all for it. Just don't use your company email address for anything other than company business; gotta draw the line somewhere

 

WTF! Are you listening to yourself? Get back to work and quit your whining! Are you paid to surf the net? Probably not. If it was your company you would be all over your employees like stink on sh*t and on here trying figure out a way to get your employees to stop doing this too.

 

I am the employer, not the employee...

 

Do you own a lumbermill, a coal mine, or a cotton field? Because MANY jobs (like mine) are not based on the draconian idea of an hourly output per man. If Joe is paid to unload trucks at a loading dock, then how is he cheating his boss if he browses the net on the company computer during the 2 hours between truck arrivals? "Keep pushing that broom, boy!"

 

Oops. Im on my internet smoke break. :-D

 

That's great! I'll have to try this from my government computer. Even though I work with our IT department, they do keep a close watch on what we do, however they have a no harm no foul policy where they will let you get away with some extensive surfing depending on what it is. On the flip side it's my belief that if you're on a break, lunch, or literally finished your work go ahead and surf, in my old job if we were slow or finished early I would let everyone go home, much more rewarding than surfing for two hours, plus you save money.

 

Sometimes it's a fine line between patron and cabron...

 

Judgeing by the number of posts you have, this must be another in a long line productionless, wasted days getting paid for doing nothing but surfing the web.

When I pay an employee for their time at work, that is what I expect.......WORK. Not doing homework, chores, answering personal emails, surfing the web, paying bills, shopping on ebay or any other store or visiting chat sites. If one needs to do that, do it on lunch or your own time, on your own computer, with your own web access, not mine. This also has to include personal cell phone use. It's plain and simple........you are at work, so guess what.......you work. If your mythical 'Joe' has 2 hours between trucks..........I'm sure that we could find something productive for him to do.

I used to be fairly liberal in allowing employees web access and cell phone use, until it adversely affected our production. I got tired of having to police or worse yet, having to pay someone to police the web abuse, so finally I just said no more. We have a no surf policy. Period. If this is what one needs to improve morale, then you need a new job, and if you worked for me...you would get that opportunity.

 

If any of my employees spent as much time at work on Ferrari Chat as I do, I would fire their stupid asses.

 

Who's kidding who? Hanging out here is a collosal time hog no matter if you're priveledged to own the company or not. It's a choice and if you don't have someone looking over your shoulder then congrats. Anyone who's posting here is probably killing time to a degree so if you're "Mr. Big" and you aren't surfing on an employer's dime then goody for you. Fact is your still most likely wasting someone's time, maybe your own. I know I am

 

No, it's another in a long line of days in which I am able to do my job AND have some fun at work without a draconian task master looming over me.
What's with you slave drivers who refuse to believe that anybody can actually do their job AND have a little fun?

So you have already contradicted yourself. In your earlier post, you said that employees were paid to do a job. Now you're saying that if they do their job in an efficient manner that earns them some free time to browse the net, then your are now going to penalize their efficient work by "finding something productive for him to do".

Typical draconian work ethic: take the guy who works hard and reward him by piling on even more work. Meanwhile, the guy who drags his feet a little and looks busy all the time goes unnoticed for being the lazy bones that he really is.

 

LMFAO.

 

Do your employees only work a 40 hour workweek? One hour lunch break? Are they paid hourly, or exempt?

The problem is, I see very few people who do that anymore. I am an exempt employee, so I get paid regardless of how much or little I work. My standard hours are 10 hours/day, and I usually take only a 20-30 min lunch. Oftentimes, I will work longer, or skip a lunch break and eat at my desk. Yet, I am only paid for a 40 hour workweek. I am considered one of the more productive people at my job. And I do surf ferrarichat. Sometimes, what I am doing can be pertty boring (hey, I'm a scientist), so a quick break to check out F-chat can relieve the tedium. I feel that it makes me more productive in that respect. Also, I (and others) can multitask. I have a big monitor, and can usually have multiple screens open at once.

If you have people working 50, 60, 70+ hours/week, it is anticipated that they may need to do some personal things during work hours. Of course, it is also expected that they should keep this to a minimum. It really comes down to personal responsibility. If you can't trust your employee to get his job done, then maybe he should be fired?

I have people that report to me, and I understand that they are also doing the occasional surfing. But, I also know that they have a job that needs to be done, and expect that they will do it. As long as what they do doesn't get in the way of accomplishing their goals, then who am I to micromanage?

There needs to be a balance. In general, the extremes are not good.

Dom

 

I work at a large defense contractor, where Internet use on your own time (lunch, primarily) is okay, though "objectionable" websites (sex or gambling-related) are frowned upon. Fortunately "chat" sites are not restricted.

However, if I have to use the Internet at a public library (such as when I'm on the road), chat sites like this one are often locked out.

 

Temper temper, with the time it took to write that you could have done somthing more productive

 

I manage an IT department and the company I work for is primarily white-collar exempt employees. So they are paid to complete a specific job function, not turn out "x many widgets per hour." I was asked by the executive team to look into "wasted" surfing time at work and the metrics (at least for exempt employees - no data on hourly) indicated salaried workers spend an average of 7 hours/week online, but that they also spend an average of 10 hours/week of personal time conducting business affairs. The employee typically saves time by doing their banking, shopping, etc. online rather than taking extended lunch breaks, coming in late or leaving early - so the net result (in our case) was a benefit to the company and no internet restriction is necessary. Of course we need to restrict certain categories of sites (porn, gambling and so on) for liability reasons, but not general internet access per se. I get a monthly report from my network admin to see who has been trying to access restricted sites (usually porn) - never who you expect, and it still blows me away that these morons use business equipment to engage in these activities. Common sense is anything but common...

 

Careful! This thread is starting to sound like it' been hijacked by those (temper-prone) L-car guys that are lurking here. (posted from home, wasting nobody's time but my own).

Cheers!

Brennan

 

Eep! You're wasting your life time.. Just kidding.

 

Ha! Forget work, I think my WIFE is about to block F-chat at home. At that point we may need to get 'www.thebesthusband.com' pointed to F-chat!

 

Sorry Mike I didn't see your post on the issue of you not being employeed by this company. But in defense of them it appears that it is their equipment and phone lines and they probably have had problems with their people abusing the privledge of having access to the web. I had a huge problem at one time not just chat sites but porn sites etc. On the issue of you working for me how do you know you haven't/didn't/don't? HaHaHa Regards, Vern