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BengaBenga on 24 April 2009
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Words Of Wisdom said:
NJ5 said:

That's not where I was going with the question. My point is that people's productivity varies from day to day, people aren't always fully productive. In their less productive moments they can be clearing their mind for a period of time while reading forums (or daydreaming, or whatever clears their mind), or they can be less happy because some manager decided to control them.

Of course I might be biased due to my background as a software engineer. Working permanently all day is not the best way to work, sometimes you just need to freshen up your mind by looking away from the code or design you're producing. This often results in better productivity when you get back to work. There are also periods where you simply have to wait for the computer to finish calculating something, and it's not enough time to take up another task so the best thing to do is to go check your email, or some news or whatever.

In this case I believe trying to control employees by blocking stuff they like to read is counter-productive and will result in bad will. I realize it may be different for other kinds of jobs.

You don't need 20 minutes of forum surfing every other hour to "clear your mind" IMO.  Most of it is just people trying to rationalize their desire to not work which in turn originates from people not enjoying what they do--a much larger problem.

As for software developers and engineers, there is a huge amount of laziness in that field.  There's a tendency for them to start tasks that will take a long time and rationalize that they're just watching the screen so they may as well just do frivilous things when they could be working on other projects or furthering company goals in some other way.  It's like because the computer is active in one manner that their brain turns off and they suddenly forget how to multitask or *gasp* do something that doesn't require a computer.

If you want to not work the full amount of time your company pays you for and effectively get paid for time you're not working then more power to you.  You should understand that if your company finds out or decides that it's unacceptible that they will take required actions to get you back on task or replace you with someone that will do the work they're paying you to do.

 

But I work much more than the 40 hours I'm paid for, so I think a few minutes of forum surfing every now and then is ok. Besides I get paid to deliver work and I'm judged on the quality of my work. 

Besides in this case it has nothing to do with the company blocking sites to keep people from surfing, Youtube, Facebook, BBC/CNN etc are all still available, bacause my (and ksv's) employer understand that people are more productive if you give them some freedom. The VGC block is because AT&T (who provides the internet service) simply blocks everything with Games in it to (rightfully) prevent people from playing online games.