Well, it was a good, long run while it lasted...

[Smit-Dog]

Originally posted by SqueakyGirl
...Is it true if you delete your cookies, history, and offline content that they can't catch you?

They can log details such as the time you turn your computer on, log into the network, the web sites you access, the length of time you spend on each page of the web site, the time of day you are accessing web sites, everything that you download, all your e-mail, etc.

They can monitor all of this and choose to ignore it, or easily use the very detailed paper trail as grounds for termination.

And as for the armchair lawyers out there who think they can fight this or take others down with them.... :laugh:

 

[squeaky]

Hmm...well they haven't done anything about it since October...

 

[biglou]

Keep in mind, I wasn't singled out, and I am not the cause of this-so I'm told by my "informant"! He was just being a bud and giving me a heads-up as to what was going to be happening. Also-When he was telling me to watch it, I brought up something I learned in a business class way back when, about discrimination of sorts: If you are going to monitor one person for something, you have to monitor eveyone. If you fire someone for an attendance policy, you should have a written policy, and a record of everyone affected by that policy's adherence to that policy. Granted, that is the simplified explaination, and personally, I wouldn't waste ten seconds of my time fighting this place for anything, but I suppose if someone got a lawyer and went to court they could demand to see the records/logs on everyone else with access' internet logs. Most companies are smart enough to cover themselves with that nowadays, I believe.

Man, I can't believe I just spent 5 of my 15 precious minutes of 'net time typing this! :laugh:

 

[MrLuckey]

Unless you are in a union or are a minority you'd likely be flushing $$ down the toilet trying to fight getting fired for internet abuse :silly:

 

[nikki]

I figure until I get a verbal warning... I'll keep on surfin! I work for PepsiCo and have the PepsiCo Internet Usage Policy pop up just about once a week when I log on and I click "I accept". But... damn... people talk on the phone all day, walk around and chat, take 2 hour lunches, all I do is surf a lil bit. There are tons of locked sites but luckily my MX addiction sites are still a go. But I am scared one day... things will change. :think:

DAMN THE MAN!!

 

[Smit-Dog]

.... Or terminal in to your broadband-connected computer at home and surf under the radar...

 

[MrMXer327]

Uhmm? What about dial up? I unplug the phone and connect my laptop via my ISP. Yea, It is slow compared to the fiber my Desktop is hooked to, but at least they are not tracking my every move. Now this has me thinking... and that is a very dangerous thing... Should I take it one step further, I wonder if PC Anywhere would allow me to call my home PC... which would be connected to the net... which would only allow them to see that I had called home instead of an ISP... Oh no... This is not good

 

[CAL]

Join the crowd. The new job has cut my DRN time down to basically NOTHING. I have no idea what is going on here anymore. Not much I can do about it, though. :(

 

[MrLuckey]

MrMxer - is your laptop still connected to your network when you use your dial up? Are you covering your tracks by attempting to erase cookies, history etc.

Even in Smit-Dogs suggestion, any time your computer is on your companies network, a savy IT/IS person can track and/or see what your doing. Or after you reconnect unless you really work at it.

Most IT folks can sit in their office and see your desktop anytime they want without you knowing it.

 

[Rooster]

Ed is right on, my IT guy used to give me a rough time about how much time I spend on the net :eek: he would even call me up and tell me exactly what I was looking at! :)

 

[Smit-Dog]

That's why I FDisk any "standard" build I get from IT...

VPN will reveal IP, not what's being passed on the wire... and in many cases there's no need to be logged into the network.

And in most companies, it's the guys over in the sales department that are the easy prey to track...

 

[Patman]

WEBSpy

 

[squeaky]

Well well well...my company thinks they're so smart. I just found out from a "source" in my main office that my company doesn't actually have the technology to track our internet use. It's more of if they see you, then you're in trouble... :|

they can't fool me.

 

[Smit-Dog]

And you'll be on the distribution list or in on the meeting that decides to implement it???

If not, I'd keep that friend you have there on the inside! ;)

 

[squeaky]

Oh no I wont be on the list...my "insider" is going to keep me posted on everything! YAHOO!

 

[mrmodine]

Hey Lou:

You are right about the requirements for a written policy that everyone must conform to. I worked for a HUGE lawfirm downtown for 3 years and we went through the process for about a year. I was the firewall administrator so I was well versed on the policy.

We had folks downloading PORN and even some illegal stuff on company time and company premises...I'm not talking email even...I mean surfing the naughty sites. We saw it happening and couldn't do a thing about it until the policy was fully written and every one of the 2500 employees had read and signed an acknowledgement of the policy. It took more than a year.

The funny thing is that the offenders kept on offending even when the policy went into affect and they got tossed. I guess they were addicts!

Also interesting to note...you cannot legally be tossed from a company for naughty emails you RECEIVE...only the ones you send. This includes of course forwarding them to your friends or home address. Lots of folks get worried about it when they get a good email.

Just my $.02 from experience.

 

[motometal]

i'm still baffled by all of these companies that have positions where evidently you can actually work like 2-6 hours and get paid for 8 or 9 hours.  And we wonder why parts can be imported from China for less.  I'm so busy at work, I brought a mower blade to work to sharpen (which takes a whole 3 minutes) but at the end of the day I just wanted to get the heck out of there, took the dull mower blade back home and back on the mower.

maybe i'm just gealous of those who really don't have to work that much.  actually, i have a lot of freedom and come and go as i please, but geez, there's just a lot of work to do, that's how we make money!  Scary times we live in, with companies being bought out and "non essential" positions being eliminated.

 

[MrMXer327]

I hear that Moto... Our plant has closed due to competition from China. China would send there goods to Mexico and then bring it in tarrif free through NAFTA. We cut our workforce by 1/3 and still managed to increase production... but to no avail - Still couldn't compete.

 

[biglou]

I don't think I'm robbing the company by any means. My reviews state otherwise. Some of us, even a lot of us, I would venture a guess, work in a fluid environment where the work load varies. I also have lined out when my break times and lunch times are, but when customer service calls me at 12:05, I don't tell them to call back at 12:30 when I'm through with lunch, I answer their question. Same thing with anyone else who walks in or calls with needs. I don't work on the production floor, where it is vital that I am there each day at the exact times, etc., either. My customers are internal ones-the Product Engineering Dept., Customer Service Dept. and Manufacturing, Purchasing, etc. I am in one of those positions where "Tribal Knowledge" of what our company does, sells, buys, how we do it, processes used, etc. is paramount. Kinda like "The Shell Answer Man". I perform all tests of our end product, its component parts (purchased or manufactured) and answer just about any question anyone inside or outside of the company might have. These questions almost always involve weighing the risk of potential reliability, liability or functionality problems. A lot of what I do involves paperwork and documentation of what I do. If I sign my name to something stating that it's approved for use, I damn well better have my rear covered should problems arise. I have become one of, if not THE, go-to guy for a large number of folks related to what we do in Product Eng. As such, my work load is very cyclic. I wouldn't say that I as an individual is unreplaceable, but my position is. In fact, we are now a conglomerate of five contract furniture manufacturers with one person-me-handling all of the ANSI testing, question-answering, etc. for all five companies. Downsized? When it was just Fixtures Furniture, owned by the man that started the business right after WWII, there was a Testing Department, with a Test Lab Supervisor, and four or five engineers and techs working in that department. Now there is just me, and four more companies added to the bill. Believe me, when I'm sitting there surfing DRN or chatting or whatever, I am also most likely banging out a test report, answering the phone with tech info, etc.

I've worked in many positions where you NEED a set number of employees, yet they are not all going full-throttle all the time. Trust me when I say that even though I might not be stressing, answering the phone, performing tests, checking my BP, or whatever, all at the same time, that my lab is in order, the floor is swept, the desk is neat, "walk-in's" are taken care of in a timely fashion, etc. It's one of those jobs where you come in, and you do what needs to be done, regardless of what it is. Some days I work late, some days I goof off a lot. Some days it's all I can do to stay awake! But it's not one of those jobs that is the exact same thing, every day, like an endless pile of code that I have to sift through and edit, that never ends. There are things that I have taken the initiative to implement, like a scheduled testing program: Nothing goes longer than a set amount of time without testing, although most of our product and the parts we buy is in an almost continuous state of flux due to cost savings efforts from Purchasing, redesign by Prod. Eng., new product in development, etc.

I didn't take any of the above as a jab at me, just trying to explain my situation. I do have a tremendous amount of freedom, and I work almost completely unsupervised. I don't let things slide, as anyone who knows me can testify to.

Plus, "I have people skills. Don't you understand that? I am good with people! What the hell's the matter with you people?" ;)

 

[KelvinKDX]

Originally posted by mrmodine
...We had folks downloading PORN and even some illegal stuff on company time and company premises...I'm not talking email even...I mean surfing the naughty sites. 

eewww!  do you mean they were looking at ...  quads!?

 

Lou - i think you just need to get a few of your "higher ups" into dirt bike riding and get them addicted to DRN.  THen you'll have smooth sailing with your surfing.  :laugh:

 

[MrLuckey]

Lou,

In addition to what you said. I don't work there anymore but I used to work for Phillips 66 in a chemical complex, Houston Tx. It was the largest polyethylene production facility in the world. They paid about 20 of us to do the work it would probably only take 6 guys to do (normally). The thing was that if we were needed, we were needed right freaking now. We did all the process control programming and believe me we eliminated or reduced their downtime by a huge amount. Just the 6 polyethylene reactors alone were over $1,000,000 day lost EACH if they were down. Plug one and it was at least 3 days before it was unplugged and making quality product again. We were considered a very cheap insurance policy and they made $$ hand over fist by having 20 of us instead of 6 even though we sat around doing nothing 7 hours a day.

 

[motometal]

Lou, my job is actually quite a bit like yours.  It's possible mine is a bit busier though.  Since I am also responsible for sales, any time I get caught up on existing work, i'm expected to dive into the pile and look for new prospects.  Or jump in the car and go visit some customers.  You can bet that if it wasn't this way, and I was caught up, I would be expected to jump out there and help someone else out that needed it.  Anybody that has a position where if you are caught up you get to do personal stuff, you are lucky!

I'm not knocking anyone's work ethic, if I could goof off more I would.  Actually I could for a while, but I just don't want to give anyone the excuse to point fingers or hold back pay raises.  All of the places I have worked, if you get caught up and you are on the clock, then either you help out in another area, double check your work, create something work related to do, process improvements, cost studies, customer follow ups, etc.