Minecraft

[Binnatics]

Totally agree PZ. I think my 'company' is a bit control-freaky :-D

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah, that's pretty much how we are, spending five or ten minutes watching a youtube video to decompress a bit is accepted, but of course, spending all day at the expense of getting w@&k done wouldn't fly.

[Art Blade]

 :-D

We do have internet at w@&k for everyone but there are filters in place that will not allow to connect to anything that contains "game" for instance. So I can't access this site from w@&k.

[Binnatics]

Seems European then, the need to control employees liberty on the net. I guess we're just old fashioned :-\\

[PZ]

:-D

We do have internet at w@&k for everyone but there are filters in place that will not allow to connect to anything that contains "game" for instance. So I can't access this site from w@&k.

Maybe we could change the name of our organization to www.openworldwork.org

[Binnatics]

Server not found...

????

Blocked maybe? :-D

[PZ]

We'd need to change the names in our navigation as well....

Assassin's Creed w@&k
Far Cry w@&k
Full w@&k boards...

[PZ]

We'd need to change the names in our navigation as well....

Assassin's Creed w@&k
Far Cry w@&k
Full w@&k boards...

You'd probably receive kudos at your workplace for visiting a site so dedicated to w@&k.  :-()

[Art Blade]

you're crazy bordering insane. I love it.  :-()

[PZ]

 :-D

[fragger]

I like the way your mind "works", PZ :-D

I guess whether unlimited internet access is good or bad in a workplace depends on the nature of the business, and how many people are employed there. I once worked for an office-supply company called Corporate Express (the Americans here may know of it, it is in fact an American company which caters to businesses only, not to the general public). I was in IT and worked in desktop support, mainframe maintenance and general troubleshooting in the HQ's IT department. There were two immense warehouses attached and my colleagues and I were also responsible for maintaining the computers and related hardware in those. There was a staff of over 300 in the main Admin building - admin, finance, sales, accounting, promotions, telemarketing, and numerous other departments. EVERY new employee who came to w@&k in CE's offices, in any capacity, would be given full internet access with no security limitations in place, other than the newbie having to sign a document which essentially stated "I promise not to use the net for anything other than w@&k-related purposes" or words to that effect.

Big mistake.
i
Whenever an office employee received a new PC, I or one of my colleagues would consult with the recipient, asking them if there were any files on their old HDDs that they wanted to save, and if so, we would ask the user to identify them so that we could copy them to their allocated mainframe directory (everybody got one, which was where they were supposed to keep their job-specific files). We would then swap the new hardware over, then copy the files from their original C: drive from their temporary storage on the mainframe back over to their new C:. We would take their old PC away and store it in our tech room for a month, just in case there were in fact some files on the user's old HDD that they'd forgotten about and which they needed, so that we could get it back for them. After that, we would either keep the old machine for spare parts, convert it into a dumb terminal or "diskless" machine as a possible replacement for any malfunctioning packing-desk PCs in the warehouse (quicker to just replace those than try to fix them), or we'd chuck them out. In any case, we would have to examine the HDDs of them to make sure there were no lingering user files, or in some cases sensitive company files, remaining on the drives.

It was when we examined these HDDs that we'd find some of the stuff that users had downloaded and tried to hide by creating directories with cryptic names to store them in, usually tucked away in the Windows System directory or some similar place where they thought nobody would ever look (hello, we're in IT - to us, these stick out like dog's balls). Porn was the least of it. If we found girly photos and the like we'd just ignore it and have a laugh over it, but if we found something serious like child porn we'd be on these people in a flash. In the three years I worked there, I busted two guys for that particular offense - they were not only sacked but the police were notified, and in at least one of those cases, charges were pressed (I never heard what happened with the other). I also found stuff which was not so serious like S&M and other fetish imagery, and things that could be quite stomach-turning, like photos of people shitting in each others' mouths, necrophilia, bestial sex, collections of gory photos, and other lovely imagery. One woman had an extensive collection of penis pictures which must have entailed dozens of hours of browsing and downloading. All of it courtesy of CE's lax internet usage policy.

But what really annoyed me was on occasion, an employee would download something like an entire movie (quite illegally) and then would call us up and complain about the net access being slow ::) I would also sometimes answer a support call from someone who would be having a problem with some stupid game they'd downloaded, or some other dumbass time-waster like MOPy fish (a virtual goldfish maintenance simulator, similar to a Tamagotchi). I would take one look, say something like, "You've got to be kidding - stop wasting my time" and walk away.

Two things I learned from that experience. There are some pretty warped minds out there, and some people can't be trusted with unregulated company-supplied internet access.

[Dweller_Benthos]

There's a bit of a difference in that company and mine, where we have about 20 people working total. Only about a third of them have PCs as the rest are on the printing presses (I w@&k for a printing company btw) and they mostly just use their phones hooked into the company wifi. Mostly when there's downtime, a person will have a web page up or youtube, but the biggest offender for downloading girly photos? My boss, lol. The biggest use I see is mostly people checking sports scores.

[Binnatics]

A dirty mind is a joy forever. But indeed, that's way off limits what you describe Fragger.  :o

Over-regulating and controlling is the other extreme. It my workplace general access gets so slow sometimes, I can hardly type. When I look at what I'm typing, I see what I typed a second ago. Now that's irritating.  >:(

[PZ]

There is nothing worse than micromanaging. My mantra has always been to hire good people and then get out of their way so they can do their job.

In my experience, the supervisor who micromanages does a poor job because they are too busy doing the jobs of the people they hire.

[Art Blade]

I've always liked that mantra of yours ^-^ And your observation is spot on, too. :-X :)

[PZ]

 ^-^