The surveillance tech waiting for workers as they return to the office

Warehouse-style employee tracking technology is coming for the office worker.

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[cherijo78]

Never been more grateful to be in a union state government job in a state with good privacy laws.

Sure, some things are monitored, but it's obvious things that are expected like phone software status, central system use, etc. In fact, that gentle touch is enabling my department to CONTINUE to support extensive remote work, because it's obvious that people are still doing their job. In fact, the stats all show productivity is UP. Plus, as a bonus, it helps the state's green initiatives to reduce climate change.

Some work monitoring to see progress is fine. This is just insane.

 

[Oldnoobguy]

I'm not saying it's all Boomers. My parents are the same kind of Boomers as you. But even they (especially my dad) put a lot of the responsibility on their peers. And I would think they would know.

At least where I live, it's the vast majority of Boomers I meet. I'm glad you're not part of the problem. But none of the people my age I know actively support this crap. But most of the Boomers do. That's the reality I experience, so it's all I can report on. And certainly, living in a religious commune, you have to realize that you are not representative of the ordinary person in your generation?

In short- I'm not trying to put this on every single Boomer. But this comment was a generalization based on my experiences and my parents' experiences. Certainly there is more to the full picture than that; and you're right that GenZ is a part of that mindset nowadays (or maybe always were?).

Thanks for saying not all Boomers. I was responding to the overgeneralization. OTOH, don't get me started on what I think about the majority of Boomers. I'll just say that on the subject of the majority of Boomers, our generation had some of the best opportunities of any generation; the foundations for a more just society were finally being laid down in the 60s and 70s; they had plenty of warnings from the experts about the effects of CO2 on the climate, and the majority of them completely blew it.

I had hopes that GenZ would do better with rejecting Trumpism as too many Boomers were already lost. This last election disappointed me, but perhaps GenZ will end up having a smaller proportion of selfish assholes that what happened with my generation.

 

[EnPeaSea]

Thanks for saying not all Boomers. I was responding to the overgeneralization. OTOH, don't get me started on what I think about the majority of Boomers. I'll just say that on the subject of the majority of Boomers, our generation had some of the best opportunities of any generation; the foundations for a more just society were finally being laid down in the 60s and 70s; they had plenty of warnings from the experts about the effects of CO2 on the climate, and the majority of them completely blew it.

I had hopes that GenZ would do better with rejecting Trumpism as too many Boomers were already lost. This last election disappointed me, but perhaps GenZ will end up having a smaller proportion of selfish assholes that what happened with my generation.

My Gen X peers were also quite unproductive. Many of us took "question authority" and failed to apply the critical thinking to avoid "anything from an authority must be bullshit, thus the alternative must be true".

 

[Socks Mingus]

But I thought many of us were fed the BS line of, we need RTO for "collaboration" and to generate "water cooler ideas" and "we are better together". I guess as long as together means, sitting in front of your laptop with your eyes glued to the screen not actually talking to coworkers physically and god forbid you get up from your desk to have a conversation then you aren't doing real work since you aren't staring at your screen

Or, shocker, it was never about those things and just being gaslit by your employer which drags down employee morale even further

Dearest Employee #421118x-b15,

Our biotracking system indicates that you did not spend your mandated five minutes standing awkwardly by the watercooler scheduled for 1600 yesterday afternoon by your Employee Relaxation Coordinator, per the schedule published in Q4 of last year. You will be consequently be docked 1500 relaxation points on your next employee assessment. Any future violations of the Mandatory Employee Relaxation Policy as specificed in section 13.6.2 of the Behavioural Analytics Tracking System and Health Intelligence Targets for 2025, may result in loss of family benefits and reconsideration of your continued employment.

Best wishes and chillest vibes,
Chet Featherbottoms, Assistant Vice Undermanager, HR.

 

[Sajuuk]

The Gen Z attitude seems to be an almost religious adherence to "both sideism", which is to say, since both sides are arguing, both sides are equally silly, and look at me, all regal and majestic on my perch atop the fence, "above it all", and therefor superior.

It's like the kids are a product of their environment, and our current environment says caring about things is, uh, fucking loser shit.

 

[aurelius rex]

Why not add a few beds, and let the employees sleep over a few nights a week. Think of the gains

Employees can’t sleep at work because that’s theft of employer resources! That square footage is not being used for a business purpose! (I wish that was sarcasm but it’s actually a rule virtually everywhere I’ve been).

 

[cp1919]

We're spending absurd amounts of money to generate useless data that will very likely never be looked at by anyone.

Indeed. My manager is already overspending his time not running interference with the C_Suite and making sure that all my projects have the resources needed when they're needed. Any time spent on this crap just puts everything further behind

 

[Dark Jaguar]

It's like the kids are a product of their environment, and our current environment says caring about things is, uh, fucking loser shit.

That was a very unfortunate typo on my part. I MEANT Gen X.

 

[TracyInRTP]

My job involves out of hours work, and like many workers in tech there's no official compensation for that - it's an informal TOIL system. If you want to track my time, be prepared for a nasty shock when you see the timesheets. If you think me leaving the office early once a week is covering the TOIL, you're almost certainly wrong. But me leaving early would show up on these systems, whereas the out of hours work would probably not.

Many years ago we had a union lawsuit against my company about making people do work, without compensation, after hours. To document it I wrote a program that captured the sent timestamp of every email in the past year, and made a chart showing which hours I was busily sending email and which hours I was not. It was eye-opening to see that 1am, 2am, even 3am were a high enough percentage you could clearly see them in the chart.

I will add at no time did I ever feel abused here. That's just the IT admin lifestyle I grew up in and chose. I have always felt free to leave early on slow days knowing I'll be back online at 10pm just to make sure nothing broke.

For those curious about the lawsuit, we all got $1000 checks and the managers added a tagline to their email sigs saying "if this was sent after hours - you are not expected to respond until your normal hours the next day". Oh and some law firm pocketed millions of dollars in fees. (Which was the true purpose of the suit. Doing these suits was their entire business model.)

 

[Case]

Heh, I took one job where I was told to track every single thing I did every day by filling out a form. Spend 2 hrs coding, fill out the form for 5-10 minutes choosing all the depts and categories and cost centers. Spend 15 minutes on the phone, spend 5-10 minutes choosing all the depts and categories and cost centers.

I was told to make sure all this time added up to 40 hrs--exactly-- for the week. All this data was going to supposedly be used to allocate (or deallocate) resources based on need. See the problem? Everything's just fine if everyone is doing exactly 40 hrs a week! Never midn that the admin team I was on was backlogged for several weeks and we were constantly falling behind because of all the work, that wasn't reflected in the mind-numbing forms we were all filling out (spending 45 minutes a day doing so...wait, should I fill out the form noting the time I spent filling out the form?)

Corporate IT is so stupid it hurts, a lot.

I didn't stay long in that job. Not due to that, but the mindset behind it engendered a fair number of other idiocies and it added up fast.

 

[Joel Bruner]

if you install surveillance technology, which is all about distrusting the workers, there is a deep feature of human psychology that is reciprocity. If you don’t trust me, I’m not going to trust you.

100% – the "Zero Trust" security concept is not supposed to be applied to people, just devices. Devices don't "care" if they aren't trusted but people sure do! It's like raising a child, if you treat them as if they are untrustworthy, they begin to act like it!

As a side note, they mentioned WPP. I had to pleasure of leaving WPP before they consolidated offices and moved into a new building in the Fulton Market area but from reliable sources: They stopped allowing companies to have any personalization or branding present in their company's work areas. These are marketing and branding companies! And they'd been reduced to generic hot-desking, where anything left out would be removed. As you can imagine, morale suffered when workers were treated as transactional objects devoid of any unique characteristics. Doi.

 

[JustYourAverageJDP]

I think it's the "endangers power" part. So much of middle management's real job is to defend their job. With no one around to look busy around, how do they justify their positions? Better to have people around so they can be seen ordering people around and being at meetings.

Never mind just how little people like Musk actually work. I mean the guy's been floating around TV with his child in tow like an accessory lately. Doesn't he run about three different companies and a massive oversight department?

Does all that and still has time to be an elite gamer.

 

[Bob Dobilina]

My Gen X peers were also quite unproductive. Many of us took "question authority" and failed to apply the critical thinking to avoid "anything from an authority must be bullshit, thus the alternative must be true".

Gen X’er here. Way too many of my peers have gone to MAGA. I’m not sure what they were expecting in life but the amount of grievance they concoct is exhausting. They all know that they peaked long ago and aren’t nowhere close to where they thought they would be. However they have, for the most part, good quality lives. Like what did you expect working the same job for the last 20 years?

 

[Deleted member 1065259]

Relevant:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-keeRf8uy0c


I'm so amazed at Matt Groening. He truly sees the future.

 

[crepuscularbrolly]

This is super infuriating. One way to measure productivity, GDP per capita, of the workforce has never been higher in history but almost none of the benefits of that increased productivity has flown down to improve work/life balance. Instead, it has all gone into historic profit levels which overwhelmingly benefits the few at the top.

Modern capitalism is about extracting more value per capita. If it were legal, we would have slavery. Oh, wait: I forgot about the incarcerated workers and the high incarceration rate in the US.

 

[MedicalGeek]

Agree, work time flexibility is nominal in white collar jobs, its a commonly accepted reduction in productivity which is generally accepted as positive work life balance. However, that standard of productivity (balance) is for the employer to set which is why hours per work week are also customary in employment agreements.

Just because someone could complete all of their currently assigned work in 3 days doesn't mean they can take the rest of the week off as shadow vacation. Unless you're a contractor most companies have "and other work as assigned" verbiage as standard policy hence need to be able to judge if sufficient productivity for work assigned is reached.

You’re either a sycophant or a CEO. I’m guessing sycophant. No, they will not give you a pony.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Relevant:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-keeRf8uy0c


I'm so amazed at Matt Groening. He truly sees the future.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhe3vSe-mmw

(I actually, sadly, know EXACTLY what that is now, but I had to follow that up with the appropriate Simpsons clip.
Just keep in mind that Groaning and his team weren't predicting the future, they certainly weren't trying to. They were merely exaggerating the present. That the present has BECOME the exaggeration was as much a surprise to the Simpsons team as anyone else.)

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Thanks for saying not all Boomers. I was responding to the overgeneralization. OTOH, don't get me started on what I think about the majority of Boomers. I'll just say that on the subject of the majority of Boomers, our generation had some of the best opportunities of any generation; the foundations for a more just society were finally being laid down in the 60s and 70s; they had plenty of warnings from the experts about the effects of CO2 on the climate, and the majority of them completely blew it.

I had hopes that GenZ would do better with rejecting Trumpism as too many Boomers were already lost. This last election disappointed me, but perhaps GenZ will end up having a smaller proportion of selfish assholes that what happened with my generation.

We are, fortunately, already seeing the zoomers flip their opinions on this in record time. It seems once the lie hits home, people are quicker to see through it.

 

[silverboy]

It's metrics without context. The reality is, no suit with a chart full of contextless metrics is going to know nearly as much about how to manage a franchise as the manager of that store. The problem with gathering these metrics is just how nearsighted it makes people to the metrics that were originally picked.

The way to get lots of work done is to respect people and their autonomy, pay them well, train them well, and motivate them well. And hire good people in the first place, which is really quite easy when you pay them well.

It's amazing that after all these decades of corporate capitalism, management types and execs still can't get this through their thick skulls. It's so clearly obvious, and yet they always rush the other way. What it really reveals is that rather than caring about profits, they care about power-tripping and cruelty.

Man's inhumanity to man, basically.

Sad. Only getting worse, though someday yeah, the revolution might come. I will be right there with it.

 

[Sajuuk]

Modern capitalism is about extracting more value per capita. If it were legal, we would have slavery. Oh, wait: I forgot about the incarcerated workers and the high incarceration rate in the US.

Don’t forget the rampant slavery throughout the entire global supply chain.

 

[Del Varner]

I think we should put these surveillance badges on members of legislatures to see when they spend their time.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

I have this debate with friends about 'not' pulling forward at a drive thru. Technically, you don't have to as they are trying to cheat/beat the metric.

It's a circular arguement of "You are hurting the employees at that spot. But then Corpo sees they make thier times easily and increases them."

Are you seriously inconveniencing the busy drive through workers to "stick it to the man?" I get what you're saying, but come on, the dude working the window doesn't have time for your shit.

 

[Tijger]

Why on gods green earth do US workers let themselves be treated this way? Its mindboggling to me, these things are downright illegal in my country, you dont even need a union to step in, its plain and simply against the law.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

Call centre workers have long been monitored this way, I certainly was working contracted gigs 20 years ago - albeit via the much more rudimentary "logged into a phone and status set via that" method. The fact is though some white collar workers have long been time micro-managed like this and no-one ever objected about our rights back then. As far as I'm concerned this shift is long overdue, this article is basically the workforce time monitoring version of 'First They Came – by Pastor Martin Niemöller'. None of you objected when they came for time of workers like me and now they come for your time instead - so suck it up at this point and stop being white collar babies!!!

Uh, people have been saying call center jobs suck shit literally forever. What are you talking about?

 

[Sajuuk]

Why on gods green earth do US workers let themselves be treated this way? Its mindboggling to me, these things are downright illegal in my country, you dont even need a union to step in, its plain and simply against the law.

"Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves."

Vonnegut

 

[iquanyin]

i still don’t understand how paying for buildings+insurance+maintence+work travel is cheaper than just paying for employees.

 

[s73v3r]

It's like the kids are a product of their environment, and our current environment says caring about things is, uh, fucking loser shit.

It took me quite a while to realize that was the thing that really rubbed me the wrong way about South Park. A lot of the non-PC stuff was largely a product of it's time, and is whatever. But the thing that they really hammered home constantly was that caring about something made you the loser.

 

[superstition2]

You have a duty to do.

And muffins are for customers.

 

[iamai]

“You couldn’t just rule them tyrannically, or so they said. You had to treat them as your fellow Christians, with dignity and respect. In many ways the original work ethic was an ethic which uplifted workers.”

There was absolutely nothing uplifting about Puritanism.

 

[iamai]

... What it really reveals is that rather than caring about profits, they care about power-tripping and cruelty.

I think they care only about profits which often results in the abuse of power and cruelty but always is a by product of an immoral, depraved disregard for workers' dignity that is baked into the system.

 

[iim]

Sooner or later, American management is going to realize the benefits of those fancy high tech Japanese toilets. Employees love them, but so do the managers because they keep track of everything you’re doing in there.

 

[pnellesen]

I'm so damned glad I was "forced" to retire from a tech position last year (after a great 24 year career, 20 of which was full-time work from home.) I could have kept my job if I was willing to uproot my life and family to move from St. Louis to Dallas, and then be willing to RTO 5 days a week. Which, even in the most optimistic estimate would have been a minimum of 2 hours a day in traffic. Not to mention all the monitoring crap they had already started ramping up.

This is not the 21st Century I was dreaming of when I graduated high school in 1982. It's turning into a combination of Idiocracy, Animal Farm, and 1984, without any of the "positive" parts.

 

[Stanistani]

It's time to start a cultural shift away from large corporations. Pressure your representative to break up huge companies, support smaller businesses, and start discussing large companies the way you would discuss someone who molests children. "Ew! You use Amazon? I mean you do know what crimes they commit on a daily basis, right?"

 

[wastrel]

Next they'll be building barracks close by that you'll be required to live in when not in the office... with guards (for your protection, of course).

 

[Matthew J.]

See also: "right to work"

A.k.a. "The right to get fucked by your employer without a union around to hand you a cigarette afterward."

 

[hypervigilance]

I installed some devices like this a few years ago in Littleton, CO. I'm not sure what they actually are but they were branded RADAR. Installed something like nine of them in a small clothing store. They are two foot diameter discs, about five inches thick. Huge, glaringly obvious devices. They do real-time 3d mapping of the store, including a detailed location of all inventory and people inside the store.

 

[Eldorito]

Modern capitalism is about extracting more value per capita. If it were legal, we would have slavery. Oh, wait: I forgot about the incarcerated workers and the high incarceration rate in the US.

I'd question if slavery would be more or less beneficial to corporate America. With people working multiple jobs and requiring government assistance just to survive and paying their own way for an education, it already has pretty minimal cost to the business in terms of keeping them alive enough to do their job.

Short term then definitely. Sky high profits while you work to death your workforce with no view past the next fiscal year. But they'd quickly run into the same problems they have now, the cost of labour would increase significantly and there'd be a creeping increase in HR to manage it all. Just the labour is only paid for once (and not to the employee) and HR now includes security guards.

 

[cobaltorange]

Companies which pay employees for their time?

They pay them for completing their tasks. Have you ever worked for a company before?

 

[Dark Jaguar]

You have a duty to do.

And muffins are for customers.

View attachment 103792

Coffee's for closers.

 

[Sajuuk]

I'd question if slavery would be more or less beneficial to corporate America. With people working multiple jobs and requiring government assistance just to survive and paying their own way for an education, it already has pretty minimal cost to the business in terms of keeping them alive enough to do their job.

Short term then definitely. Sky high profits while you work to death your workforce with no view past the next fiscal year. But they'd quickly run into the same problems they have now, the cost of labour would increase significantly and there'd be a creeping increase in HR to manage it all. Just the labour is only paid for once (and not to the employee) and HR now includes security guards.

Of course slavery is still beneficial to corporate America; what do you think the rush for AI and “AGI” is fundamentally about? They want human qualities and human labor without having to pay for it.