State-Sponsored Solitaire? 331
jefu writes "According to this story the state of North Carolina may be considering banning solitaire on state owned machines. It seems that state workers are now perceived as having replaced leaning on brooms with playing solitaire or minesweeper. The story provides coverage of both sides of the issue, noting that playing solitaire (or other games) may provide workers with a way to burn off some stress, but that this kind of activity is likely to be perceived as time wasting. My favorite bit (especially as April 15th draws ever closer) is where the author notes that fifty percent of the time an IRS employee is on the computer they are playing games, shopping online or gambling."
Getting work done... (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientific approach (Score:5, Insightful)
Would that mean the IRS employs 50% too many workers?
Banning of software/protocols... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Linux, here we come! (Score:2, Insightful)
Thats so 90's! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Scientific approach (Score:2, Insightful)
How can you 'ban' solitaire? Easy, fire employee (Score:5, Insightful)
You are overanalyzing the problem. All you have to do is have the official poilicy of "no games" and then you are free to fire someone playing at work. OK, maybe they have to get a warning first.
The "no games" policy should be accompanied with a "no unauthorized installs" policy.
This is STILL stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think these policies are, in a word, stupid. If someone is going to waste time, they're going to waste time. If it's not on a game of Solitaire, it will be on some other non-work activity. The fact is that you cannot command a person to work for eight (if they're lucky) solid hours. Or as Scott Kirwin put it in the article, "Managers [have] lost sight that workers are real people, not robots."
Every time I've been asked to delete the games off of machines, I've expressed extreme disapproval. I've tried to explain until I'm blue in the face that it will not increase productivity. I've tried to explain that if you treat employees like they're four years old by taking away their toys, it will only cause resentment and a resulting LOSS of productivity. I've tried to point out that small Solitaire breaks (or any other mindless activity) actually help a lot of people get back into a more productive mindset going forward. I've also tried to point out that games such as Solitaire help people new to computers learn their way around. For example, it taught my mother, who had only used DOS-based accounting software, how to use a mouse. Sure, it sounds simple to you, but keep in mind that she had no idea what left-clicking, dragging-and-dropping, minimizing and maximizing, etc. were, but she was up to speed within a few minutes thanks to Solitaire.
But in general, all that stuff makes no difference to management. Since companies have layed off and outsourced to the point where they can't function any more, all that matters is that we have to be productive 24x7. Barring that, all that matters is that we have to LOOK productive 24x7.
So stupid...
What about smoke breaks? (Score:3, Insightful)
CN, anti-smoking crusader
Re:Slackers Are a Management Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, but I'd like to introduce a slight cautionary note. For some jobs I simply disbelieve that it is possible to be productive 100% of the day for 100% of all working days. I always love these productivity studies which say "600,000 man days of work are lost to <daft activity x> every year, employers say <daft activity x> must be banned from the workplace to ensure productivity rises."
Which, of course, it doesn't because 600,000 man days of work are now being 'lost' by the employees switching to <daft activity y> instead. That 600,000 days was an illusion - the productivity was never there to be had, in some jobs it's impossible for people to work as if they were machines. I including programming in this by the way.
I don't play games at work, but I certainly browse the web and spend some time talking to my wife over SMS messages. In days when desktop internet access wasn't common, I'd do crosswords at lunchtime or go for coffee breaks. Granted some of the figures mentioned sound extreme, but still - 100% of everybody's time isn't always a realistic target.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Slackers Are a Management Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been saying this to no avail for years now. I wish someone would start listening.
I get so frustrated at management trying to pass off their responsibilites to the IT folks at companies. Simple example: Internet content filtering. I work at a large (Fortune 100) company, and I handle second-level support calls. One common theme that generates hundreds of calls a month (it is multinational) is, "I need access to such-and-such a site for legitimate business purposes, but it says that it's blocked due to (whatever reason the content filtering company had classified it)." So we have to get on a directly-connected machine, check out the site, verify that the person actually needs access, get approval from the person's manager, put in a request with the guy who manages the content filter, wait a few days until he can get around to it, then call the person back and let them know that the site has been allowed.
That's an awful lot of work to keep the very few people who may browse porn at work from browsing porn at work, and it's a major pain in the ass to the honest people trying to do their jobs. I haven't done a formal study, but it must cost the company thousands of dollars every month (maybe more) in the cost of the service plus the man hours spent going through this exercise. How much would the company lose if they just stopped content filtering? Significantly less.
But that doesn't matter. Management looks at this as an IT issue, not a management issue. If they push this responsibility onto us, that's one less thing they have to do, and one more level of blame that separates them from potential violators of corporate policy.
Going back to topic, games are the same way. If someone goofs off all day playing Solitaire, management looks at it as a problem with the computer or a problem with the IT department. Funny, they never seem to see it for what it really is: a problem with the employee or a problem with the employee's manager.
As an employee of the State of NC... (Score:2, Insightful)
Eliminate all slack time. (Score:2, Insightful)
What would be the impact on the distribution of wealth?. What would be the impact on the quality of life, considering that most of us have to go to work most of the days of our lives?
You agreed to pay me such and such an amount to do such and such each week. Now you find out that I can do it in ten hours, when you thought that it would take me 40, so you want to punish me by reducing me to 10 hours pay? You just eliminated any incentive I had to be efficient.
Re:Slackers Are a Management Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a very good arguement. I work for a company that realises this: Most of our staff doesn't take coffee breaks, or real lunchtimes. Instead, we prefer to sit spend half of our lunch hour eating and the other half shooting eachother in video games.
Productivity is higher than if we simply ate our food and went back to work - our minds are refreshed because we took a moment away from critical thinking (IT/Programming job, BTW).
I'm glad I work for a company like that now, and I wish other companies would realize that as well.
There'd be a lot less depressed people in the world if more companies treated employees like humans, rather than bottom lines.
Re:Duh!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Uhm, no, it's pretty much like that in many big companies as well. If you've been reading slashdot, you could have read about the support guy that tapped a managers computer and found that he only spend 10% of his time working. I'd have to say that's about how much I worked in my last full time job. (Which I tried to get fired from, but eventually just had to quit.)
Computers have helped productivity so much, but many companies still have all these jobs for people. It's a shame really, because the whole business world could run on an hour or two instead of the 8+ hours that many people need to see you in the office.
My real-world experience on this topic (Score:3, Insightful)
After: users spend x hours trying to get solitaire working again.
All my management courses drilled into my head the idea that you can only expect six hours of productivity from an employee per day. I don't see any point in fighting it. Why piss them off in the process?
Re:Slackers Are a Management Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
I am my employer. I run a one-man contracting business. And whilst my current client requires me to put in x hours it's true, they aren't really paying for that. They're paying me for results.
And I provide them. Yes, including Slashdot and SMS, all fully known about by my client. If I dropped the web browsing or stopped sending the odd SMS my productivity wouldn't go up - I'd just have to find something else to distract me when needed. When programming, you can't just stare at a computer screen for 8 hours a day and expect to just keep typing (or drawing UML diagrams or whatever else). It's utterly unrealistic - humans just don't work that way.
no one can really go a straight 8 hours, but the breaks you're taking should be trips to the WC or the like, not something trivial and pointless like reading webpages or doing crossword puzzles.
It's a very long time since I was a schoolboy asking permission to use the WC - I use it as and when I choose. Similarly, it is my decision whether to continue banging my head against a brick wall on a particular problem, or whether to just take a quick distraction by maybe reading a web page or nipping off to fetch some coffee from outside before returning to the task with a fresher mind. It is my client's decision as to whether they find my approach acceptable, and for that only the results count.
I'm not advocating lazing your life away at work, but I am rejecting the notion that only work-related things can happen at work. For some jobs that's true - as a summer job when I was still at University I used to work as a kitchen helper, loading vast amounts of cutlery and dishes into an industrial dishwasher as quickly as possible, then getting the servings ready for the waitresses to send out again. I enjoyed that job as it happens, and not a crossword to be seen. But then it wasn't necessary - it was mindless work and you could just get on with it. Programming, and many other jobs, simply aren't like that.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:WHERE are YOU reading this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Slackers Are a Management Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes in our techy jobs, our minds need downtime/idle waste time to keep us on the ball. You cant ask an athelete to nonstop run 200miles a day can you. Consider reading the web like training/stretching for a runner.
Re:Slackers Are a Management Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Until the harassment lawsuits start.
Re:This is STILL stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
If the employees are getting their paychecks and can quit whenever they like, it isn't slave labor...
Re:This is STILL stupid. (Score:2, Insightful)
Unintended consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
e.g. Firemen.
Granted, firemen are usually municipal not state workers. But they have lots of goof-off activities at the station to fight boredom.
Gee, nothing else to do since they took our T.V. and foosball away. Let's wash the shiny trucks AGAIN!
ManHours != WorkDone (Score:2, Insightful)
As a manager, I have a lot of light to shed on this subject.
Essentially, every time we call in an "efficiency expert" who advises us to cut back on the number of breaks employees get, I shrug it off. An employer with any experience at all knows better than to count productivity simply in "man-hours." Man-hours of work are little more than a theory figure for comparison purposes, but they don't have any real value. When I try to weigh employee productivity, my equation isn't simply "ManHoursWorked/ManHoursPossible". It's something more like "ManHoursWorked*WorkDonePerHour/WorkDonePossible"
Of course, the real equation isn't THAT simple either, but it does say a lot. If I'm a fun-nazi to all my employees, all it does is create general resentment toward both myself and the job. Unhappy employees have a MUCH larger tendancy to do poorly at work, and slack off even more when I'm not watching. On the other hand, if I'm somewhat lenient about my policy, letting my employees take breaks when they feel it's necessary, they're happy and tend to get more work done in the time they work. End result, I have more more work done at the end of the day. (Which of course makes my salary go up every couple years, so it works out well for me too.) If someone tells me that my employees are "stealing" time from me, I laugh and don't worry about it, because the time they DO put in is much more valuable.
It's Welfare (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Duh!! (Score:3, Insightful)
IRS spending time playing games -- a good thing?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't that a good thing?!
Considering that the IRS is far more likely to investigate/harass poor or average-income taxpayers as opposed to the rich, I see them wasting their time as a plus.
Now, if we could only spread this idle time-wasting idea to the Pentagon, maybe Iraqis and other people who are under the thumb of the empire could breath a little easier...
Re:Online gambling? (Score:3, Insightful)
The IRS, well so far as I know, they just want your money whether you be crack dealer, bookie, or online gambler. I'm pretty sure its set up so they wont report you to other arms of govt.
Re:What about smoke breaks? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's hard to explain to non-smokers, but smokers tend to have a subconscious yet very strong social bond with one another. Smokers are generally relegated to a single location (standing just outside of the back entrance, for example) and upon encountering other smokers there, will engage in conversation. It's almost universally true, even with folks like me who for the most part are shy and wouldn't otherwise strike up conversations with random strangers.
If someone bums a cigarette from me, I won't turn them down, and I've never been turned down the few times I've had to ask others. I've never given a cent to the homeless guys standing at the busy intersections with cardboard signs, but the ones who ask for a smoke will get one, along with an offer of a light. We smokers may indeed be a bunch of arrogant assholes who think that the world is our ashtray, but we look out for each other - and we have something in common.
What I'm getting at here is that having a few workers go out for a smoke break isn't necessarily a bad thing. They're getting face time with each other that they may not otherwise have had the opportunity to get. This helps to build and reinforce positive relationships between employees; it allows the peons see and interact with the PHBs as real people, and vice versa. Who knows, maybe one day you'll step out for a smoke and run into the C[ETF]O? You'd never have had the chance to speak with him otherwise, but a quick conversation over a cigarette, and you've got "synergy."
Some co-workers socialize between cubicles. Some co-workers socialize at lunch. Some co-workers socialize on the golf course. Some co-workers socialize at the water fountain. And some of us socialize in the smoking area. Everybody "wastes time" at work (though not to the extent where 50% of their computer time is wasted, maybe I should apply for a job at the IRS!).
I'm not trying to glorify smoking. If anyone reading this doesn't smoke but finds it appealing, allow me to be the first to say DON'T START. It's filthy, it's expensive, and it will probably eventually kill you after it kills me. But if you're already a smoker and you aren't taking advantage of this to network with other smokers around you (assuming there are others), you _should_ start doing that.
BTW I've never heard of any company which gave smokers - and only smokers - breaks. Everyone gets a break, the smokers spend it smoking, the non-smokers spend it playing Solitaire...
Re:This is STILL stupid. (Score:2, Insightful)
A slave can quit working whenever they want, too.
Of course may get beaten, tortured, left to starve to death, or executed at that point in time depending on who is their captors.
The problem is that people automatically assume that if you are paid money then you are not a slave. If you work out of fear of starving to death or the fact your supervisors will send you to a worse camp in artic cirlce in Siberia even if you are paid money... I would still assume that is slave labor because you have no choice in the matter.
The same could be said about capitalism if you are afraid to loose your job. Like the bad social stigma and the fear of not having money force many people to work in low paid positions that they feel they have no choice in.
This is not so bad as one can simply wake up one morning and decide that they can live without income and go into work and tell them they no longer want to work there. However most people will not over come this fear even though no one is physically putting them into a labor camp. They might as well emotionally be in one.