Job Search Blog

Most offices these days have the ability to scan every email you send and receive, every website you visit, and may even be watching what you are doing with a hidden or unhidden camera. Companys have the ability to block you from visiting certain websites like Trademe, and/or virtual Rugby sites.

Why? Well your company wants to make sure that while they are paying you for the time that you are there, that you spend it working not surfing the Internet or emailing your mother-in-law.

OK that’s fine but what about the time you spend at home checking your work email or researching a problem you may be having at work? What about the unpaid overtime you did the other night when you spent 40 Minutes finishing of a task and have not bothered putting in extra time for it. Does that then mean that you are allowed a 40 minute period during another day when you can surf the Internet?

What happens if you were checking your home email at lunchtime and you forgot to close the window on your computer until home time. Are you then guilty of wasting 5 hours of company time or do they monitor the actual activity within the window?

If the bosses are watching the workers, who watches the bosses? When a Manager is surfing the Internet and if they get paid more than a worker isn’t that even worse for the company?

I am of the opinion that if someone has the work ethic of a chocolate fish they are going to waste time whatever policies the company has in place, so why waste even more time and money trying to stop it? I believe it would be hard to get rid of someone for “wasting time on the Internet” unless it was proven that they were the only person doing this and that everyone else wasn’t.

It all comes down to give and take, some people take more than they give, and others give more than they take. In the end it tends to balance out somewhat.

Lets hope that when judgement day is upon us and we are called into the Bosses office to explain ourselves that these type of issues are taken into account.