Pfsense instead SonicWall ?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@wrx7m said:
IT services don't exist in a vacuum and most management would disagree.
Not good, healthy management. I normally see this stuff being pushed from IT in opposition to management as IT people have a tendency to want to "control" things, it's part of the culture. Good management would know instantly that this is horrible info and goes against even the most entry level management training. This calls only into the "really clueless untrained or megalomaniac" management category outside of specific issues (some places have to for regulations.)
If management wants this info, IT should be training them as to how useless this data is and how there is no possible useful outcome to collecting it.
Same boat. I don't need to control everything. I would just want people to do what I ask. I understand that some people work differently than others and I prefer that people use their time wisely. The product of the employee is what should be quantified. Are they getting their work done? Do they ask for more or to help others instead of just sitting there?
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@marcinozga said:
Employees are paid to do their jobs, not to browse the web.
And so you fire them if they don't do their jobs, not if they browse the web. The statement you made here in no way supports the firing of them or provide any reason to monitor.
The mistake is that instead of thinking that they are paid to do their jobs, we start to think that they are paid to not browse the web. We start to not care if they work, as long as they don't browse the web. That's totally crazy. Who cares if Netflix runs in the background, all you care about is if they get their job done.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@marcinozga said:
We've had on average one person a year fired because of their browsing habits. One person was even watching Netflix 8 hours a day, surprisingly that person still works here.
That's horrible, why would you fire perfectly good employees that are being productive because of perceived browsing habits? Those managers should be fired, that's as clueless as you can get. If those people are doing a good job and earning their keep, firing them because of a metric that has nothing to do with their ability to do their job or their productivity would be tantamount to intentional sabotage - and should trigger an investigation over discrimination.
This is where I have a hard time agreeing with you. If the employee has time to watch 8 hours of Netflix and accomplish their work, then they obviously have more time to be doing work I'm paying them for. Now that said, It's up to management to recognize that and rectify the situation to their own satisfaction, but at the same time, should the employee be wasting time on Netflix? This is a hard one, my brain hurts.
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@wrx7m said:
Same boat. I don't need to control everything. I would just want people to do what I ask. I understand that some people work differently than others and I prefer that people use their time wisely. The product of the employee is what should be quantified. Are they getting their work done? Do they ask for more or to help others instead of just sitting there?
Right... so no need for this data in your case. Having those metrics would just tempt someone to use them foolishly. No positive way to use that info, no way to even know what it means.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@marcinozga said:
We've had on average one person a year fired because of their browsing habits. One person was even watching Netflix 8 hours a day, surprisingly that person still works here.
That's horrible, why would you fire perfectly good employees that are being productive because of perceived browsing habits? Those managers should be fired, that's as clueless as you can get. If those people are doing a good job and earning their keep, firing them because of a metric that has nothing to do with their ability to do their job or their productivity would be tantamount to intentional sabotage - and should trigger an investigation over discrimination.
Because they weren't productive. Management was spot on every time, employees in question were spending too much time browsing stuff unrelated to their work. 8 hours a day on Facebook instead of finishing your engineering project usually leads to termination.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@marcinozga said:
We've had on average one person a year fired because of their browsing habits. One person was even watching Netflix 8 hours a day, surprisingly that person still works here.
That's horrible, why would you fire perfectly good employees that are being productive because of perceived browsing habits? Those managers should be fired, that's as clueless as you can get. If those people are doing a good job and earning their keep, firing them because of a metric that has nothing to do with their ability to do their job or their productivity would be tantamount to intentional sabotage - and should trigger an investigation over discrimination.
This is where I have a hard time agreeing with you. If the employee has time to watch 8 hours of Netflix and accomplish their work, then they obviously have more time to be doing work I'm paying them for. Now that said, It's up to management to recognize that and rectify the situation to their own satisfaction, but at the same time, should the employee be wasting time on Netflix? This is a hard one, my brain hurts.
I think the point is you can't accurately understand the situation based on their web browsing. It may very well be that the person was streaming Netflix as background noise while doing their work. If they are meeting or even exceeding expectations then their traffic shouldn't matter. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding @scottalanmiller
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@Dashrender said:
This is where I have a hard time agreeing with you. If the employee has time to watch 8 hours of Netflix and accomplish their work, then they obviously have more time to be doing work I'm paying them for.
And... who cares? You pay them to do X work, they do it. What if they did less work if they didn't watch Netflix? Will you pay them less or promote them less because you dislike how they do their work? Will you pay them less for doing the same work as someone else? Are you saying that people should be paid less if they are naturally more productive than someone else (e.g. the more capable you are, the less you should be compensated for doing the same work as other people?)
I think this is all nuts. Pay people equally and pay them based on their performance and nothing but their performance. Anything else is crazy, vindictive and hurts both innocent people and the businesses we are paid to support.
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@scottalanmiller I agree but I am not the management I speak of. I work for a family-owned SMB and have to qualify every piece of info that I am asked to provide with, there isn't a hard and fast rule. For example, the browser tab may be open but not necessarily in use the whole day.
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@marcinozga said:
Because they weren't productive. Management was spot on every time, employees in question were spending too much time browsing stuff unrelated to their work. 8 hours a day on Facebook instead of finishing your engineering project usually leads to termination.
Then fire them because they weren't productive. This suggests that if they played video games on their phone rather than being on Facebook that management would have kept them around. That's crazy.
Bottom line, I've been doing this for nearly thirty years, I've never heard any excuse for why collecting this data is anything but harmful to the company. Everyone things that they have a reason, but it always comes down to "they didn't do their job" and if we can't tell if they are doing their job anyway, maybe we didn't need that job filled at all!
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@Dashrender said:
Now that said, It's up to management to recognize that and rectify the situation to their own satisfaction, but at the same time, should the employee be wasting time on Netflix? This is a hard one, my brain hurts.
Absolutely.... if they are able to do their job satisfactorily and up to the standards of other people stopping them from watching Netflix is nothing but mean and spiteful. Why do we care at all what they do as long as they get their job done? I don't care if they browse porn, drink vodka, eat nothing but cake and lard and dance naked in their offices - the results are the only thing that matters to the business. If the end results are good, they are good employees. If the end results are not good, they are not good employees. Anything in between is of no concern to the business unless their goal is something other than being a profitable business.
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@marcinozga said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@marcinozga said:
We've had on average one person a year fired because of their browsing habits. One person was even watching Netflix 8 hours a day, surprisingly that person still works here.
That's horrible, why would you fire perfectly good employees that are being productive because of perceived browsing habits? Those managers should be fired, that's as clueless as you can get. If those people are doing a good job and earning their keep, firing them because of a metric that has nothing to do with their ability to do their job or their productivity would be tantamount to intentional sabotage - and should trigger an investigation over discrimination.
Because they weren't productive. Management was spot on every time, employees in question were spending too much time browsing stuff unrelated to their work. 8 hours a day on Facebook instead of finishing your engineering project usually leads to termination.
But you're firing them because of lack of work, not because they were surfing the web.
I guess the hard part is - how do you set real workable metrics on work to ensure people are working but not having unrealistic expectations.
These are of course management is paid to do.
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@wirestyle22 said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@marcinozga said:
We've had on average one person a year fired because of their browsing habits. One person was even watching Netflix 8 hours a day, surprisingly that person still works here.
That's horrible, why would you fire perfectly good employees that are being productive because of perceived browsing habits? Those managers should be fired, that's as clueless as you can get. If those people are doing a good job and earning their keep, firing them because of a metric that has nothing to do with their ability to do their job or their productivity would be tantamount to intentional sabotage - and should trigger an investigation over discrimination.
This is where I have a hard time agreeing with you. If the employee has time to watch 8 hours of Netflix and accomplish their work, then they obviously have more time to be doing work I'm paying them for. Now that said, It's up to management to recognize that and rectify the situation to their own satisfaction, but at the same time, should the employee be wasting time on Netflix? This is a hard one, my brain hurts.
I think the point is you can't accurately understand the situation based on their web browsing. It may very well be that the person was streaming Netflix as background noise while doing their work. If they are meeting or even exceeding expectations then their traffic shouldn't matter. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding @scottalanmiller
Exactly. You have no way to know that they were actually watching Netflix. You have no way to know if watching Netflix makes them less productive, maybe it makes them more productive (it would cripple me, most people are about break even and some need it.)
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@scottalanmiller Also, I am one of the people who does tons of work at all hours of the day and night but sometimes I do have things going on during office hours that aren't necessarily work-related but I get my work done and am constantly coming up with ways to improve and learn (i.e. posting on IT forums). Fortunately, my boss (who does not have any technical background) is very easy to work for in most cases because he lets me do things the way I want.
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@Dashrender said:
@marcinozga said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@marcinozga said:
We've had on average one person a year fired because of their browsing habits. One person was even watching Netflix 8 hours a day, surprisingly that person still works here.
That's horrible, why would you fire perfectly good employees that are being productive because of perceived browsing habits? Those managers should be fired, that's as clueless as you can get. If those people are doing a good job and earning their keep, firing them because of a metric that has nothing to do with their ability to do their job or their productivity would be tantamount to intentional sabotage - and should trigger an investigation over discrimination.
Because they weren't productive. Management was spot on every time, employees in question were spending too much time browsing stuff unrelated to their work. 8 hours a day on Facebook instead of finishing your engineering project usually leads to termination.
But you're firing them because of lack of work, not because they were surfing the web.
I guess the hard part is - how do you set real workable metrics on work to ensure people are working but not having unrealistic expectations.
These are of course management is paid to do.
They weren't productive because they browsed the web. We cut the internet from one person once, that person was able to finish all work on time when internet access was removed.
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@Dashrender said:
I guess the hard part is - how do you set real workable metrics on work to ensure people are working but not having unrealistic expectations.
Well, you have two core means that most places use...
- Other people as a baseline. If people are below average, they need to stay close to the baseline. If they are above the baseline, who cares why or if they do it in one hour instead of in ten. Be happy that you have a good performer because it means that they could demand WAY more money from you if they wanted to.
- Negotiate for a rate of work. This is how most places work. You want X output, they want Y money. You meet at a rate of each that makes each other happy.
When I worked for the big bank, they could not afford my seven figure rate, so in exchange I was on call all the time and only worked fifteen hours a week. I was paid at their cap. I could drink (and did) and go home and watch movies and whatever. They got an employee that they couldn't afford otherwise and I got a schedule that worked for me. Firing me would have made no sense, at fifteen hours a week I pulled the weight of several full time people.
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@marcinozga said:
They weren't productive because they browsed the web.
That's opinion and is neither here nor there. If they can't do their jobs, get rid of them.
I've had management tell me things like this and force me to change and have my productivity drop even when I struggled harder. People all work differently, stuff like this is in no one's interest. People need to be given the flexibility to figure out how they work and management needs to reward good performers and not reward bad ones and fire really bad ones. It's that simple. Anything else and you are missing the goals of each party.
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@marcinozga said:
We cut the internet from one person once, that person was able to finish all work on time when internet access was removed.
ANd they wanted to keep someone that they had to babysit to that level to maintain usefulness?
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@marcinozga said:
@Dashrender said:
@marcinozga said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@marcinozga said:
We've had on average one person a year fired because of their browsing habits. One person was even watching Netflix 8 hours a day, surprisingly that person still works here.
That's horrible, why would you fire perfectly good employees that are being productive because of perceived browsing habits? Those managers should be fired, that's as clueless as you can get. If those people are doing a good job and earning their keep, firing them because of a metric that has nothing to do with their ability to do their job or their productivity would be tantamount to intentional sabotage - and should trigger an investigation over discrimination.
Because they weren't productive. Management was spot on every time, employees in question were spending too much time browsing stuff unrelated to their work. 8 hours a day on Facebook instead of finishing your engineering project usually leads to termination.
But you're firing them because of lack of work, not because they were surfing the web.
I guess the hard part is - how do you set real workable metrics on work to ensure people are working but not having unrealistic expectations.
These are of course management is paid to do.
They weren't productive because they browsed the web. We cut the internet from one person once, that person was able to finish all work on time when internet access was removed.
I think you're missing his point though. He's saying you have only a few possibilities with users browsing the web:
- They are browsing the web and they are productive. In which case their browsing doesn't matter.
- They are browsing the web and they are not productive. They will be fired for not being productive not for browsing habits, even if the browsing habits are what caused them to miss deadlines etc.
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@wrx7m said:
@scottalanmiller Also, I am one of the people who does tons of work at all hours of the day and night but sometimes I do have things going on during office hours that aren't necessarily work-related but I get my work done and am constantly coming up with ways to improve and learn (i.e. posting on IT forums). Fortunately, my boss (who does not have any technical background) is very easy to work for in most cases because he lets me do things the way I want.
Right, so you can appreciate how having those metrics out there could be very, very damaging as someone might claim that you don't do any work based on them.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I guess the hard part is - how do you set real workable metrics on work to ensure people are working but not having unrealistic expectations.
Well, you have two core means that most places use...
- Other people as a baseline. If people are below average, they need to stay close to the baseline. If they are above the baseline, who cares why or if they do it in one hour instead of in ten. Be happy that you have a good performer because it means that they could demand WAY more money from you if they wanted to.
- Negotiate for a rate of work. This is how most places work. You want X output, they want Y money. You meet at a rate of each that makes each other happy.
When I worked for the big bank, they could not afford my seven figure rate, so in exchange I was on call all the time and only worked fifteen hours a week. I was paid at their cap. I could drink (and did) and go home and watch movies and whatever. They got an employee that they couldn't afford otherwise and I got a schedule that worked for me. Firing me would have made no sense, at fifteen hours a week I pulled the weight of several full time people.
You, sir, have arrived.
