Webfiltering - what do you use - assuming you do.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
As for phones, currently it's expected that people will use their phones for this, because it's off our network, not using our resources, except for power, we let then charge devices at the office.
The other thing worth mentioning here is that if this is the case, the point should have been to reduce network utilization rather than "people have been fooling around on". This makes more sense if the network is struggling. With only the rarest exception, I would suggest that if this is FB (rather than say YouTube or Netflix) causing this issue, this means that your network isn't up to snuff and people are already unable to work efficiently because the network is too slow and the better solution is to improve the network to where things like Facebook are pointlessly marginal in the performance of it and people are able to all things (fool around as well as work) at high efficiency. This way you solve several problems rather than potentially creating them. And address the actual issue rather than an artefact of the issue.
Right again, FB traffic does not affect our network performance. Sure we don't currently have a blazing fast internet, but it's usable for us.
I am going to be upgrading some equipment this year, Gig to the desktop, larger internet pipe, but as you mentioned, the real issue is work not getting done, or not done right.
-
@Dashrender said:
Right again, FB traffic does not affect our network performance. Sure we don't currently have a blazing fast internet, but it's usable for us.
Facebook itself, no, it's not a bandwidth hog. But all the things branching out from Facebook, streams of videos, scams, and security risks. I used to block MySpace because of that when I had a limited bandwidth situation. Until I got my Peplink and shuffled non-critical traffic over the cheapest pipe I could find. Yeah, enjoy productivity now when pages load using a 1.5Mbps DSL line for everyone in the office.
-
When I worked for a place that used Websense to ban Facebook and other communications channels, what happened was a culture of going outside and standing in the courtyard. Because they blocked (and/or tapped) cell phone signals too. So to get a good signal you had to be outside. So everyone was. Everyone had meetings outside, spent every free moment outside, took breaks outside, lingered outside, picked backrooms by the outside doors, etc. It kept everyone away from their desks for huge portions of the day. The impact to productivity was insane.
-
This reminds me of workarounds like portable apps also. I didn't have admin access to the computer at the one place I worked, and I was there till 11 at night and really had no work to do past about 8. So I just used portable apps on a flash drive so I could do my business stuff and also play games.
-
Also brings up another question, why do places hire many lazy people vs few who work hard. In reference to the job offer I was recently given, I know based on what I was offered that the other "Systems Admins" make over $50K a year. I strongly believe based on what I've seen and heard that I could replace both of them and do the work myself. If the company is willing to spend upwards of $250K (including taxes, insurance, etc) for 3 people to do this work when 1 could do it by themselves, why would they even second guess giving me or someone else who can do it $150K a year to manage it? They wouldn't dream of paying one person that much, but do think it's ok to pay 3 not good employees that much?
-
@johnhooks said:
Also brings up another question, why do places hire many lazy people vs few who work hard. In reference to the job offer I was recently given, I know based on what I was offered that the other "Systems Admins" make over $50K a year. I strongly believe based on what I've seen and heard that I could replace both of them and do the work myself. If the company is willing to spend upwards of $250K (including taxes, insurance, etc) for 3 people to do this work when 1 could do it by themselves, why would they even second guess giving me or someone else who can do it $150K a year to manage it? They wouldn't dream of paying one person that much, but do think it's ok to pay 3 not good employees that much?
How dare you be so logical!
-
@JaredBusch said:
@johnhooks said:
Also brings up another question, why do places hire many lazy people vs few who work hard. In reference to the job offer I was recently given, I know based on what I was offered that the other "Systems Admins" make over $50K a year. I strongly believe based on what I've seen and heard that I could replace both of them and do the work myself. If the company is willing to spend upwards of $250K (including taxes, insurance, etc) for 3 people to do this work when 1 could do it by themselves, why would they even second guess giving me or someone else who can do it $150K a year to manage it? They wouldn't dream of paying one person that much, but do think it's ok to pay 3 not good employees that much?
How dare you be so logical!
Hahaha, I apologize. I'll try to tone it down from now on.
-
@johnhooks said:
This reminds me of workarounds like portable apps also. I didn't have admin access to the computer at the one place I worked, and I was there till 11 at night and really had no work to do past about 8. So I just used portable apps on a flash drive so I could do my business stuff and also play games.
Similarly when I worked for a large bank they blocked a ton by technology but not by policy. They wanted IT to solve problems without HR being involved. So, since working around the technology wasn't against policy, everyone implemented SSL VPNs (the agentless kind) and threw remote desktops from home back to themselves at the office. It was slow, bandwidth heavy and super inefficient and gave us all access to drastically more than if we had just read our email or whatever. It was the path of least resistance.
-
@johnhooks said:
Also brings up another question, why do places hire many lazy people vs few who work hard. In reference to the job offer I was recently given, I know based on what I was offered that the other "Systems Admins" make over $50K a year. I strongly believe based on what I've seen and heard that I could replace both of them and do the work myself. If the company is willing to spend upwards of $250K (including taxes, insurance, etc) for 3 people to do this work when 1 could do it by themselves, why would they even second guess giving me or someone else who can do it $150K a year to manage it? They wouldn't dream of paying one person that much, but do think it's ok to pay 3 not good employees that much?
My anecdote on this: I use this one a lot. I used to manage a BK in the mall (sad but true.) At one point we employed nearly forty people (not all full time.) At one point we figured out that the fastest, best staffing combination (that is the fastest times to make food, cleanest store, best food quality, happiest customers... it won all metrics that we had) was Chris in the kitchen, Leanne and Darryn (not sure that name is right) on the cash register with Darryn grabbing the kitchen when needed, and Mark doing the back stuff (cleaning dishes, opening boxes, freezer duty ... all the stuff that isn't the kitchen and cash register) and me managing but acting like a team member, not a manager so filling in wherever someone directed me and only stepping into a manager role for necessary functions like customer complaints, locking up, doing the paperwork, etc.
We figured out that all they had to do was be willing to pay us overtime and we could drop 35 people from our employment, run the store faster, safer, with the least food waste and the happiest customers while keeping the existing staff happy with good, guaranteed hours (the mall aspect limited the open hours so this wasn't as crazy as it sounded.) We would have reduced the cost to run labor by something like 70% while increasing quality and lowering other operational costs (insurance, food waste, etc.)
They refused to let us even try it. The results? Everyone took higher paying jobs elsewhere, none of us made more the $1/hr over other staff, most not even that. We would have been happy with more hours and knowing we only worked with each other (we were a happy team.) Instead of saving 70% and having the best team around, they were so determined to managed regionally based on outside factors that they lost the good staff and had to staff up, rather than down, running more than ten people per shift and delivering lower quality. The store dropped from the top performer in the region to closing up and going under.
Why? Who knows. One thing that I know came up several times (but how do you reprimand the top performers) was they hated that I was a working manager (I was a lead really, just a senior flex position, none of them needed to be managed) and not a thinking manager. But when you have no managing to do, what else can you do to be useful than to reduce the need to hire other people? It's not like by "thinking" better we would grow and get a bigger store with more staff to manage, doesn't work that way. But they couldn't stand it because other managers, especially the regional, wanted managers to stay locked in the office, never get dirty and never mix with the "staff".
-
Which is extra silly when you consider that me as a manager made $.75/hr more than my cashier. It's not like we were in different tax brackets.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
was they hated that I was a working manager (I was a lead really, just a senior flex position, none of them needed to be managed) and not a thinking manager
Except you were a thinking manager, because you thought of a better and more reliable way to do it?
-
@johnhooks said:
Except you were a thinking manager, because you thought of a better and more reliable way to do it?
I thought... hey, I'm useless if I'm not working... lol.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@johnhooks said:
Except you were a thinking manager, because you thought of a better and more reliable way to do it?
I thought... hey, I'm useless if I'm not working... lol.
It seems to big an issue with fast food and retail. They don't hire people who don't have "retail" or "food service" experience, but the people that do are usually not very reliable. Plus, like it's that hard to be able to do those tasks....
-
@johnhooks said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@johnhooks said:
Except you were a thinking manager, because you thought of a better and more reliable way to do it?
I thought... hey, I'm useless if I'm not working... lol.
It seems to big an issue with fast food and retail. They don't hire people who don't have "retail" or "food service" experience, but the people that do are usually not very reliable. Plus, like it's that hard to be able to do those tasks....
BK was good about that. Fourteen and fifteen year olds with zero experience were hired regularly. I was the one and only person that they hired with experience and I had a year of Pizza Hut crew chief, they promoted me from "part time cashier" to "regional bulldog manager" at the end of my first day. Regional Bulldog is an impressive title for "regional manager's circuit bitch". I was the shift manager sent to failing stores to turn them around as a final effort before being shut down. If I showed up in your store, the end was near. The regional manager used me to be their arm to try to turn stores around. Which made me never a popular person to be showing up.
-
OMG - we have a 100 Mb connection - Barracuda wants $16K for a 100-200 Mb webfiler. with $6400 yearly renewable maintenance/support/updates. Can we say highway robbery!
The 50-100 Mb connection level is a mere $6K, with a renewal yearly at $2K. DAMN!
-
@Dashrender said:
OMG - we have a 100 Mb connection - Barracuda wants $16K for a 100-200 Mb webfiler. with $6400 yearly renewable maintenance/support/updates. Can we say highway robbery!
Bahahahaha, who the crap would pay that?
-
@Dashrender said:
OMG - we have a 100 Mb connection - Barracuda wants $16K for a 100-200 Mb webfiler.
"Webfilter". We like to call it an "access node".
-
OK I was given another reason why they didn't want Facebook, at least on our office computers.
you know.. the reasoning seems so off the wall, I just can't even write it.
lol -
@johnhooks said:
Bahahahaha, who the crap would pay that?
I wonder how many companies actually look to see if tools like this can save money. That is a lot of productivity that they have to improve to justify cost like that. Sure they often lower risk (not backdoored ones, but in general) so there is savings there as well, but cost of acquisition, configuring the environment to use it, cost of lost access to needed resources (they always block something that you need), cost to run and power, labour, etc. It adds up. You have to pretty much generate the value of one or two whole new employees from that thing to justify buying one!
-
That's basically $50K over a five year contract. And the chances that it will be fast enough to use five years from now will be maybe 50%. Plus whatever it cost to power, maintain, etc. That adds up quickly.
