{"id":8875,"date":"2020-05-18T11:40:04","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T15:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=8875"},"modified":"2020-05-18T11:40:04","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T15:40:04","slug":"work-from-home-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=8875","title":{"rendered":"Work From Home Surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking of the downsides of working from home<\/a>, NPR<\/a> and CNBC<\/a> have horrifying stories about the anal micromanagers requiring workers to install spyware on their computer and even their phones so they can track their every movement, keystroke, and mouse click. Employees are not amused. At all. The NPR story says that one employee went on unpaid leave rather than load the malware on her computer and is now spending her time looking for another job.<\/p>\n

The sociopaths doing this doubtlessly consider themselves effective managers but all they\u2019re doing is destroying moral and engendering cynicism. The end result is perfectly predictable: the good people will leave as soon as they can and the losers will stay but, hey, at least we know they\u2019re not on Facebook or taking overly long bathroom breaks. Apparently these managers have never heard of ROWE<\/a> and the concept of trusting your employees to get those results.<\/p>\n

Austen Allred has a tweet the succinctly captures the madness of this approach to management:<\/p>\n

\n

If you don\u2019t
\nknow if people are working or not without seeing them sitting in an
\noffice your remote work policy is the least of your
\nproblems<\/p>\n

\u2014 Austen Allred (@Austen) May
\n14, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n