So how's that work from home working out for you at home?
May 6, 2020 8:30 AM Subscribe
Managers turn to surveillance software, always-on webcams to ensure employees are (really) working from home, Washington Post, Drew Harwell, 4/30/2020 — Always-on webcams, virtual “water coolers,” constant monitoring: Is the tech industry’s new dream for remote work actually a nightmare? With nearly half of office employees working from home to avoid COVID-19 exposure, management tracks their work using: digital avatars in virtual offices; always-on webcams/microphones; productivity stats; monitored web browsing and active work hours; multiple daily check-ins (via email, calls, text messages and Zoom video calls); not-so-optional company happy hours, game nights and lunchtime chats; hidden screen captures; logging of apps used and websites visited; key word flagging; keyboard/mouse usage; unscheduled video conferences; and endless online meetings, meetings, meetings.
Thankfully my work laptop camera has been broken for the last year or so, so it allows me an excuse to avoid face to face office-work-calls.
But none of this is surprising and it's gross. The one thing that I always want to say to the higher up individuals who make this decision, "How come my work requires this, but yours doesn't?". They'll usually reply with some bullshit corporate speak but it's still something I like to turn around to watch people stumble and go quiet on.
Patriarchy and capitalism, there's nothing they cannot ruin.
posted by Fizz at 8:44 AM on May 6, 2020 [49 favorites]
But none of this is surprising and it's gross. The one thing that I always want to say to the higher up individuals who make this decision, "How come my work requires this, but yours doesn't?". They'll usually reply with some bullshit corporate speak but it's still something I like to turn around to watch people stumble and go quiet on.
Patriarchy and capitalism, there's nothing they cannot ruin.
posted by Fizz at 8:44 AM on May 6, 2020 [49 favorites]
My laptop's webcam has a square of gaffer's tape over it at all times other than when I'm using it.
posted by octothorpe at 8:45 AM on May 6, 2020 [24 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 8:45 AM on May 6, 2020 [24 favorites]
Because heaven forfend that managers treat their employees like professionals.
posted by tclark at 8:45 AM on May 6, 2020 [12 favorites]
posted by tclark at 8:45 AM on May 6, 2020 [12 favorites]
In 1930, Keynes predicted we would be working 15-hour weeks. Why was he so wrong? (NPR, 2015)
NPR reached out to John Maynard Keynes' grandkids, to see how his essay titled "Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren" played out for his actual grandchildren.
Dear managers: cut this shit out. Stop micro-managing because you can, and instead focus on productivity. And guess what, a New Zealand trial of 4 day weeks finds lower stress and increased productivity (Guardian). And this isn't four 10 hour days, it's one less working day a week.
I'm fortunate that my work-from-home requirements are a once-a-day check-in, and the rest is "do the best you can." There was even an agency-wide directive to not micromanage staff! Luckily, I wasn't receiving or delivering that level of attempted staff control, but it was still great to see for others who were suffering under that nonsense.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:47 AM on May 6, 2020 [23 favorites]
NPR reached out to John Maynard Keynes' grandkids, to see how his essay titled "Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren" played out for his actual grandchildren.
John Maynard Keynes's argument for the 15-hour work week was that over time, thanks to machines and technology and new ideas, people get more productive. An hour of labor produces more and more stuff. Keynes figured we'd just decide to work less. In some countries, the number of hours worked has dropped some. But take the United States. In 1950, people here worked, on average, about 38 hours a week. Today, six decades later, we work 34 hours a week - a bit less but not much. Richard Freeman, a Harvard economist, says one of the things Keynes underestimated was the human desire to compete.And the human desire to punish other humans.
Dear managers: cut this shit out. Stop micro-managing because you can, and instead focus on productivity. And guess what, a New Zealand trial of 4 day weeks finds lower stress and increased productivity (Guardian). And this isn't four 10 hour days, it's one less working day a week.
I'm fortunate that my work-from-home requirements are a once-a-day check-in, and the rest is "do the best you can." There was even an agency-wide directive to not micromanage staff! Luckily, I wasn't receiving or delivering that level of attempted staff control, but it was still great to see for others who were suffering under that nonsense.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:47 AM on May 6, 2020 [23 favorites]
My work has been doing mandatory, camera-on videoconference "socials" every Friday -- scheduled at 4pm just to twist the knife. I hate them so much and finally told my manager I'm not going to attend anymore. People seem to think that because we're working from home, they're free to push on the boundaries between work life and private life in a way that is super uncomfortable for me and it has definitely been adding to my COVID stress in isolation.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 8:50 AM on May 6, 2020 [58 favorites]
posted by sevenyearlurk at 8:50 AM on May 6, 2020 [58 favorites]
“It’s silly to say, ‘I just trust them all,’ and close my eyes and hope for the best,” he said. Some workers have grimaced at the surveillance, he added, but most should have nothing to hide: “If you’re uncomfortable with me confirming the obvious [about your work], what does that say about your motives?”
Actually, not being able to provide your employees with the least amount of autonomy marks you as a shitty (and ineffective; how much work are YOU getting done if you are spying on your team constantly?) manager.
Hire good people; review their work; correct errors. That is your job as manager (along with putting out fires, managing interpersonal issues, and administrative tasks).
People also respond positively to trust and productivity goes up (as well as problem-solving ability).
Mistrust means people do the minimum, stop caring about their job except as revenue generation, and leave as soon as they can. They certainly won't take initiative, why bother? Clearly their boss/company sees them as ungrateful jerks just itching to slack off and steal.
How you treat your employees affects how they perform. This is not rocket science.
posted by emjaybee at 8:51 AM on May 6, 2020 [95 favorites]
Actually, not being able to provide your employees with the least amount of autonomy marks you as a shitty (and ineffective; how much work are YOU getting done if you are spying on your team constantly?) manager.
Hire good people; review their work; correct errors. That is your job as manager (along with putting out fires, managing interpersonal issues, and administrative tasks).
People also respond positively to trust and productivity goes up (as well as problem-solving ability).
Mistrust means people do the minimum, stop caring about their job except as revenue generation, and leave as soon as they can. They certainly won't take initiative, why bother? Clearly their boss/company sees them as ungrateful jerks just itching to slack off and steal.
How you treat your employees affects how they perform. This is not rocket science.
posted by emjaybee at 8:51 AM on May 6, 2020 [95 favorites]
Because heaven forfend that managers treat their employees like professionals people.
There, fixed.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:52 AM on May 6, 2020 [30 favorites]
There, fixed.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:52 AM on May 6, 2020 [30 favorites]
Hire good people; review their work; correct errors.
This is the "eat food, not too much, mostly plants" of modern management.
posted by chavenet at 9:08 AM on May 6, 2020 [87 favorites]
This is the "eat food, not too much, mostly plants" of modern management.
posted by chavenet at 9:08 AM on May 6, 2020 [87 favorites]
I think a lot of managers don't know how to manage. When you're in an office, they can perform all sorts of work theater. When they're not, they have to find substitutes to prove they're doing something.
I've been working from home off and on for the past ~3 years. I did have one boss who could not deal with managing a mostly-remote team (although he knew about this when he was hired) that he started pushing for more and more monitoring of us. We were generally on a Google Hangout anyway, and he insisted on being a part of it (fortunately, no cameras & we could all be on mute until something came up). However, he'd constantly butt into discussions that didn't involve him, ask pointless questions and even question why we were asking each other certain questions or why we were doing certain things (we're web developers -- that's part of our troubleshooting process!). The consequence of this is that ... we all just stopped discussing anything because he was around. And so we got less done.
My management now expects us to do things and just lets us do them. We do have 3 check-ins a week (two are for my immediate team, one is for everyone) and we send daily reports (but we were doing that before all of this). If things aren't getting done, it becomes apparent they're not getting done. No one needs to watch us every second to make sure we're doing them.
(I also have a lot of periods at my job where there's not that much to do. Fortunately, my management understands that I do good work when I have it and I do it efficiently. So downtime is OK.)
posted by darksong at 9:10 AM on May 6, 2020 [15 favorites]
I've been working from home off and on for the past ~3 years. I did have one boss who could not deal with managing a mostly-remote team (although he knew about this when he was hired) that he started pushing for more and more monitoring of us. We were generally on a Google Hangout anyway, and he insisted on being a part of it (fortunately, no cameras & we could all be on mute until something came up). However, he'd constantly butt into discussions that didn't involve him, ask pointless questions and even question why we were asking each other certain questions or why we were doing certain things (we're web developers -- that's part of our troubleshooting process!). The consequence of this is that ... we all just stopped discussing anything because he was around. And so we got less done.
My management now expects us to do things and just lets us do them. We do have 3 check-ins a week (two are for my immediate team, one is for everyone) and we send daily reports (but we were doing that before all of this). If things aren't getting done, it becomes apparent they're not getting done. No one needs to watch us every second to make sure we're doing them.
(I also have a lot of periods at my job where there's not that much to do. Fortunately, my management understands that I do good work when I have it and I do it efficiently. So downtime is OK.)
posted by darksong at 9:10 AM on May 6, 2020 [15 favorites]
On the bright side, it looks like we found an appropriate place to use “the cure is worse than the disease.”
posted by snofoam at 9:11 AM on May 6, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 9:11 AM on May 6, 2020 [5 favorites]
I think a lot of managers don't know how to manage.
Sure. Think how many managerial positions there are, then consider how many people are any good at all at managing.
posted by thelonius at 9:13 AM on May 6, 2020 [8 favorites]
Sure. Think how many managerial positions there are, then consider how many people are any good at all at managing.
posted by thelonius at 9:13 AM on May 6, 2020 [8 favorites]
Not-so-optional happy hours? Game nights? Lunchtime chats? WTF?! Anyone have a link to the actual article?
posted by drivingmenuts at 9:14 AM on May 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by drivingmenuts at 9:14 AM on May 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
Yeah I have daily "check-ins" with my manager and it is superfluous as fuck considering my projects are ongoing. So basically everyday it's "Well I am still working on x" and I am pressed for more details about what I did. It definitely borders on micro-managing in a way I am not fond of. We're supposed to be getting webcams, but for what I don't know. If I am asked to keep them on I will review this ask with HR and then get another job. I'm depressed and I don't feel like keeping my apartment or myself 100% presentable for people to look at right now. It's just gross.
posted by Young Kullervo at 9:15 AM on May 6, 2020 [13 favorites]
posted by Young Kullervo at 9:15 AM on May 6, 2020 [13 favorites]
Not-so-optional happy hours? Game nights? Lunchtime chats? WTF?! Anyone have a link to the actual article?
I have mandatory team meets twice a month. One during which we watched a movie that was completely inappropriate for work. I don't understand what is wrong with the American worplace.
posted by Young Kullervo at 9:16 AM on May 6, 2020 [10 favorites]
I have mandatory team meets twice a month. One during which we watched a movie that was completely inappropriate for work. I don't understand what is wrong with the American worplace.
posted by Young Kullervo at 9:16 AM on May 6, 2020 [10 favorites]
HR/Payroll was a tsunami of furloughs/payouts/documentation, and four weeks of beachcombing to make sure we didn't miss anybody. We're setting up now to do it all in reverse.
Nobody pesters me because they know I will put them to work!
posted by halfbuckaroo at 9:16 AM on May 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Nobody pesters me because they know I will put them to work!
posted by halfbuckaroo at 9:16 AM on May 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
If you are beginning to nitpick at how many minutes per day your employees are spending working, you have officially run out of shit to do as a manager and maybe it's time for a review of how you're using your time.
posted by windbox at 9:23 AM on May 6, 2020 [59 favorites]
posted by windbox at 9:23 AM on May 6, 2020 [59 favorites]
(The boss mentioned above also once made my entire team come into the office so we could have a meeting with a customer ... over Skype. The customer was not that far away and we could've gone to them or they could've come to us and we could have had it in person. But no, we just had it over Skype anyway. Which we could have done from our homes.)
posted by darksong at 9:23 AM on May 6, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by darksong at 9:23 AM on May 6, 2020 [6 favorites]
I think a lot of managers don't know how to manage. When you're in an office, they can perform all sorts of work theater. When they're not, they have to find substitutes to prove they're doing something.
Bing - fuckin' - o
One of the things I do professionally is to help organisations move to flexible and remote working (yes, business is great right now) and the hardest thing is always the cultural and performance management aspects. Many/most managers have never had any training in - nor done any serious thinking about - management. They're like newborns with no object permanence, when things are not in their field of view, they don't exist. When you ask them to evaluate their staff, they give vague answers not backed up by evidence or linked to specific objectives.
It's not that hard. Assign people tasks, check that they have completed them correctly, give feedback. I don't care how much time my team spends wanking, watching prestige television, or reading during the day as long as they deliver me the stuff I've asked for when I've asked for it. I'm genuinely curious what kind of jobs even exist that can be done remotely but are not amenable to an output based way of working. Seriously, name one!
This kind of stuff makes me want to start putting people against the wall.
posted by atrazine at 9:24 AM on May 6, 2020 [82 favorites]
Bing - fuckin' - o
One of the things I do professionally is to help organisations move to flexible and remote working (yes, business is great right now) and the hardest thing is always the cultural and performance management aspects. Many/most managers have never had any training in - nor done any serious thinking about - management. They're like newborns with no object permanence, when things are not in their field of view, they don't exist. When you ask them to evaluate their staff, they give vague answers not backed up by evidence or linked to specific objectives.
It's not that hard. Assign people tasks, check that they have completed them correctly, give feedback. I don't care how much time my team spends wanking, watching prestige television, or reading during the day as long as they deliver me the stuff I've asked for when I've asked for it. I'm genuinely curious what kind of jobs even exist that can be done remotely but are not amenable to an output based way of working. Seriously, name one!
This kind of stuff makes me want to start putting people against the wall.
posted by atrazine at 9:24 AM on May 6, 2020 [82 favorites]
This kind of panopticon has existed in call centers for decades. It's just worrisome now that it's applied to the professional class, but somehow it was fine before.
(I've worked next to call centers for a long time, and it really is a completely different set of rules, governed entirely by an iron fist. How this results in happier customers is a mystery to me.)
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:24 AM on May 6, 2020 [29 favorites]
(I've worked next to call centers for a long time, and it really is a completely different set of rules, governed entirely by an iron fist. How this results in happier customers is a mystery to me.)
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:24 AM on May 6, 2020 [29 favorites]
I've worked in a fully-remote position for the past 5 years, so this is the first time I've felt like I have a leg-up on people. My company doesn't do any of this stuff and I am so much more productive at home. My boss openly talks about throwing a load of laundry in in between meetings. Stuff like that.
Many of these problems stem from management that never wanted to let people work from home, which IMO stems from an outdated notion that people aren't going to work unless you can see them working. I doubt that companies that are putting these sorts of things into practice now that their staff are working from home were paragons of good management before the pandemic.
posted by Automocar at 9:29 AM on May 6, 2020 [27 favorites]
Many of these problems stem from management that never wanted to let people work from home, which IMO stems from an outdated notion that people aren't going to work unless you can see them working. I doubt that companies that are putting these sorts of things into practice now that their staff are working from home were paragons of good management before the pandemic.
posted by Automocar at 9:29 AM on May 6, 2020 [27 favorites]
There isn’t much of this at my work at all - the managers I work with are all too busy with actual work that they specifically need to perform. There’s certainly some level of surveillance on my work laptop, but it doesn’t get fed back into “crack the whip” bullshit.
As people are noting in various ways, this is the management class trying to justify its existence. Also mixed in with a bit of American culture where we abuse people as sport, because sociopathic behavior is built into our overly competitive culture.
In my industry I also expect office sizes to shrink over time - we have labs that most employees need to access at least some of the time, but I’d guess the average employee will start working from home half the time, and people won’t have their own desks at the office, as we’ve seen some companies start to do over the past decade already.
posted by MillMan at 9:34 AM on May 6, 2020 [8 favorites]
As people are noting in various ways, this is the management class trying to justify its existence. Also mixed in with a bit of American culture where we abuse people as sport, because sociopathic behavior is built into our overly competitive culture.
In my industry I also expect office sizes to shrink over time - we have labs that most employees need to access at least some of the time, but I’d guess the average employee will start working from home half the time, and people won’t have their own desks at the office, as we’ve seen some companies start to do over the past decade already.
posted by MillMan at 9:34 AM on May 6, 2020 [8 favorites]
One during which we watched a movie that was completely inappropriate for work.
You gonna tell us?
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:37 AM on May 6, 2020 [12 favorites]
You gonna tell us?
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:37 AM on May 6, 2020 [12 favorites]
As someone who is actively hoping to only work remotely for the rest of my life, I just want to note that atrazine is my personal hero.
I'm very lucky now in that I only have a daily stand-up meeting, but we can be as vague or precise as we like. (And, honestly, living alone, it's nice to know that someone is going to be checking I'm okay 5 days a week.) And the rest of the time is basically mine -- I tend to work 9ish to 5ish anyway, but it's nice to be able to take a break and do laundry or make lunch or generally tend to my mental and physical health through the day. I am immensely privileged, and know it, and am already figuring out how I can look for this level of freedom in my next job. Going into a fairly high-demand career, being able to hop to a non-toxic workplace was a big driver; I have been poorly-managed (and hilariously underpaid) quite enough already.
posted by kalimac at 9:39 AM on May 6, 2020 [13 favorites]
I'm very lucky now in that I only have a daily stand-up meeting, but we can be as vague or precise as we like. (And, honestly, living alone, it's nice to know that someone is going to be checking I'm okay 5 days a week.) And the rest of the time is basically mine -- I tend to work 9ish to 5ish anyway, but it's nice to be able to take a break and do laundry or make lunch or generally tend to my mental and physical health through the day. I am immensely privileged, and know it, and am already figuring out how I can look for this level of freedom in my next job. Going into a fairly high-demand career, being able to hop to a non-toxic workplace was a big driver; I have been poorly-managed (and hilariously underpaid) quite enough already.
posted by kalimac at 9:39 AM on May 6, 2020 [13 favorites]
My roommate has been working from home for about a month now, and they have an end-of-day check-in video call with his team. I get home an hour before he clocks off, so I'm always there when he goes on these calls; he lets me know it's about to start and puts on his headphones, and then there is about ten minutes of dead silence as everyone else talks, and then he finally says something like "yeah, I'm still working on [x]" or "I finished [y] and I'm getting ready to move on [z]", and then maybe two minutes later he bids everyone goodbye as the call wraps up. It seems....a little pointless, but he's enduring it.
I'm going into the office (I joke that I live so close that I effectively am working from home), and my boss, praise be, is not this kind of micromanager. Even better - the company has started doing weekly "Zoom happy hours" for fun. I went to one - it was alright, the people I work with are all cool and lovely - but I noticed that my boss was not one of those people who attended. ….I felt a little better about skipping them from then on.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:42 AM on May 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm going into the office (I joke that I live so close that I effectively am working from home), and my boss, praise be, is not this kind of micromanager. Even better - the company has started doing weekly "Zoom happy hours" for fun. I went to one - it was alright, the people I work with are all cool and lovely - but I noticed that my boss was not one of those people who attended. ….I felt a little better about skipping them from then on.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:42 AM on May 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
which IMO stems from an outdated notion that people aren't going to work unless you can see them working
I think this is part of the unholy (pun intended) mix of capitalism and Christianity we have in America. In my Lutheran upbringing, you only have bad qualities as a human (lazy, criminal, degenerate, etc), until you accept that you are helpless without Jesus, who you then accept into your life and who then guides you. It’s a perfect mythology for authoritarianism, and in the workplace it means you need your authoritarian daddy boss to guide you at all times, because otherwise you’re obviously just going to watch porn all day.
posted by MillMan at 9:43 AM on May 6, 2020 [32 favorites]
I think this is part of the unholy (pun intended) mix of capitalism and Christianity we have in America. In my Lutheran upbringing, you only have bad qualities as a human (lazy, criminal, degenerate, etc), until you accept that you are helpless without Jesus, who you then accept into your life and who then guides you. It’s a perfect mythology for authoritarianism, and in the workplace it means you need your authoritarian daddy boss to guide you at all times, because otherwise you’re obviously just going to watch porn all day.
posted by MillMan at 9:43 AM on May 6, 2020 [32 favorites]
In 1930, Keynes predicted we would be working 15-hour weeks. Why was he so wrong?
He was only off by one word. Replace "weeks" with "days".
posted by srboisvert at 9:46 AM on May 6, 2020 [9 favorites]
He was only off by one word. Replace "weeks" with "days".
posted by srboisvert at 9:46 AM on May 6, 2020 [9 favorites]
fluttering hellfire it was Dinner for Schmucks. Pretty tame by itself but not work appropriate at all.
posted by Young Kullervo at 9:57 AM on May 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Young Kullervo at 9:57 AM on May 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
This has all been endlessly amusing for me, as I quit my last job because they were unable to countenance an additional remote worker.
...that's right, they already had like a third of the company working remotely from around the country, largely unsupervised (I mean, no daily checkin crap. They still had bosses obvs) and doing good work, but the literal President of the organization decided one more was one too many so nobody else was going to be allowed, and in fact they were starting to try reeling some of the remote folks back in.
Meanwhile, my current employer was able to switch to fully-remote with minimal to zero difficulty (in fairness, I did have some delays in getting my new company phone re-shipped from the office loading dock to my house, but seriously that's hardly a major concern for anyone.)
God if it weren't for the virus I'd almost fly back to Chicago just to rub his smug fucking face in it.
posted by aramaic at 10:31 AM on May 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
...that's right, they already had like a third of the company working remotely from around the country, largely unsupervised (I mean, no daily checkin crap. They still had bosses obvs) and doing good work, but the literal President of the organization decided one more was one too many so nobody else was going to be allowed, and in fact they were starting to try reeling some of the remote folks back in.
Meanwhile, my current employer was able to switch to fully-remote with minimal to zero difficulty (in fairness, I did have some delays in getting my new company phone re-shipped from the office loading dock to my house, but seriously that's hardly a major concern for anyone.)
God if it weren't for the virus I'd almost fly back to Chicago just to rub his smug fucking face in it.
posted by aramaic at 10:31 AM on May 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
I manage a team of five other consultants. Prior to the crisis, we did a morning email scrum (what did we do yesterday, what will we do today, any impediments), and we've stuck with that system because it works.
I set up a weekly, optional, informal phone meeting to give us an opportunity to talk about anything, just to hear each other's voices, and that system was such a success we made it twice a week. But it's optional and there's no agenda -- sometimes everyone is on the call, sometimes only one. It doesn't matter, because the call is for us, not for work.
The kind of pointless micromanaging being discussed here is a substitute for productivity by people who are poor managers. It ultimately costs the company more in terms of lost productivity and, ultimately, talented workers, but it provides the coveted metrics, which are a lot easier to produce than subjective thought.
posted by Gelatin at 10:34 AM on May 6, 2020 [17 favorites]
I set up a weekly, optional, informal phone meeting to give us an opportunity to talk about anything, just to hear each other's voices, and that system was such a success we made it twice a week. But it's optional and there's no agenda -- sometimes everyone is on the call, sometimes only one. It doesn't matter, because the call is for us, not for work.
The kind of pointless micromanaging being discussed here is a substitute for productivity by people who are poor managers. It ultimately costs the company more in terms of lost productivity and, ultimately, talented workers, but it provides the coveted metrics, which are a lot easier to produce than subjective thought.
posted by Gelatin at 10:34 AM on May 6, 2020 [17 favorites]
Many of these problems stem from management that never wanted to let people work from home, which IMO stems from an outdated notion that people aren't going to work unless you can see them working.
I used to work at one of these types of places. I wonder how those jerks are faring now.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 10:51 AM on May 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
I used to work at one of these types of places. I wonder how those jerks are faring now.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 10:51 AM on May 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
which IMO stems from an outdated notion that people aren't going to work unless you can see them working.
OK but like, I am definitely super not working, lately. I'm sitting there at a computer but I'm definitely not accomplishing anything, at all, any day. (I worked from home successfully for a decade but this situation has broken me and I don't do anything at all anymore.)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:04 AM on May 6, 2020 [38 favorites]
OK but like, I am definitely super not working, lately. I'm sitting there at a computer but I'm definitely not accomplishing anything, at all, any day. (I worked from home successfully for a decade but this situation has broken me and I don't do anything at all anymore.)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:04 AM on May 6, 2020 [38 favorites]
And the human desire to punish other humans.
Interestingly, I was listening to this Gladwell talk, and as an aside, he mentions how so much of punishment is based on deterring rational actors, that if you make the punishment harsh enough, people will stop.
But he cites so many examples of how that's not the case: inner city folks still dealt drugs when the penalty approached that of murder, Palestinians still attacked Israel when the cost to doing so kept going up and up.
Gladwell posits that people will ignore the rational logic of deterrence when they think the system is fundamentally unfair. This is an interesting concept to map on to the workplace, when considering what is the best way of encouraging positive behaviors.
posted by Borborygmus at 11:09 AM on May 6, 2020 [34 favorites]
Interestingly, I was listening to this Gladwell talk, and as an aside, he mentions how so much of punishment is based on deterring rational actors, that if you make the punishment harsh enough, people will stop.
But he cites so many examples of how that's not the case: inner city folks still dealt drugs when the penalty approached that of murder, Palestinians still attacked Israel when the cost to doing so kept going up and up.
Gladwell posits that people will ignore the rational logic of deterrence when they think the system is fundamentally unfair. This is an interesting concept to map on to the workplace, when considering what is the best way of encouraging positive behaviors.
posted by Borborygmus at 11:09 AM on May 6, 2020 [34 favorites]
The kind of pointless micromanaging being discussed here is a substitute for productivity by people who are poor managers.
I think the shock a lot of companies are feeling is having it suddenly dawn on them how bad their management structure really is. I don't believe management is of no value, far from it, but a I know of a couple of organizations right now that are struggling to come to terms with the fact that they've got an entire management strata (or four) that only barely understands what business they're in or how any of it happens.
posted by mhoye at 11:23 AM on May 6, 2020 [13 favorites]
I think the shock a lot of companies are feeling is having it suddenly dawn on them how bad their management structure really is. I don't believe management is of no value, far from it, but a I know of a couple of organizations right now that are struggling to come to terms with the fact that they've got an entire management strata (or four) that only barely understands what business they're in or how any of it happens.
posted by mhoye at 11:23 AM on May 6, 2020 [13 favorites]
Prior to the crisis, we did a morning email scrum (what did we do yesterday, what will we do today, any impediments), and we've stuck with that system because it works.
Oh maybe that's what my manager thinks she's doing.
posted by Young Kullervo at 11:25 AM on May 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Oh maybe that's what my manager thinks she's doing.
posted by Young Kullervo at 11:25 AM on May 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
I don't understand this mentality at all.
Well, okay, I get that it exists and I understand the shitty personalities that would promote these sorts of "let's spy on the employee" policies. But I just don't get it. Managing a team is about trust, expectations, and accountability. And that is 100% a two-way street.
You need to trust your employees and they need to trust you. Your employees need to know what's expected of them and likewise, you need to know what they expect from you in terms of support, attention, feedback, etc. And of course, we should all be accountable to each other. When things go well, recognize the folks that made that happen. When things don't go well, you step up and own that shit.
Maybe I've just been lucky/privileged enough to be part of a great team working for a company that doesn't suck. One key part of how they don't suck can be distilled down to a simple concept: Treat people like adults. That's it. Treat each other like the capable, competent, and meaningful people we are.
Sure, there will be a few misfits who won't measure up, who won't do the work or who might drag down morale with perpetually bad attitudes. And those people fall into two groups: opportunities and farewells. People who struggle at work don't exist in a vacuum. They are not simply "that person who drags ass" or "the person who complains and argues about everything".
These are people who probably have reasons for their behaviors, and it is always worth reaching out to see what can be done to turn the corner and improve at least one aspect of their life (ie, their job). Some people are bored easily, some people have invisible challenges nobody knows about, some struggle with anxiety and/or depression, some are floundering because they don't have the skills/knowledge they need for the job but are terrified of saying anything. These are not always insurmountable obstacles, but it will require a culture of trust, expectations, and accountability.
And not everyone will work out. Some people will slack off or cut corners or skip work or whatever else, regardless of what policies, spyware, write-ups, etc come their way. And the thing is, those are not "work from home" problems. Those are dead basic, management 101 problems that have nothing to do with a specific industry, setting, office arrangement, or whatever.
Set and communicate reasonable expectations. Hold people accountable for the good and the bad. Trust in that process, make every reasonable effort with anyone struggling to meet the expectations, and be willing to part ways with people who aren't ready to meet the requirements of their role. It's that simple. Spyware, webcams, and other bullshit will not make a damned bit of difference for those employees, but it will cause real harm to everyone else who was already doing their jobs.
Sorry for the long rant, this is a bit of a near and dear topic.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 11:27 AM on May 6, 2020 [29 favorites]
Well, okay, I get that it exists and I understand the shitty personalities that would promote these sorts of "let's spy on the employee" policies. But I just don't get it. Managing a team is about trust, expectations, and accountability. And that is 100% a two-way street.
You need to trust your employees and they need to trust you. Your employees need to know what's expected of them and likewise, you need to know what they expect from you in terms of support, attention, feedback, etc. And of course, we should all be accountable to each other. When things go well, recognize the folks that made that happen. When things don't go well, you step up and own that shit.
Maybe I've just been lucky/privileged enough to be part of a great team working for a company that doesn't suck. One key part of how they don't suck can be distilled down to a simple concept: Treat people like adults. That's it. Treat each other like the capable, competent, and meaningful people we are.
Sure, there will be a few misfits who won't measure up, who won't do the work or who might drag down morale with perpetually bad attitudes. And those people fall into two groups: opportunities and farewells. People who struggle at work don't exist in a vacuum. They are not simply "that person who drags ass" or "the person who complains and argues about everything".
These are people who probably have reasons for their behaviors, and it is always worth reaching out to see what can be done to turn the corner and improve at least one aspect of their life (ie, their job). Some people are bored easily, some people have invisible challenges nobody knows about, some struggle with anxiety and/or depression, some are floundering because they don't have the skills/knowledge they need for the job but are terrified of saying anything. These are not always insurmountable obstacles, but it will require a culture of trust, expectations, and accountability.
And not everyone will work out. Some people will slack off or cut corners or skip work or whatever else, regardless of what policies, spyware, write-ups, etc come their way. And the thing is, those are not "work from home" problems. Those are dead basic, management 101 problems that have nothing to do with a specific industry, setting, office arrangement, or whatever.
Set and communicate reasonable expectations. Hold people accountable for the good and the bad. Trust in that process, make every reasonable effort with anyone struggling to meet the expectations, and be willing to part ways with people who aren't ready to meet the requirements of their role. It's that simple. Spyware, webcams, and other bullshit will not make a damned bit of difference for those employees, but it will cause real harm to everyone else who was already doing their jobs.
Sorry for the long rant, this is a bit of a near and dear topic.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 11:27 AM on May 6, 2020 [29 favorites]
I can't be the only person already dreading the flood of "hardy har, now we can finally make sure you're really working!" when we do start returning to offices.
My fantasy response thus far is, "name one specific task I do that's not just "answering emails."
posted by nakedmolerats at 11:28 AM on May 6, 2020 [9 favorites]
My fantasy response thus far is, "name one specific task I do that's not just "answering emails."
posted by nakedmolerats at 11:28 AM on May 6, 2020 [9 favorites]
I am working from home for the first time in my life, and I am relieved to see the post from We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese . I'm normally a top level performer; my boss and others in adjacent departments have often made comments about how much they'd like to clone me. But right now, right now I am a walking zombie, my productivity has been complete crap, and I don't know what to do about it.
posted by LilithSilver at 11:31 AM on May 6, 2020 [22 favorites]
posted by LilithSilver at 11:31 AM on May 6, 2020 [22 favorites]
“It’s silly to say, ‘I just trust them all,’ and close my eyes and hope for the best,” he said. Some workers have grimaced at the surveillance, he added, but most should have nothing to hide: “If you’re uncomfortable with me confirming the obvious [about your work], what does that say about your motives?”
I've worked for or with too many people like this over the years. I want to reach through the screen and strangle this person.
posted by treepour at 11:36 AM on May 6, 2020 [6 favorites]
I've worked for or with too many people like this over the years. I want to reach through the screen and strangle this person.
posted by treepour at 11:36 AM on May 6, 2020 [6 favorites]
I've been freelancing some editorial /writing work the past couple years (is it gauche to advertise I'm seeking more?).
I do miss having "work friends," and even sometimes a more stable schedule (and income). OTOH some positives, including not having someone trying to show they're a manager by not being a good manager.
The one thing that I always want to say to the higher up individuals who make this decision, "How come my work requires this, but yours doesn't?"
These are the same people who rave up the "open office," but still have luxurious private offices with closed doors.
My work has been doing mandatory, camera-on videoconference "socials" every Friday -- scheduled at 4pm
I feel like (apologies to Irving Berlin) Any Story You Can Tell, I Can Tell One Better.
I had a part-time hourly job (with a long commute) at a college where almost everyone was in a union, but I wasn't. A dummy director forced me to come in on a day off just for a staff meeting. So, only a couple of hours pay.
Then she herself didn't show up. Had not even called in sick.
Earlier, at another major institution with a backstabber boss, I realized it's often insecure, incompetent people who micromanage, when they'd be better off letting talent do a good job and make them look better.
Because heaven forfend that managers treat their employees like people.
There's a reason they changed "Personnel" to Human *Resources.*
posted by NorthernLite at 11:43 AM on May 6, 2020 [9 favorites]
I do miss having "work friends," and even sometimes a more stable schedule (and income). OTOH some positives, including not having someone trying to show they're a manager by not being a good manager.
The one thing that I always want to say to the higher up individuals who make this decision, "How come my work requires this, but yours doesn't?"
These are the same people who rave up the "open office," but still have luxurious private offices with closed doors.
My work has been doing mandatory, camera-on videoconference "socials" every Friday -- scheduled at 4pm
I feel like (apologies to Irving Berlin) Any Story You Can Tell, I Can Tell One Better.
I had a part-time hourly job (with a long commute) at a college where almost everyone was in a union, but I wasn't. A dummy director forced me to come in on a day off just for a staff meeting. So, only a couple of hours pay.
Then she herself didn't show up. Had not even called in sick.
Earlier, at another major institution with a backstabber boss, I realized it's often insecure, incompetent people who micromanage, when they'd be better off letting talent do a good job and make them look better.
Because heaven forfend that managers treat their employees like people.
There's a reason they changed "Personnel" to Human *Resources.*
posted by NorthernLite at 11:43 AM on May 6, 2020 [9 favorites]
Before the crisis, my direct manager worked from home 3 days/week - and travelled frequently. Her work is in research: she studies (among other things) workplace accommodations for disabilities, of which some of the most important are flexhours and working from home.
This means that she has a) always been super-supportive of working from home, and b) always been super hands off, because the whole time I've been working for her (total of five years), she's been remote to me and so has to just trust that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing (and only SOMETIMES taking a break to comment on metafilter). As long as I perform to her expectations, she trusts me. It's a great responsibility - and I would lose her respect if I abused it.
That said, having had to supervise others: it is really hard to judge what is reasonable for someone to get done, even if you are physically there. There are tasks that I can complete in 30 minutes that take other people 2 hours - not barbecue they aren't working hard, but maybe because I know the program better, I have a short cut, etc. And there are tasks that I take 2-3 times longer to do, because they are things I don't excel at.
Experience helps: if you have a sense of reasonable time ranges for task completion, you can judge better. But that assumes your tasks don't change.
Now, please excuse me - I need to go back to work to do something I've never done before this project and which is super time-consuming but hard to explain why.
posted by jb at 12:01 PM on May 6, 2020 [7 favorites]
This means that she has a) always been super-supportive of working from home, and b) always been super hands off, because the whole time I've been working for her (total of five years), she's been remote to me and so has to just trust that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing (and only SOMETIMES taking a break to comment on metafilter). As long as I perform to her expectations, she trusts me. It's a great responsibility - and I would lose her respect if I abused it.
That said, having had to supervise others: it is really hard to judge what is reasonable for someone to get done, even if you are physically there. There are tasks that I can complete in 30 minutes that take other people 2 hours - not barbecue they aren't working hard, but maybe because I know the program better, I have a short cut, etc. And there are tasks that I take 2-3 times longer to do, because they are things I don't excel at.
Experience helps: if you have a sense of reasonable time ranges for task completion, you can judge better. But that assumes your tasks don't change.
Now, please excuse me - I need to go back to work to do something I've never done before this project and which is super time-consuming but hard to explain why.
posted by jb at 12:01 PM on May 6, 2020 [7 favorites]
There's a reason they changed "Personnel" to Human *Resources.*
At everyone's favorite fruit company, we changed it from...actually I forgot what we called it previously, might have been Human Resources...to *People*. Which causes some weirdness with its usage in a sentence (You will need to contact People in order to get the ball rolling on short term disability, etc.).
posted by sideshow at 12:24 PM on May 6, 2020 [8 favorites]
At everyone's favorite fruit company, we changed it from...actually I forgot what we called it previously, might have been Human Resources...to *People*. Which causes some weirdness with its usage in a sentence (You will need to contact People in order to get the ball rolling on short term disability, etc.).
posted by sideshow at 12:24 PM on May 6, 2020 [8 favorites]
I get home an hour before he clocks off, so I'm always there when he goes on these calls; he lets me know it's about to start and puts on his headphones, and then there is about ten minutes of dead silence as everyone else talks, and then he finally says something like "yeah, I'm still working on [x]" or "I finished [y] and I'm getting ready to move on [z]", and then maybe two minutes later he bids everyone goodbye as the call wraps up
I have this call! Except it's not video (thank god!) and it's at 11 AM (which is really annoying, because it breaks the morning into two chunks that are too short to concentrate). Also my "team" is a bunch of people that aren't working on the same project as me and don't need my input, so what do I need their status for, or they mine?
posted by madcaptenor at 1:26 PM on May 6, 2020 [8 favorites]
I have this call! Except it's not video (thank god!) and it's at 11 AM (which is really annoying, because it breaks the morning into two chunks that are too short to concentrate). Also my "team" is a bunch of people that aren't working on the same project as me and don't need my input, so what do I need their status for, or they mine?
posted by madcaptenor at 1:26 PM on May 6, 2020 [8 favorites]
These are the same people who rave up the "open office," but still have luxurious private offices with closed doors.
"My door is always open"; all that means, and all that it is intended to mean, is simply "I'VE GOT A DOOR!"
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:30 PM on May 6, 2020 [23 favorites]
"My door is always open"; all that means, and all that it is intended to mean, is simply "I'VE GOT A DOOR!"
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:30 PM on May 6, 2020 [23 favorites]
> I have this call!
It's a pretty standard "scrum" practice to have stand-up meetings. The intention is not to role-call or check attendance, usually. It's more about keeping the team (and project managers, team leads, etc) loosely abreast of how things are going. More specifically, if you're running into an issue you have a quick informal way to query the team for either solutions or at least volunteers to pair on the issue after the call. All while keeping project managers (in particular) aware of delivery-impacting events.
Which probably sounds weird to those not used to it, but most days it's just a casual check-in, usually some light socializing and joking around, and then on with the rest of the day. Sometimes it turns into interesting technical discussions, but those are usually time-boxed to keep the meetings short.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 1:31 PM on May 6, 2020 [13 favorites]
It's a pretty standard "scrum" practice to have stand-up meetings. The intention is not to role-call or check attendance, usually. It's more about keeping the team (and project managers, team leads, etc) loosely abreast of how things are going. More specifically, if you're running into an issue you have a quick informal way to query the team for either solutions or at least volunteers to pair on the issue after the call. All while keeping project managers (in particular) aware of delivery-impacting events.
Which probably sounds weird to those not used to it, but most days it's just a casual check-in, usually some light socializing and joking around, and then on with the rest of the day. Sometimes it turns into interesting technical discussions, but those are usually time-boxed to keep the meetings short.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 1:31 PM on May 6, 2020 [13 favorites]
Yeah, I kinda agree with whoever it was earlier in the thread who noted that this level of surveillance (or much worse) has been the norm for call center workers, retail workers and others (now truck drivers, therapists and medical folks using TalkSpace-like telehealth "platforms", Uber/Doordash drivers etc) for a while now. It seems it only matters now that its affecting broad swaths of the white collar professions. This is why its so important to care and push back on these things early on, even when its "only" impacting the browner, poorer, younger and less prestigious among us ... it eventually always trickles up the totem pole.
posted by flamk at 1:44 PM on May 6, 2020 [18 favorites]
posted by flamk at 1:44 PM on May 6, 2020 [18 favorites]
To LilithSilver and We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese: same here!
I just can't be bothered with work anymore. I've had the exact same comments ("Its a pity we can't clone you") from bosses and colleagues and now I just don't care. I've always pulled energy from the challenge of the work and the benefits I'd bring clients, but now? Pffft. I just don't care anymore.
I dread going back to the work place, I've started making plans for striking out on my own and I'm working on three different side projects at once. But I cannot put any energy in my actual job. It's exhausting actually.
posted by Captain Fetid at 1:47 PM on May 6, 2020 [17 favorites]
I just can't be bothered with work anymore. I've had the exact same comments ("Its a pity we can't clone you") from bosses and colleagues and now I just don't care. I've always pulled energy from the challenge of the work and the benefits I'd bring clients, but now? Pffft. I just don't care anymore.
I dread going back to the work place, I've started making plans for striking out on my own and I'm working on three different side projects at once. But I cannot put any energy in my actual job. It's exhausting actually.
posted by Captain Fetid at 1:47 PM on May 6, 2020 [17 favorites]
My work has been doing mandatory, camera-on videoconference "socials" every Friday
Conversely, my team of eight-ish has been having optional weekly socials (also at 4) because most of us were used to all going out to the pub together on Fridays before we got locked down. Drinking at home over Google Meet is a poor substitute, but it's better than nothing, and it's nice to see people from the outside world occasionally.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:04 PM on May 6, 2020 [5 favorites]
Conversely, my team of eight-ish has been having optional weekly socials (also at 4) because most of us were used to all going out to the pub together on Fridays before we got locked down. Drinking at home over Google Meet is a poor substitute, but it's better than nothing, and it's nice to see people from the outside world occasionally.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:04 PM on May 6, 2020 [5 favorites]
Keynes predicted we would be working 15-hour weeks. Why was he so wrong?
He underestimated the propensity of a capitalist system to accumulate gains upward, instead of to workers. Hey, I have an idea: UNIONS. (Fortunately, I have none of this constant webcam/happy hour bullshit. What a coincidence: I'm in a union!)
I think the shock a lot of companies are feeling is having it suddenly dawn on them how bad their management structure really is.
Also this. I am a working unit of exactly one person right now (literally, my only co-worker reports up through an entirely parallel management chain). I report to a section lead, who reports to an assistant manager, who reports to a manager, who reports to a department head, who reports to a division head, who reports to an an executive.
I'm pretty sure we don't need 12 different managers for two people. (I know, they have other people reporting up from other areas, but it's still incredibly topheavy.) What do they all do all day? None of us know. They whisk about from meeting to meeting, always so busy and no information ever comes back down the chain. Any new idea, policy, change in procedure, or new idea always comes from some enterprising underling who then has to go pitch and sell it up 6 layers of people who failed up so hard they don't know what they're looking at.
What are they all doing in those meeting rooms? Hundreds of status reports?
posted by mrgoat at 2:06 PM on May 6, 2020 [18 favorites]
He underestimated the propensity of a capitalist system to accumulate gains upward, instead of to workers. Hey, I have an idea: UNIONS. (Fortunately, I have none of this constant webcam/happy hour bullshit. What a coincidence: I'm in a union!)
I think the shock a lot of companies are feeling is having it suddenly dawn on them how bad their management structure really is.
Also this. I am a working unit of exactly one person right now (literally, my only co-worker reports up through an entirely parallel management chain). I report to a section lead, who reports to an assistant manager, who reports to a manager, who reports to a department head, who reports to a division head, who reports to an an executive.
I'm pretty sure we don't need 12 different managers for two people. (I know, they have other people reporting up from other areas, but it's still incredibly topheavy.) What do they all do all day? None of us know. They whisk about from meeting to meeting, always so busy and no information ever comes back down the chain. Any new idea, policy, change in procedure, or new idea always comes from some enterprising underling who then has to go pitch and sell it up 6 layers of people who failed up so hard they don't know what they're looking at.
What are they all doing in those meeting rooms? Hundreds of status reports?
posted by mrgoat at 2:06 PM on May 6, 2020 [18 favorites]
We have daily video checkins with mandatory camera on and you must start with a good news item. It blows. We also have social gaming, which is okay but a bit late for me. Unfortunately the first week's game was some kind of online quiz show that had some not-okay jokes about gender identity.
posted by scruss at 2:11 PM on May 6, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by scruss at 2:11 PM on May 6, 2020 [4 favorites]
MetaFilter: fluttering hellfire it was Dinner for Schmucks.
posted by jessamyn at 2:59 PM on May 6, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 2:59 PM on May 6, 2020 [10 favorites]
sideshow: Which causes some weirdness with its usage in a sentence (You will need to contact People in order to get the ball rolling on short term disability, etc.).
I hope you took some learnings from that.
posted by clawsoon at 3:01 PM on May 6, 2020 [4 favorites]
I hope you took some learnings from that.
posted by clawsoon at 3:01 PM on May 6, 2020 [4 favorites]
mrgoat: I'm pretty sure we don't need 12 different managers for two people. (I know, they have other people reporting up from other areas, but it's still incredibly topheavy.) What do they all do all day? None of us know. They whisk about from meeting to meeting, always so busy and no information ever comes back down the chain. Any new idea, policy, change in procedure, or new idea always comes from some enterprising underling who then has to go pitch and sell it up 6 layers of people who failed up so hard they don't know what they're looking at.
I have this image of many companies - especially the big successful ones - as undersea hydrothermal vents. There are bacteria doing the essential work at the bottom of the food chain transforming the energy into usable organic molecules. Then there are layers and layers of other organisms that feed on them. The more of a surplus the bacteria create, the more giant worms they attract.
Or maybe it's the hydrothermal vent itself that's the core. The image came to me when I read that Google's advertising business is a "firehose of money" and that everything else in the business basically feeds on it.
posted by clawsoon at 3:09 PM on May 6, 2020 [11 favorites]
I have this image of many companies - especially the big successful ones - as undersea hydrothermal vents. There are bacteria doing the essential work at the bottom of the food chain transforming the energy into usable organic molecules. Then there are layers and layers of other organisms that feed on them. The more of a surplus the bacteria create, the more giant worms they attract.
Or maybe it's the hydrothermal vent itself that's the core. The image came to me when I read that Google's advertising business is a "firehose of money" and that everything else in the business basically feeds on it.
posted by clawsoon at 3:09 PM on May 6, 2020 [11 favorites]
I used to do a lot of computer support work which involved discovering requirements right through to implementation of solutions.
The first part involved meeting a lot of people and that needed them all to be available - often at short notice, and that required everyone to be there, not at home.
Once you get on to an outline design - that could be done in isolation for the most part, but needs co-operation for checking and approval.
Any programming could then be done in isolation and was often better done so.
Again checking and approval requires co-operation, as does implementation.
I found that when I worked from home I tended to be more productive during the time I was working and could either spend less time actually working, or do more in the time.
Since I was generally paid for results and not by the hour, I tended to be more productive overall.
posted by Burn_IT at 3:15 PM on May 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
The first part involved meeting a lot of people and that needed them all to be available - often at short notice, and that required everyone to be there, not at home.
Once you get on to an outline design - that could be done in isolation for the most part, but needs co-operation for checking and approval.
Any programming could then be done in isolation and was often better done so.
Again checking and approval requires co-operation, as does implementation.
I found that when I worked from home I tended to be more productive during the time I was working and could either spend less time actually working, or do more in the time.
Since I was generally paid for results and not by the hour, I tended to be more productive overall.
posted by Burn_IT at 3:15 PM on May 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
Related, but perhaps more ominous: Mass school closures in the wake of the coronavirus are driving a new wave of student surveillance — Colleges are racing to sign deals with ‘online proctor’ companies that watch students through their webcams while they take exams. Education advocates say the surveillance software forces students to choose between privacy and their grades., Washington Post, Drew Harwell, 4/1/2020:
posted by cenoxo at 4:51 PM on May 6, 2020 [12 favorites]
When University of Florida sophomore Cheyenne Keating felt a rush of nausea a few weeks ago during her at-home statistics exam, she looked into her webcam and asked the stranger on the other side: Is it okay to throw up at my desk?There won't be just one Big Brother, but a brave new world of corporate opportunity thanks to COVID-19.
He said yes. So halfway through the two-hour test, during which her every movement was scrutinized for cheating and no bathroom breaks were permitted, she vomited into a wicker basket, dabbed the mess with a blanket and got right back to work. The stranger saw everything. When the test was finished, he said she was free to log off. Only then could she clean herself up.
“Online proctor” services like these have already policed millions of American college exams, tapping into students’ cameras, microphones and computer screens when they take their tests at home. Now these companies are enjoying a rush of new business as the coronavirus pandemic closes thousands of American schools, and executives are racing to capture new clients during what some are calling a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The live proctors these companies hire ensure test-takers abide by a strict set of rules. They watch the students’ faces, listen to them talk and can demand they aim their cameras around the room to prove their honesty. Some companies also use facial-recognition, eye-tracking and other software that purports to detect cheating and rates the students’ “academic integrity.”
...
PHOTO: Proctors in ProctorU’s Hoover, Ala., office watch over students. (ProctorU).
[More in the article.]
posted by cenoxo at 4:51 PM on May 6, 2020 [12 favorites]
I'm lucky: I have 2 employees at my small web dev agency and we've been working from home since early March. I trust them. They know what they have to do. They ask for help or guidance when they need it. They get the work done. I just gave them a 15% bonus last month as recognition of this.
posted by signal at 5:16 PM on May 6, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by signal at 5:16 PM on May 6, 2020 [8 favorites]
bright side of shitty employment situation, and stupid cheapness and lack of foresight of the nested management structures that belatedly realized their business continuity was in jeopardy if they didn't figure out a way for us to work from home, which resulted in us humping into the worksite and carrying home cheap-ass workstations from sick building on likely infectious public transportation, is that those fucks don't get to compel me to install any of their software on my computer. i set theirs up (osha would object) next to my home computer, and can do whatever i want on my machine while working on theirs -- or, if the tales from my coworkers are an indication, merely jiggling the mouse every 14 minutes to keep if from going to sleep. management has capacity to view system events and what we're doing on the proprietary networked software, but probably lack the wit and anyway don't have time.
anyway, management told staffers on my gig two weeks ago that the gig was on hold for two weeks. this week they told some of us that we'd be starting up again this week; most staffers, though, were told that the project is over. thanks for waiting two weeks like we asked you. fuck off. appallingly bad form.
(meanwhile, my promised details on tomorrow's scheduled resumption of work has yet to arrive).
posted by 20 year lurk at 6:11 PM on May 6, 2020
anyway, management told staffers on my gig two weeks ago that the gig was on hold for two weeks. this week they told some of us that we'd be starting up again this week; most staffers, though, were told that the project is over. thanks for waiting two weeks like we asked you. fuck off. appallingly bad form.
(meanwhile, my promised details on tomorrow's scheduled resumption of work has yet to arrive).
posted by 20 year lurk at 6:11 PM on May 6, 2020
I don't care how much time my team spends wanking, watching prestige television, or reading during the day as long as they deliver me the stuff I've asked for when I've asked for it.
In the short term, I don't either. But I DO need to have an answer to why I'm paying eleven people who are spending much of the time wanking, watching prestige television, or reading during the day if I could be just as effective with four people working for 8 hours. I wouldn't like being spied on, but I can say for myself, I've got nothing embarrassing to discover, teleworking is way busier than I thought it would be. I had plans to do all kinds of online training in my down time - none accomplished yet.
I don't actually monitor my teleworkers. (Somebody in IT might, but if so I don't get that information or know about it.) I give them the amount of work I think they should be able to do and track the status and quality. I think we're actually more productive with a lot of telework, since we don't spend any time traveling to and from meetings. An ad hoc meeting is easy to spin up on a moment's notice, unlike the way we had been doing it, face to face in conference rooms. Our telework isn't 100%, it's "you're adults, go in when you think you need to" and I've been in once or twice a week. There's no substitute for a manager just chatting with people and getting the feel of the work site, and no substitute for putting "eyes on" once in a while to validate that you see what you thought you were going to see. Every time I've been in, there has been at least one "oh, I thought i told you..." thing I discover just by walking around.
We went from a weekly peer meeting to a daily morning phone call, but that's worked so well and we all like it so much we're not going back to the old way even if things go back to "normal". It's quick, efficient, we have some laughs, and it's actually made us all a closer team and better friends, which bleeds over into working together, not against each other.
Also, all our cameras are hardware disabled for security a long time ago.
posted by ctmf at 6:47 PM on May 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
In the short term, I don't either. But I DO need to have an answer to why I'm paying eleven people who are spending much of the time wanking, watching prestige television, or reading during the day if I could be just as effective with four people working for 8 hours. I wouldn't like being spied on, but I can say for myself, I've got nothing embarrassing to discover, teleworking is way busier than I thought it would be. I had plans to do all kinds of online training in my down time - none accomplished yet.
I don't actually monitor my teleworkers. (Somebody in IT might, but if so I don't get that information or know about it.) I give them the amount of work I think they should be able to do and track the status and quality. I think we're actually more productive with a lot of telework, since we don't spend any time traveling to and from meetings. An ad hoc meeting is easy to spin up on a moment's notice, unlike the way we had been doing it, face to face in conference rooms. Our telework isn't 100%, it's "you're adults, go in when you think you need to" and I've been in once or twice a week. There's no substitute for a manager just chatting with people and getting the feel of the work site, and no substitute for putting "eyes on" once in a while to validate that you see what you thought you were going to see. Every time I've been in, there has been at least one "oh, I thought i told you..." thing I discover just by walking around.
We went from a weekly peer meeting to a daily morning phone call, but that's worked so well and we all like it so much we're not going back to the old way even if things go back to "normal". It's quick, efficient, we have some laughs, and it's actually made us all a closer team and better friends, which bleeds over into working together, not against each other.
Also, all our cameras are hardware disabled for security a long time ago.
posted by ctmf at 6:47 PM on May 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
More specifically, if you're running into an issue you have a quick informal way to query the team for either solutions or at least volunteers to pair on the issue after the call
Yeah, it's way faster if you can't play the pass the buck game or voice mail tag because once a day, the person is right there on the same phone call. "I'm waiting on Dave to..." Dave: "no you're not" or Dave: "oh, I didn't realize" or Dave: "That's right, I expect that will be done by X". One way or the other, boom, done.
posted by ctmf at 7:05 PM on May 6, 2020 [4 favorites]
Yeah, it's way faster if you can't play the pass the buck game or voice mail tag because once a day, the person is right there on the same phone call. "I'm waiting on Dave to..." Dave: "no you're not" or Dave: "oh, I didn't realize" or Dave: "That's right, I expect that will be done by X". One way or the other, boom, done.
posted by ctmf at 7:05 PM on May 6, 2020 [4 favorites]
Or "I need help with..." and boom, the expert offers to call you after the conference call.
posted by ctmf at 7:06 PM on May 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by ctmf at 7:06 PM on May 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
My company was leery about everyone working remote and they made us all install some pretty invasive tracking software. I broke it so it stopped working properly and waited a few days to see if anyone noticed. Nobody said a word. After a week I mentioned to my boss that the tracking software wasn’t working on my machine and he admitted that the company had lost interest in the whole tracking thing because overall productivity was dramatically better with everyone being remote.
posted by Doleful Creature at 7:14 PM on May 6, 2020 [13 favorites]
posted by Doleful Creature at 7:14 PM on May 6, 2020 [13 favorites]
overall productivity was dramatically better with everyone being remote.
That's what we're suspecting too, but there are some people too creeped out by the idea to gather metrics they might not want to see. Better productivity kind of implies we had too many people before.
posted by ctmf at 7:17 PM on May 6, 2020
That's what we're suspecting too, but there are some people too creeped out by the idea to gather metrics they might not want to see. Better productivity kind of implies we had too many people before.
posted by ctmf at 7:17 PM on May 6, 2020
This is like the maxim about manufacturing: everything thinks they're careful 100% of the time, right up until they time they lose a hand. That's why the stamp presses have two hand controls, where you need both hands to press two separate buttons before the stamp descends into the work area, to 100% guarantee your hand won't get caught in the press. Because if there was only 1 control, people would somehow still manage to get their other hand crushed in the press. It would be the perfect confluence of tiredness, distraction, urgency, that comes together in a perfect storm to create that event.
Everyone can get to a point where they're desperate enough to cheat the system. Their partner loses their job. Their kid gets a disability. They're out of money. Out of time. Then you see them claiming "work from home" for weeks at a time with zero output. This is just pure bad luck, and nothing to do with any inherent "good worker" qualities they have. If you're in that situation, it's 100% rational to prioritize the needs of your family over that of the company.
Which puts managers in a tough spot. You need controls in place, the question is what controls are appropriate. And again: even managers get to the same point. When things are good, they will let things slide: why require staff to work at 100% when 70% output is good enough for their senior management. When pressure ramps up: a crisis brews, company is facing bankruptcy, whatever: more is demanded of their team, and managers react in unexpected ways. Again, like "careful workers", perhaps even "good managers" are myth: pushed to the limit, people react in unpredictable ways.
We have a saying that if one worker is turning in "bad" performance you'd be right to assume that there's something going wrong in their personal life. The moral question is that does the company have the obligation to support them through it? (and if ALL workers are turning in a "bad" performance then there's something wrong with your company culture).
There are plenty of pop culture management books and blogs based on anecdotal evidence rather than hard data (you need a large enough sample with a double blind study, yes?). It seems like "management" is a field very much like "economics" - there's very little science in it, and a lot of people with opinions with no data to back it up.
posted by xdvesper at 7:23 PM on May 6, 2020 [4 favorites]
Everyone can get to a point where they're desperate enough to cheat the system. Their partner loses their job. Their kid gets a disability. They're out of money. Out of time. Then you see them claiming "work from home" for weeks at a time with zero output. This is just pure bad luck, and nothing to do with any inherent "good worker" qualities they have. If you're in that situation, it's 100% rational to prioritize the needs of your family over that of the company.
Which puts managers in a tough spot. You need controls in place, the question is what controls are appropriate. And again: even managers get to the same point. When things are good, they will let things slide: why require staff to work at 100% when 70% output is good enough for their senior management. When pressure ramps up: a crisis brews, company is facing bankruptcy, whatever: more is demanded of their team, and managers react in unexpected ways. Again, like "careful workers", perhaps even "good managers" are myth: pushed to the limit, people react in unpredictable ways.
We have a saying that if one worker is turning in "bad" performance you'd be right to assume that there's something going wrong in their personal life. The moral question is that does the company have the obligation to support them through it? (and if ALL workers are turning in a "bad" performance then there's something wrong with your company culture).
There are plenty of pop culture management books and blogs based on anecdotal evidence rather than hard data (you need a large enough sample with a double blind study, yes?). It seems like "management" is a field very much like "economics" - there's very little science in it, and a lot of people with opinions with no data to back it up.
posted by xdvesper at 7:23 PM on May 6, 2020 [4 favorites]
And I guess by "controls" I mean stuff like: how do you control the effect on team morale if everyone is being paid the same but 1 person is only doing 25% of the work of the others? What is the minimum level of control you need to implement to ensure that people aren't incentivized to cheat? What level of controls do you need to implement so that the "good" workers feel secure that everyone is pulling their weight, yet not too invasive enough that they feel their management doesn't trust them? I've seen either extreme being done.
Similarly on a management level: you can't trust managers to be "inherently good". Bad managers are the same class of problem as employees who fake work from home: reduces morale and productivity. The controls need to be in place where if a manager is toxic, they get fired. (I've seen that happen at least 3 times, escorted off the premises by security).
posted by xdvesper at 7:52 PM on May 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Similarly on a management level: you can't trust managers to be "inherently good". Bad managers are the same class of problem as employees who fake work from home: reduces morale and productivity. The controls need to be in place where if a manager is toxic, they get fired. (I've seen that happen at least 3 times, escorted off the premises by security).
posted by xdvesper at 7:52 PM on May 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
What level of controls do you need to implement so that the "good" workers feel secure that everyone is pulling their weight, yet not too invasive enough that they feel their management doesn't trust them?
Why is everyone looking at everyone else's paper at your company?
posted by praemunire at 8:13 PM on May 6, 2020 [8 favorites]
Why is everyone looking at everyone else's paper at your company?
posted by praemunire at 8:13 PM on May 6, 2020 [8 favorites]
I think a lot of managers don't know how to manage.
People don’t leave companies, they leave managers. People don’t quit their jobs, they quit their bosses.
posted by bendy at 9:16 PM on May 6, 2020 [20 favorites]
People don’t leave companies, they leave managers. People don’t quit their jobs, they quit their bosses.
posted by bendy at 9:16 PM on May 6, 2020 [20 favorites]
Colleges are racing to sign deals with ‘online proctor’ companies that watch students through their webcams while they take exams.
Almost every exam I took back in my school days was "proctored" in the sense that there's a person in the room sort of keeping an eye out to see if people are cheating or throwing up on their desks or whatever.
posted by bendy at 9:22 PM on May 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
Almost every exam I took back in my school days was "proctored" in the sense that there's a person in the room sort of keeping an eye out to see if people are cheating or throwing up on their desks or whatever.
posted by bendy at 9:22 PM on May 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
Well, this is making my office look good. We're down to two all-team check-ins a week, 1-3 my separate work group check-ins, 1 monthly all office check in, 1 individual meeting. However, I do have 4 hour daily Zoom trainings because my other teammate is retiring, so....
I told my work this week that I was NOT going to turn the webcam on (sadly, it has arrived in my mailbox) and I was refusing to disclose why. Thankfully, they have said nothing else about this. I am definitely doing plenty of work, but I've really enjoyed not getting constantly judged on how I look for the last few months (i.e. tired, not perky, not "engaged," etc., which I got constant complaints about). Plus working in pajamas every day. Plus I live alone so there is no point in showering frequently. Plus there's that whole sudden crying off and on through the day thing, which is why I am refusing to disclose in the first place. If I thought they'd be understanding about it, I would, but they are not going to be.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:40 PM on May 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
I told my work this week that I was NOT going to turn the webcam on (sadly, it has arrived in my mailbox) and I was refusing to disclose why. Thankfully, they have said nothing else about this. I am definitely doing plenty of work, but I've really enjoyed not getting constantly judged on how I look for the last few months (i.e. tired, not perky, not "engaged," etc., which I got constant complaints about). Plus working in pajamas every day. Plus I live alone so there is no point in showering frequently. Plus there's that whole sudden crying off and on through the day thing, which is why I am refusing to disclose in the first place. If I thought they'd be understanding about it, I would, but they are not going to be.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:40 PM on May 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
xdvesper I think you are missing the point of what people are complaining about here.
Then you see them claiming "work from home" for weeks at a time with zero output
Then you would deal with that. Same as if they worked from the office for weeks with zero output. I dont think anyone here would have a problem with that employee getting in trouble for that.
What we are complaining about is invasive monitoring. So in my example the worker works from home and goes all out, outperforms all their co-workers in terms of outputs, but then some manager peeks through the webcams and see's that this particular worker was actually only working for 6 hours a day!!! and gets them in trouble for it.
posted by Iax at 11:47 PM on May 6, 2020 [10 favorites]
Then you see them claiming "work from home" for weeks at a time with zero output
Then you would deal with that. Same as if they worked from the office for weeks with zero output. I dont think anyone here would have a problem with that employee getting in trouble for that.
What we are complaining about is invasive monitoring. So in my example the worker works from home and goes all out, outperforms all their co-workers in terms of outputs, but then some manager peeks through the webcams and see's that this particular worker was actually only working for 6 hours a day!!! and gets them in trouble for it.
posted by Iax at 11:47 PM on May 6, 2020 [10 favorites]
Workplace surveillance? That sounds like another job for gamification! Here's an excerpt from the gamification book I'm working on, which people liked last time I shared a bit:
Any work composed of repetitive tasks and of sufficient scale is a prime target for Digital Taylorism. Right at ground zero sit three million US call centre workers.posted by adrianhon at 2:03 AM on May 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
At first blush, a phone call between two people expressing the vast possibilities of human language hardly seems like a repetitive event, but if you’ve ever been herded through the conversational paths by seemingly robotic call centre workers, you’ve experienced the effects of Digital Taylorism. Calls are measured down to the second, and every event that impacts the company’s bottom is recorded, whether that’s issuing a costly refund or upselling an oblivious customer into a more expensive TV packaging.
A century ago, workers learned about their performance by means of a piece of paper that Taylor stuffed in their pigeonholes the following day. At call centres, you’re constantly informed of your performance, usually through a timer on your computer and a pep-talk from a supervisor listening in on an occasional call. But as we know, humans are expensive. They can’t listen to hundreds of calls at once. That’s led Cogito, a tech company with almost $100m in funding, to develop an AI to perform “real-time conversational guidance”. In practice, their AI monitors every second of every call to detect whether operators are sounding sleepy, or talking too fast, or not being empathetic enough, or interrupting too much. If you slip up, there’s instant virtual admonishment.
Cogito filed a patent in 2019 to gamify their AI by comparing workers’ “current performance against individual goals, individual past performance, current team-average, current team-best [and company benchmarks].” Not only will this supposedly make work “more enjoyable” but it will, of course, drive performance. In doing so, they’ll only be catching up to Noble Systems call centre gamification platform, which “appeals to today’s Millennial and Generation Z employee teams and uses both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors to promote and reinforce desired behaviors and gain greater buy-in.” As a card-carrying Millennial, I’m not sure I see the appeal.
It’s tempting to assume that Digital Taylorism will be limited to lower-paid workers who don’t have the option to walk out the door. Surely the intrusiveness of surveillance technology would give managers pause before they impose it on less-replaceable workers? Thanks to one major bank, we know the answer is: no.
In early 2020, Barclays introduced a pilot of Sapience’s computer surveillance system throughout the product control department of the investment banking division at their London headquarters. This fully-automated system monitored employees’ computers in real-time, instructing perceived slackers to spend more time “in the Zone” and “mute the phone, disable email/chat pop-ups, avoid breaks for 20+ minutes, 2–3 times a day.”
Drawing a direct link to Taylorism, Sapience claims it has “the most cost effective and accurate way of doing time and motion studies,” time and motion studies being a ‘scientific management’ technique related to Taylor’s work with stopwatch timers, along with Lillian and Frank Gilbreth’s practice of filming workers’ motions to examine and improve repetitive physical work. Instead of filming workers’ movements, Sapience collects metadata about their computer activities, such as the websites they visit, their time on websites, and use of corporate software. Sapience uses this metadata as fuel to “improve employee engagement through customized games … with results aimed at achieving business goals.”
Barely a week after the pilot began, Barclays employees revolted, leaking details of the software’s deployment to City A.M. A Barclays spokeperson gave the classic excuse that everyone else does it: ”This type of technology is widely used across the industry to help identify what is working well and opportunities to improve processes.” They went on to claim that ”colleague wellbeing is of paramount importance,” which would be a surprise to a whistleblower who said, “the stress this is causing is beyond belief… [it] shows an utter disregard for employee wellbeing.”
Barclays scrapped Sapience the next day – or at least, the parts of it that collected individual workers’ data. Evidently the negative PR and employee backlash was too damaging to ignore. But you can bet Barclays will try again: only three years earlier, Barclays investment bank staff arrived at work one day, startled to discover black boxes stuck underneath their desks. Their function? Heat and motion-tracking devices to monitor how long they were at their post.
Why is everyone looking at everyone else's paper at your company?
I wish there was a better way to "manage" this and if you have some ideas I'd love it. Our workflow is cyclical - if we assigned workers specific commodities to work on, there would be days where it would take 16 hours to complete the work associated with 1 commodity and for other commodities there was no work to be done for the entire week. Time taken per task is extremely variable as well, with a combination of complexity and time lags (we work alongside engineers and procurement around the world, literally in America, South America, Africa, Europe, China, Thailand, India, etc) - you could be working on any given task between 15 minutes and 4 hours, and time to completion with time zone lags and other hold ups could be between 1 day and 14 days, and you have no idea until you start working at it. So the "default" is almost anarchic non-management - all outstanding work for the team gets pooled on a daily basis, and people pick their specialties first (someone specializing in glass will try to do glass related work first, while someone doing steel will do steel work first). Also taking into account aging: perhaps your specialty is steel, but there's some plastic thing that's been sitting there for a week... so maybe you do that instead? The plastics guy seems really busy. And there are hierarchies of expertise: glass and steel might be somewhat interchangeable, but someone from fabrics would only get involved by management intervention because they're so distant. If there is nothing in your specialty available, you are expecting to jump on and help wherever the queue is the longest. The "system" now tracks task completion by worker who completed it: and requests from our "customers" (where is this task at, what is holding it up) require us to track who is doing what, who did what two weeks ago. Without this system of "control" it would be impossible to manage. It's a system where a dedicated employee could go all out and produce literally 3x the output of another employee. It's also a demoralizing system because the "work" is never truly done: there's an endless queue of work outstanding, getting more and more behind as customers grow more irate: and so what's the point of it all? How do you keep people motivated like that? In my experience some people thrive in this environment, and some people lose motivation. Why not log a task that took you 15 minutes as something that took you 4 hours - who would ever know? You can do that at home but you'd find it hard or pointless to do it in the office, because you're stuck there for 4 hours anyway, and what were you going to do in that open plan office for the other 3.75 hours - surf the net or sleep? You can't.
xdvesper I think you are missing the point of what people are complaining about here.
Ok tracking via webcam is on the extreme end and stupid. But I'm saying that a level of tracking and control is required. See the very rudimentary tracking system we've had to put in place (comment above) - even that I feel is invasive and unfair. People don't like it when it feels like every action they're doing is tracked explicitly at such a discrete level. We've never had to do "tracking" like that because managers could (or least thought they could) generally get a feel for how fast paper is flowing in an open plan office: we can see which engineers are consulting, documents being signed off, and we can immediately load balance if things are looking "off". People can browse Facebook if they like at work, in fact that's great, it signals to me that they are "immediately available" for tasks that come up dynamically, however, we have lost that sightline with remote working.
posted by xdvesper at 3:05 AM on May 7, 2020
I wish there was a better way to "manage" this and if you have some ideas I'd love it. Our workflow is cyclical - if we assigned workers specific commodities to work on, there would be days where it would take 16 hours to complete the work associated with 1 commodity and for other commodities there was no work to be done for the entire week. Time taken per task is extremely variable as well, with a combination of complexity and time lags (we work alongside engineers and procurement around the world, literally in America, South America, Africa, Europe, China, Thailand, India, etc) - you could be working on any given task between 15 minutes and 4 hours, and time to completion with time zone lags and other hold ups could be between 1 day and 14 days, and you have no idea until you start working at it. So the "default" is almost anarchic non-management - all outstanding work for the team gets pooled on a daily basis, and people pick their specialties first (someone specializing in glass will try to do glass related work first, while someone doing steel will do steel work first). Also taking into account aging: perhaps your specialty is steel, but there's some plastic thing that's been sitting there for a week... so maybe you do that instead? The plastics guy seems really busy. And there are hierarchies of expertise: glass and steel might be somewhat interchangeable, but someone from fabrics would only get involved by management intervention because they're so distant. If there is nothing in your specialty available, you are expecting to jump on and help wherever the queue is the longest. The "system" now tracks task completion by worker who completed it: and requests from our "customers" (where is this task at, what is holding it up) require us to track who is doing what, who did what two weeks ago. Without this system of "control" it would be impossible to manage. It's a system where a dedicated employee could go all out and produce literally 3x the output of another employee. It's also a demoralizing system because the "work" is never truly done: there's an endless queue of work outstanding, getting more and more behind as customers grow more irate: and so what's the point of it all? How do you keep people motivated like that? In my experience some people thrive in this environment, and some people lose motivation. Why not log a task that took you 15 minutes as something that took you 4 hours - who would ever know? You can do that at home but you'd find it hard or pointless to do it in the office, because you're stuck there for 4 hours anyway, and what were you going to do in that open plan office for the other 3.75 hours - surf the net or sleep? You can't.
xdvesper I think you are missing the point of what people are complaining about here.
Ok tracking via webcam is on the extreme end and stupid. But I'm saying that a level of tracking and control is required. See the very rudimentary tracking system we've had to put in place (comment above) - even that I feel is invasive and unfair. People don't like it when it feels like every action they're doing is tracked explicitly at such a discrete level. We've never had to do "tracking" like that because managers could (or least thought they could) generally get a feel for how fast paper is flowing in an open plan office: we can see which engineers are consulting, documents being signed off, and we can immediately load balance if things are looking "off". People can browse Facebook if they like at work, in fact that's great, it signals to me that they are "immediately available" for tasks that come up dynamically, however, we have lost that sightline with remote working.
posted by xdvesper at 3:05 AM on May 7, 2020
In the short term, I don't either. But I DO need to have an answer to why I'm paying eleven people who are spending much of the time wanking, watching prestige television, or reading during the day if I could be just as effective with four people working for 8 hours.
I guess, but I have a pretty good idea of what a person at a certain grade should be able to do. I'm not really as easy to work for as the above might indicate and for junior people who I don't know as well, I will ask them to share interim outputs and discuss them with me on a daily or so basis.
I will say that since I'm a management consultant and my team are as well, these are all people who have been pre-selected for drive so they're not so likely to slack even if they could. Also, since all our work is project based and priced for clients, I am constantly doing estimates of what certain tasks should take and am heavily incentivised to learn from mistakes and do those correctly. That may not be the case in a non-project environment where people may have more loosely defined ongoing roles.
posted by atrazine at 4:39 AM on May 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
I guess, but I have a pretty good idea of what a person at a certain grade should be able to do. I'm not really as easy to work for as the above might indicate and for junior people who I don't know as well, I will ask them to share interim outputs and discuss them with me on a daily or so basis.
I will say that since I'm a management consultant and my team are as well, these are all people who have been pre-selected for drive so they're not so likely to slack even if they could. Also, since all our work is project based and priced for clients, I am constantly doing estimates of what certain tasks should take and am heavily incentivised to learn from mistakes and do those correctly. That may not be the case in a non-project environment where people may have more loosely defined ongoing roles.
posted by atrazine at 4:39 AM on May 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
In 1930, Keynes predicted we would be working 15-hour weeks. Why was he so wrong?
I don't think the answer to this can just be about distribution of the fruits of labour. 1930 was also an extremely unequal time so it's not like capitalism would have taken him by surprise.
A few factors:
1) The tendency for land rent to soak up economic gains.
2) The Baumol effect which has led to non-mass-producible services becoming ever more expensive in relative terms
3) High propensity to consume additional income as things other than leisure. If you want to live a 1930s working class English lifestyle, it wouldn't cost that much (except for point 1 driving your rent/mortgage up). Multigenerational living, children always sharing rooms at the very least with each other, cheap staple foods and no restaurants and takeaways, walking to work. Obviously our whole society is wildly different, so individuals can't really do this but if we wanted to live like this as a society it could be done.
4) All but the worst paid jobs are typically not available on a pro-rated 15-hour a week basis. So you cannot individually choose to do get a well paying job but not work as many days. Even the self employed can usually only choose to work in bursts rather than only on Mondays and Tuesdays.
In a way, the central insight behind the online community of extreme early retirement people is just that. Get a well paying job but become comfortable with a much less expensive lifestyle permanently. The difference is that because of point 4 they have to consume their additional leisure as early retirement rather than by working fewer hours a week.
posted by atrazine at 4:55 AM on May 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
I don't think the answer to this can just be about distribution of the fruits of labour. 1930 was also an extremely unequal time so it's not like capitalism would have taken him by surprise.
A few factors:
1) The tendency for land rent to soak up economic gains.
2) The Baumol effect which has led to non-mass-producible services becoming ever more expensive in relative terms
3) High propensity to consume additional income as things other than leisure. If you want to live a 1930s working class English lifestyle, it wouldn't cost that much (except for point 1 driving your rent/mortgage up). Multigenerational living, children always sharing rooms at the very least with each other, cheap staple foods and no restaurants and takeaways, walking to work. Obviously our whole society is wildly different, so individuals can't really do this but if we wanted to live like this as a society it could be done.
4) All but the worst paid jobs are typically not available on a pro-rated 15-hour a week basis. So you cannot individually choose to do get a well paying job but not work as many days. Even the self employed can usually only choose to work in bursts rather than only on Mondays and Tuesdays.
In a way, the central insight behind the online community of extreme early retirement people is just that. Get a well paying job but become comfortable with a much less expensive lifestyle permanently. The difference is that because of point 4 they have to consume their additional leisure as early retirement rather than by working fewer hours a week.
posted by atrazine at 4:55 AM on May 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
Then you see them claiming "work from home" for weeks at a time with zero output
I co-founded a company six years ago, and technically I'm a "manager" - but I always tell my people that "managing" means it's my job to take care of the shit that's in the way of you doing your job.
If somebody had zero output for weeks, that person has "shit" he needs help taking care of, and THAT's my job...
posted by DreamerFi at 5:03 AM on May 7, 2020 [12 favorites]
I co-founded a company six years ago, and technically I'm a "manager" - but I always tell my people that "managing" means it's my job to take care of the shit that's in the way of you doing your job.
If somebody had zero output for weeks, that person has "shit" he needs help taking care of, and THAT's my job...
posted by DreamerFi at 5:03 AM on May 7, 2020 [12 favorites]
I’m not even half way down the comments and I’m going to run out of favourites. Thanks everyone. Really, this is super helpful for me.
posted by bumpkin at 6:31 AM on May 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by bumpkin at 6:31 AM on May 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
It seems like "management" is a field very much like "economics" - there's very little science in it, and a lot of people with opinions with no data to back it up.
Management is like social media. Most of the people in it shouldn't be allowed anywhere near it.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 6:45 AM on May 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Management is like social media. Most of the people in it shouldn't be allowed anywhere near it.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 6:45 AM on May 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
most days it's just a casual check-in, usually some light socializing and joking around, and then on with the rest of the day. Sometimes it turns into interesting technical discussions, but those are usually time-boxed to keep the meetings short.
YMMV.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 6:53 AM on May 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
YMMV.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 6:53 AM on May 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
It's not that hard. Assign people tasks, check that they have completed them correctly, give feedback.
In other words, most managers can be replaced with a Scrum board.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:56 AM on May 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
In other words, most managers can be replaced with a Scrum board.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:56 AM on May 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
Only if you think "giving feedback" is a simple thing. It is very much not.
posted by emjaybee at 7:43 AM on May 7, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 7:43 AM on May 7, 2020 [6 favorites]
> In other words, most managers can be replaced with a Scrum board.
Only if we're talking about robots, not people. A good manager does much more than monitor employee output. It's about creating a positive, inclusive, and elevating culture.
Maybe a good analogy would be tending a garden. Personally, I want to provide my employees with all the nutrients, sunlight, water, etc they require to flourish. The best part of my job is watching people grow and be successful.
Sometimes only a light touch is necessary, other times you have to get in there and do some weeding and pruning. Every person is a little different and as a manager, that's crucial to recognize. It also takes an effort to know your employees. You have to actually care about who they are and what they do.
Draconian, ham-fisted policies as described above are the result of disconnected, uncaring management. Management that for one reason or another, refuses to recognize their employees as people. And so you get these heavy-handed, blanket policies tailored to the worst expectations of clueless managers.
So, in a way, I guess you're right. That kind of manager probably could be replaced by a scrum board. A similar argument for replacement could be made for any person completely failing in their role.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 7:56 AM on May 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
Only if we're talking about robots, not people. A good manager does much more than monitor employee output. It's about creating a positive, inclusive, and elevating culture.
Maybe a good analogy would be tending a garden. Personally, I want to provide my employees with all the nutrients, sunlight, water, etc they require to flourish. The best part of my job is watching people grow and be successful.
Sometimes only a light touch is necessary, other times you have to get in there and do some weeding and pruning. Every person is a little different and as a manager, that's crucial to recognize. It also takes an effort to know your employees. You have to actually care about who they are and what they do.
Draconian, ham-fisted policies as described above are the result of disconnected, uncaring management. Management that for one reason or another, refuses to recognize their employees as people. And so you get these heavy-handed, blanket policies tailored to the worst expectations of clueless managers.
So, in a way, I guess you're right. That kind of manager probably could be replaced by a scrum board. A similar argument for replacement could be made for any person completely failing in their role.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 7:56 AM on May 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
In the short term, I don't either. But I DO need to have an answer to why I'm paying eleven people who are spending much of the time wanking, watching prestige television, or reading during the day if I could be just as effective with four people working for 8 hours.
Depending on the nature of the work, four people working for 8 hours really can't do the same amount of work as 11 people working for 2 hours each. Even for widget making, you might find that fatigue sets in at, say, 4 hours - so that people really produce much less in the second four hours. I know that I have cognitively demanding work that I can do for really only about 2-4 hours a day, and the rest of the time I do less cognitively demanding work (administration, responding to emails, etc.)
This is why companies find that their employees are just as productive in ~25-30 hours per week as in ~35-40: people are less productive per hour the less you expect them to work. (Though this is probably a sweet-spot thing - there are some tasks where I need a certain amount of time to get going, and so I'm more productive in 4 hour blocks than in 1 hour - but for others, I can do about 1-2 hours, and that's it for the day for that particular task.)
posted by jb at 9:16 AM on May 7, 2020 [12 favorites]
Depending on the nature of the work, four people working for 8 hours really can't do the same amount of work as 11 people working for 2 hours each. Even for widget making, you might find that fatigue sets in at, say, 4 hours - so that people really produce much less in the second four hours. I know that I have cognitively demanding work that I can do for really only about 2-4 hours a day, and the rest of the time I do less cognitively demanding work (administration, responding to emails, etc.)
This is why companies find that their employees are just as productive in ~25-30 hours per week as in ~35-40: people are less productive per hour the less you expect them to work. (Though this is probably a sweet-spot thing - there are some tasks where I need a certain amount of time to get going, and so I'm more productive in 4 hour blocks than in 1 hour - but for others, I can do about 1-2 hours, and that's it for the day for that particular task.)
posted by jb at 9:16 AM on May 7, 2020 [12 favorites]
In other words, most managers can be replaced with a Scrum board.
Now, now that isn't true. Scrum boards are rarely actively harmful...
The hardest part is giving effective feedback. Any chump can say "this is bad". It can take time to figure out why something isn't right and to assemble the resources needed to teach the right way. In many cases, errors in anything others than menial tasks require understanding of why they were wrong, what might happen if we do it that way, occasions when it might actually be the right way, explanation of how certain we are that it actually is wrong (otherwise you presume managerial infallibility), ideally an example of a similar problem solved otherwise.
What I found hardest in the transition is the natural human tendency to regress to strength. People are often made managers because of competence in an execution task and the natural first instinct is then to just do it yourself. That leads to extremely stressed 1st and 2nd level managers (because they take too many tasks onto themselves to execute personally) who are never able to progress further because they hit the wall of how much they can brute force and just do themselves. It took me a few years to allow people to do things in an acceptable but non-perfect way rather than just do it my own way.
posted by atrazine at 5:19 AM on May 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
Now, now that isn't true. Scrum boards are rarely actively harmful...
The hardest part is giving effective feedback. Any chump can say "this is bad". It can take time to figure out why something isn't right and to assemble the resources needed to teach the right way. In many cases, errors in anything others than menial tasks require understanding of why they were wrong, what might happen if we do it that way, occasions when it might actually be the right way, explanation of how certain we are that it actually is wrong (otherwise you presume managerial infallibility), ideally an example of a similar problem solved otherwise.
What I found hardest in the transition is the natural human tendency to regress to strength. People are often made managers because of competence in an execution task and the natural first instinct is then to just do it yourself. That leads to extremely stressed 1st and 2nd level managers (because they take too many tasks onto themselves to execute personally) who are never able to progress further because they hit the wall of how much they can brute force and just do themselves. It took me a few years to allow people to do things in an acceptable but non-perfect way rather than just do it my own way.
posted by atrazine at 5:19 AM on May 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
My roommate's end-of-day call took an unusual turn yesterday - two people started squabbling back and forth about midway through about a particular software process, and it ended up delaying the meeting an additional 30 minutes, with most participants being trapped listening to a pair of people discussing something that impacted none of the rest of them.
However, it was also just long enough for my roommate to set something up - someone had made reference to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles earlier in the call, so while he was waiting for the squabble to finish, he hopped into his email and asked his mother to send him something - so when it finally was his turn, he was able to cheer everyone up with "remember we were talking about TMNT before? Here's a picture of me at age eight dressed up as Donatello for Halloween."
Somehow it feels like that encapsulates both the good, and the bad, of remote zoom conferences.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:48 AM on May 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
However, it was also just long enough for my roommate to set something up - someone had made reference to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles earlier in the call, so while he was waiting for the squabble to finish, he hopped into his email and asked his mother to send him something - so when it finally was his turn, he was able to cheer everyone up with "remember we were talking about TMNT before? Here's a picture of me at age eight dressed up as Donatello for Halloween."
Somehow it feels like that encapsulates both the good, and the bad, of remote zoom conferences.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:48 AM on May 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
Donatello was the best, except for Raphael.
posted by jb at 8:31 AM on May 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by jb at 8:31 AM on May 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
I work in the communications hub for a hospital. Everything I do is from a phone/computer. We are not allowed to work from home. Up until recently there were some small micromanaging problems, but they were manageable. We've recently come under new management. He's the kind of person who thinks we should arrive early to work to complete necessary and required tasks before the start of our shift, so that way we're ready to take pages or calls at the start of our shift. I, adamantly, am morally opposed to this. If you're aware of all our job entails, and you need us to complete tasks XYZ before $o'clock, schedule me before that time. I don't see this ending well.
I just finished a 9 day run, before having just 1 day off.
Last week he left his desk, walked down the hall, and came into my work area to tell me I was late back from break. By the time all that transpired, it had come to me being 49 seconds late.
posted by FirstMateKate at 9:48 AM on May 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
I just finished a 9 day run, before having just 1 day off.
Last week he left his desk, walked down the hall, and came into my work area to tell me I was late back from break. By the time all that transpired, it had come to me being 49 seconds late.
posted by FirstMateKate at 9:48 AM on May 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
I've had jobs like that, want you to do a bunch of bullshit before you are actually clocked it. Luckily I was the store manager at the last one, so I just left early and screwed with the punch system. If I'm only being paid for 8 hours of work, I'm only going to work 8 hours.
posted by Iax at 11:25 PM on May 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Iax at 11:25 PM on May 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
‘I was told I could never work remotely’: Before coronavirus, workers with disabilities say they implored employers to allow them to work from home
As many businesses across the U.S. have cobbled together work-from-home programs to comply with COVID-19 social-distancing measures, some workers with disabilities wonder why they were told for so long that they couldn’t work remotely to accommodate their disability — and now hope that this moment could be a turning point that makes telework options more widely available...
"I think this is a great middle finger to the excuse of, ‘We just don’t have the technology to do remote work.’"
posted by mediareport at 7:41 AM on May 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
As many businesses across the U.S. have cobbled together work-from-home programs to comply with COVID-19 social-distancing measures, some workers with disabilities wonder why they were told for so long that they couldn’t work remotely to accommodate their disability — and now hope that this moment could be a turning point that makes telework options more widely available...
"I think this is a great middle finger to the excuse of, ‘We just don’t have the technology to do remote work.’"
posted by mediareport at 7:41 AM on May 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Fortune interview with the CEO of Nationwide, who says work from home is going so well that they're planning to make it permanent by closing most of the insurance company's physical offices:
The shift took place fast—in early March, the privately held insurer (#75 on the 2019 Fortune 500) moved 98%+ of its 27,000 employees to working from home over five business days...But overall, once the tech issues were ironed out, there was a surprising finding: "We've tracked all of our key performance indicators, and there has been no change," says Walker, who joined as CEO in 2019. "We keep hearing from members, 'if you hadn't announced you were all working from home, we never would have known.'"
So Nationwide plans to shrink from 20 physical offices pre-crisis, to just four.
posted by mediareport at 8:22 AM on May 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
The shift took place fast—in early March, the privately held insurer (#75 on the 2019 Fortune 500) moved 98%+ of its 27,000 employees to working from home over five business days...But overall, once the tech issues were ironed out, there was a surprising finding: "We've tracked all of our key performance indicators, and there has been no change," says Walker, who joined as CEO in 2019. "We keep hearing from members, 'if you hadn't announced you were all working from home, we never would have known.'"
So Nationwide plans to shrink from 20 physical offices pre-crisis, to just four.
posted by mediareport at 8:22 AM on May 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Another alternative to Zoom:
One team discovered that everyone had been playing Red Dead Redemption on their own, and decided to hold their team meetings as a campfire session in the game instead. A couple caveats she's identified - "sitting down on the ground is the same button as attempting to strangle the nearest person" and "Cripps keeps playing the mouth harp and you can't shoot him". Another person pointed out that her team could also use Discord, and she responded, "Oh, we are, but.....cowboys!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:20 AM on May 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
One team discovered that everyone had been playing Red Dead Redemption on their own, and decided to hold their team meetings as a campfire session in the game instead. A couple caveats she's identified - "sitting down on the ground is the same button as attempting to strangle the nearest person" and "Cripps keeps playing the mouth harp and you can't shoot him". Another person pointed out that her team could also use Discord, and she responded, "Oh, we are, but.....cowboys!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:20 AM on May 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
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