High Volume Surfers under attack!

I work for a large university doing a lot of “information” work, as David Allen would classify it. That means my productivity comes in fits and starts, often. Sometimes I take my work home and do it during the evenings or on weekends–all uncompensated, of course. If I didn’t have to show my face at work when I had nothing to do, I wouldn’t mind so much.

However, I work in an environment that has the classic conveyor belt factory work structure of 40 hours with management being able to see your face. I thought as long as I was completing tasks well and going above and beyond expectations, as I normally do, I was okay. Seems now the university wants to police my in-office down time as well (and yes, I have plenty of it, as most people who do my kind of work will admit in private). So, being someone who uses the internet a lot at work for purely non-work related purposes, this notice in my inbox today caused me great pain.

Within the next several weeks (BIG BROTHER UNIVERSITY) will be putting into production a program called Surf Control.

This program will immediately block access to a large number of internet sites considered non-business related, such as:

Gamboling Sites (ed. note: Is that really what he meant to say? I think he meant gambling…)
Pornographic Sites
Streaming music sites

In addition the software will give (BIG BROTHER UNIVERSITY) the ability to monitor and report on the surfing habits of its staff. It will be providing reports to administration on the sites which are being accessed by users and highlight users who are high volume surfers.

This software is being put in place because (BIG BROTHER UNIVERSITY) has a limited amount of bandwidth available to support its clinical and business processes. The use of bandwidth for non-business activities is hampering business and clinical processes from being done. To resolve this issue the University will be monitoring the use of the internet and will consider adding other non-business sites to the blocked list as we go forward. This decision will be made by an appropriate non-IS group of (BBU) staff. In addition there will be a process for requesting access to a blocked site for business related reasons.

This is just a heads up to let you know that this is coming. Once it is instituted you will receive additional information from the University and from me.

Name Withheld

Director, BBU Information Services

How do we create work environments that are demoralizing to staff? Well, insist that they sit in uncomfortable work spaces, even when their work is finished and deny them access to tools that they could be using for personal gain. Implement policies such as this that send the message, “We know you wasteful parasites are sucking our bandwidth! We’re going to hunt you down like the slugs you are and write you up!”

Do I think we have a big porn and gambling problem? Of course not. Maybe there really is a bandwidth issue and we need to stop streaming music and video (two things I never personally do at work anyway). So then, why not just send out a notice asking employees to stop doing that and see if it improves before going to this step? If they’d given the employees a chance to be responsive, a measure like this wouldn’t seem like such a slap in the face.

In any case, it’s all proof that I need to step up my efforts to convince my boss to let me work remotely. And that will be my next challenge. You can follow it here in the coming weeks and months.