The Dark Ages
If you are reading this at work, then you work for one of the employers that sees the value of allowing their workers to have full access to the Internet. Or it doesn't have the resources to stop you.
In today's Business Today section, the story Young workers pushing bosses for more Web access explains the situation.
Ryan Tracy thought he’d entered the Dark Ages when he graduated college and arrived in the working world.
His employer blocked access to Facebook, Gmail and other popular Internet sites. He had no wireless access for his laptop and often ran to a nearby cafe on work time so he could use its Wi- Fi connection to send large files.
Sure, the barriers did what his employer intended: They stopped him and his colleagues from using work time to goof around online. But Tracy says the rules also got in the way of legitimate work he needed to do as a scientific analyst for a health care services company.
Related article reminds us how employers may be monitoring your at-work Internet and e-mail use, even cell phone use if you have a company phone.
-- George Pyle/The Buffalo News
Technology cuts both ways. Workers can be better informed and research, or they can goof off.
The story above tells me about this area, having put hard time in for years.
It is the Dark Ages here, by-and-large. The old command-and-control management syndrome is heavily in place.
Ryan Tracy is just finding out.
Personnel management has become a subset of some accounting know-nothing, who views human assets the same as desks, copiers, and wastebaskets.
The Google-type environment scares them to death, which economcially is where they are heading.
Humans can be managed, trusted, and work well. When a control freak isn't in charge. These nearly sub-human sociopaths seem to be given large sway in many organizations, stomping out creativity and getting rid of possibel challengers.
That falls on to the CEO.
Another breed now on a short leash. Because Boards are deficient and dysfunctional.
General Motors is the current poster boy of how it all happened. The good thing about 1) being young and able to move around; and 2) being older and having made it, is that there is still a world of opportunities through, guess what, Technology. It might be Yahoo! for some here (doubtful), but it could even be the New York Stock Exchange with new leadership.
Message to executives: your human assets are the most valuable, even priceless, to success. The desks and wastebaskets stay put. The best humans walk out the door.
Posted by: Hank | July 13, 2009 at 11:58 AM
it is nice some employers are getting to the 20th century. Soon they may hit the 21st .
It is alright for the boss to send you an e-mail after working hours or call you after working hours or on the week-ends to clarify something .
It is the same as having a coffee break, standing around the water cooler, or wherever.
Posted by: marshalld | July 13, 2009 at 02:03 PM
Must have spent a long time in the dark ages because it was 2001 before I had the internet at work. But really it is a reflection of the culture, some places treat people like indentured servants where others treat them like adults, but the employees also have to accept being adults and some can't take that responsibility either.
Posted by: Mark | July 13, 2009 at 04:00 PM
Facebook and other social networking sites are just a digital watercooler.
People waste just as much time talking, smoking, coffee, reading the paper, etc.
Posted by: Jack | July 13, 2009 at 10:03 PM
LOL Facebook...
Posted by: Buffalo Brownfields | July 14, 2009 at 07:53 AM
For the technology callenged,
Facebook is the growing and thriving alter-community that is leaving even the Twitter fad behind. It is not just a watercooler.
The smartest people at Davos are using it daily and hourly. Those are the ones still making money. Check the Goldman Sachs quarterly earnings reports. Those corporate profits are of a different magnitude than the corporate Dark Ages management's here.
Listen to Duncan Niederauer, CEI of NYSE Euronext. "The world isn't just changing, it's exchanging."
Thsoe in the Dark Ages can't be counselled, and therefor can't be helped.
http://www.nyse.com/about/newsevents/1245751791495.html?sa_campaign=/internal_ads/callouts/07122009currency
Posted by: Hank | July 15, 2009 at 01:44 PM