
Bosses panic-buy spy software to keep tabs on remote workers - chatmasta
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-03-27/bosses-panic-buy-spy-software-to-keep-tabs-on-remote-workers
======
sbarre
This happened to me years ago. I was put in an empty office at the opposite
end from my boss, and because he couldn't walk up behind me to see me working,
he secretly installed a program on my computer that took a screenshot every 30
seconds (or so?).

I quickly noticed that my computer was hitching regularly (when the screenshot
was taken - this was in the late 90s BTW), and so investigated my computer on
a day when he wasn't in the office.

After finding what looked like malware on my computer, I checked with other
colleagues - and the other owner - and no one had any idea what it was.

So we put the office network on lockdown, halted everything and started the
process of rotating all our passwords and scanning every computer in the
office looking for signs of intrusion, etc..

We lost a solid day of productivity for everyone, and when we finally reached
the other boss, he owned up to what he had done, and the other owner - who had
spent the day in a panic - wasn't thrilled about it to say the least.

The irony was that I was probably the most productive person in that office
(in my humble opinion).

~~~
qwerty456127
> because he couldn't walk up behind me to see me working, he secretly
> installed a program on my computer that took a screenshot every 30 seconds

> The irony was that I was probably the most productive person in that office
> (in my humble opinion).

The easiest and the most efficient way to ruin my productivity is to look at
my screen. I can't work (nor can I pee - a funny coincidence, that's called
"paruresis") when somebody is watching.

~~~
jlarocco
Off topic, but related to this...

I had, what I felt, was the best seat in the office at my previous job. We had
an open office with short cubicles and standing desks, and the cubicles were
arranged so that two people shared a small area with two desks/cabinets/etc.

For a while, it was wonderful. My "cube-mate" worked from home 4 days a week
and only came in for meetings, and we had a window on one side and an empty
desk on the other. It was about as great as an open office can be.

And then my manager moved into the cube nextdoor, and arranged his desk so
that when he stood at his standing desk (which was most of the time), he was
looking directly over the cube wall at me and my monitors. It made me very
self-concsious and uncomfortable, and was (a small) part of the reason I left,
TBH.

~~~
nepthar
You know, I've always wondered why there are so many stories about these
middle management types who seem to pay so close attention to things that are
_not_ employee productivity. I guess on first glance, it may appear that
"looking busy" corrates to "getting stuff done", but why not cut out the
middle man and pay attention to what the employee actually does?

~~~
godelski
I'll give you a potential corollary. Quality control.

In a perfect world, quality control twiddles their thumbs all day, does some
tests, and collects a paycheck because everything is perfect the first time.

In practice, I know engineers who leave in tiny and easy to fix mistakes for
QC to catch. They do this because if they turn in something with no errors QC
finds something for them to add, frequently requiring larger changes and thus
creating a crunch. QC does this because they have someone breathing down their
neck who measures their effectiveness by how many errors they caught. I'll
refer you to Goodhart's Law[0].

I'll also note that I see this as a common "tip" for paper submissions. But
I'm not sure it is as strong of a correlation as when passing things through
QC.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law)

~~~
jakub_g
Related: "Just remove the duck"

[https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2013/06/05/duck/](https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2013/06/05/duck/)

------
lmilcin
Two sides of the story.

One: people that are doing this are likely to have already been bad bosses. I
don't think this changes anything.

Two: I work for a large bank. My director, on a town hall, told us they do
understand that not everybody will be able to focus on the job as before and
that they expect us to spend less time actually working and be unavailable
more often. Then he _URGED_ us to actually do so. To take time off, to deal
with family problems first. He wanted us to know it is ok and that they will
allow it without deducting pay so that we don't have to worry about our
salaries.

I am pretty sure there will be people that will abuse this. You know what?
People who do this probably have already been bad employees so not much is
lost. Most people I know to be good employees feel very happy about this as a
convenient option and do whatever they can to use it as little as possible. I
see this as an investment that is most likely return in other ways, employee
happiness, retention, engagement from the staff you really want engaged.

~~~
cortesoft
Yeah, I think bosses who freak out about people not being productive while
working from home underestimate how much people can avoid being productive
while physically at work.

~~~
lmilcin
Exactly. Wrong mental model. Your best bet is to hire/make/keep people
interested in being productive. When this is lost there isn't going much you
can do to improve productivity. Keeping employee chained to their desks will
not magically make things get done. This is so naive. I wonder how humanity
landed in the situation where half of all managers don't get the first thing
about managing people.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Given the panic-buy, I'm sure you're right about most people thinking this
will keep people productive.

I've wanted something like this before, though, when I got some bad people on
my team who weren't worth what they were getting paid and were sometimes a net
negative on the team. We couldn't fire them because everything was at least
somewhat subjective and HR and my own boss wanted a solid case. Oh they didn't
get anything done? That's subjective - maybe the assigned tasks were harder
than we thought. We need more evidence. Oh they were on Facebook most of the
time when I walked into their office? Maybe it was a coincidence. We need more
evidence.

I feel like, "look - here are screenshots from every 30 seconds and they
really spent 90% of their day farting around on dumb websites", would have
ended that far more efficiently than how we eventually got rid of them. It's
less about prevention, and more about a way to fix the problem when people
already aren't productive.

This is ripe for abuse by bosses - but at least part of that is because of bad
employees too.

~~~
lmilcin
I feel for any person that has to deal with this type of employee. It is very
demoralizing to give responsibilities you know are not going to be handled
well (but you still have to do this), it is also very demoralizing to the rest
of the team to observe this unfairness go unpunished.

Still, I would focus my efforts on the productive part of the team. Making
them feel safe and appreciated seems to be more worth than spying on the ones
that drag the team down. People do observe how you treat team members with
"problems" and will see that your measured response means they can feel safe.
Safety I find to be prerequisite to healthy work atmosphere.

------
Loughla
My institution tried to implement "productivity" software during the shutdown.
I, and one other director, were the sole voices of reason, saying "this is a
waste of money and time when we're busy enough as it is".

We apparently were persuasive, they cancelled that buy. Then, once we were
out, executive leadership tried to implement a 'task tracking' timesheet to be
filled out by every employee.

I took a HUGE chance on my career. I e-mailed all leadership and the board,
explaining that implementing this was needless busy work. If we were working
remotely, and the expectations were that the same things were getting done,
implementing something like this and NOT when we were physically present would
just prove that 'management' at our institution meant control of people's
lives.

We're higher education, and everyone is slightly anti-establishment in some
fashion. This put the hair up on everyone's neck. One hellstorm of an e-mail
thread later, and they killed that form, too.

Management just needs to realize that people fuck around at work. It is not
important whether that is at physical work, or remote. It will happen. What is
important is that you evaluate the work done, and, unless you're working on
billable hours, evaluate whether there are more efficient ways to do business.
If you enter those conversations honestly, then your people will have just
enough time to fuck around, while still being super productive.

Being human is part of work. Fucking around with the people you spend a lot of
time with is part of being human.

------
code4tee
We had a bad manager at my last company who really wanted to do this sort of
thing.

I said to him “So this is an interesting proposal... if we install this
software then I can save on management costs by replacing your position with
this spyware?” He never brought it up again and we later just got rid of him
completely.

Micromanagement and this sort of spying rarely builds high performing teams.
Managing worker productivity is one thing but blatant spying is a sign of much
deeper problems with a company and its management.

I’ve generally found a fairly strong inverse correlation between how good a
manager is and the amount of paranoia they have on their teams not doing what
they should. Good managers build great teams and then trust them.

~~~
readme
micromanagement is life support for low performers

~~~
ben_w
For those doing it or for those receiving it?

~~~
jgust
yes

------
mc32
Two things:

Productivity is going to plunge no matter what, with the possible exception of
singles who don’t have roommates. There is no way that during an ad hoc and
unorganized push to work remote (though necessary in this circumstance) can
result in good productivity, monitoring or not. Under the best of
circumstances it would take months for a mass of people to adjust and be
productive.

The apex for open office design was reached and we’ll go back to something
more normal. It’s funny people derided “cubicle farms” but we’re more or less
okay being in a “bullpen” like setting cuz it was sold as being counter
cultural and cool.

~~~
spamizbad
I'm surprised cubicles get so much hate. I loved mine at my first job. Oodles
of desk space. Locking drawers and cabinets. There was a chair in the corner
so a guest could sit. Made it easy to have 2 meetings without disturbing
people.

less aesthetically pleasing in office photographs, but overall a much better
work environment than any open plan I've experienced.

~~~
sbarre
I think it depends on the nature of your job. If you regularly need to
interact verbally with colleagues, cubes are kind of a pain.

I forget where I saw this but there was a company that had set up what were
basically "team offices" so teams that worked closely together each had their
own closed room where they worked, so they could collaborate in their own
manner.

Quiet when they needed it, loud when they needed it, and on their own
schedule.

That seems like a good middle.

~~~
myu701
I had a setup like this. The IT Office which was its own room, then had 4 of
those L cubicles in it.

If you're reading this and you have this setup - don't take the bait to move
to the newly remodeled building - it's a trap!

------
zer00eyz
I have moved from "solutions architect" to "WFH consultant" at the behest of
my clients.

The problem I am seeing is that many managers have NO idea how their employees
actually work. If you take your average MacDonalds manager they can (mostly)
work every station in the joint and then know how to do MORE things. Your
average corporate middle manager has NO idea what their staff does or how.

To be quite honest, most of these middle managers are not only at a loss as to
what they should be doing but are also dealing with the isolation far worse
than "staff". I have come to realize that a lot of their time was spent on
social aspects of the workplace and they have been removed.

I have one client who wants to snapshot staff at their computers, and another
who is ready to cut middle management fat... we live in interesting times.

~~~
aidenn0
> To be quite honest, most of these middle managers are not only at a loss as
> to what they should be doing but are also dealing with the isolation far
> worse than "staff". I have come to realize that a lot of their time was
> spent on social aspects of the workplace and they have been removed.

I know exactly the affect you are describing but it just seems so backwards to
me because this is the point at which the social aspects of work become more
important. Coworkers aren't going to be informally communicating the way they
used to so managers have way more "social" work to do.

------
playeren
As someone who has recently seen a lot of freelance work as a "Remote Coach"
for companies who aren't used to remote teams, I have the following
observation: If you have trouble managing remote teams, you're likely not
great at managing teams in general.

The largest part of my calls were not about remote specific topics, but rather
general management topics like result-oriented management vs time management
and how trust and alignment is foundational for motivation.

Not surprising in hindsight, but due to selection bias from working remotely
for many years now, I'm used to companies who don't require spyware to get
results from their team, and was quite taken aback at first.

------
balls187
This may be hard for those of us in tech to comprehend; not everyone can
function without having a boss to keep them 100% accountable.

In 2004, I worked for a startup and we had beer in the fridge. We'd have an
occasional afternoon where we would grab them. No big deal.

Most startups I worked at embraced a similar attitude.

Finally I worked for a company that went a step further and had beer on tap,
but had rules, no beer until 5p M-Th, and 4p Friday.

It was foreign to me, but understood that in other divisions, the types of
employees (like inside sales) were essentially entry-level roles.

Many of us in industry are used to flex hours, and the ability to remotely
(including WFH), that we forget that for many others, it's novel. Seeing
"asses in chairs" was a proxy for diagnosing productivity deficiencies, and
bosses thrust into this new paradigm of working haven't necessarily picked up
the skill sets to effectively manage remote teams.

~~~
Loughla
I've read this comment like 10 times in the last hour. I get what you're
saying, but it misses the point, I think.

>entry-level roles.

>used to flex hours, and the ability to remotely (including WFH), that we
forget that for many others, it's novel.

That's the point of management and leadership. You take new people and make
sure they have what they need to get the job done. For most people, that 'what
they need' is a literal statement of "I know you have access to beer, and I
know you just graduated college, but don't get hammered on company time" or "I
know you're 22, but flex hours means your work still gets done".

If you don't say it out loud, and assume people will pick it up via osmosis,
you're a bad leader.

>bosses thrust into this new paradigm of working haven't necessarily picked up
the skill sets to effectively manage remote

As someone who has never worked remotely, and manages a team very much focused
on human interaction (higher ed), and who is now 100% remote, I need to know
what you mean by this. Other than needing to automatically over-communicate
everything (by my definition), how is remote different than in-person?

~~~
balls187
> If you don't say it out loud, and assume people will pick it up via osmosis,
> you're a bad leader.

To some extent, I agree, though it largely depends on the role. Setting
expectations clearly is important as a leader, as is providing clear, timely
feedback when expectations aren't met.

In college, it's a wake up call to students, because professors do not provide
followup the way grade school teachers do. You are given your work and
expected to turn it in.

For engineers, it's largely as you said--you're an adult. Act like an adult.
If you're getting hammered on company time, we'll have a discussion about it,
and why it's happening.

On the flip-side, I had a house-hold employee who dressed completely
inappropriately for her job. I wrote her up about it and sent her information
(guidelines) around appropriate dress code for her role.

> How is remote different than in-person?

Physical presence can correlate with productivity. That may be the sole signal
that triggers a boss to look at actual productivity metrics.

There are other approximations, such as responsiveness to communications
(email, slack etc) as well.

But I posit the leaders who are spying on employees have trained their
intuition to be based on physical presence. Without that, they're scared.

I follow the model that the team owns their deliverables, and delivery dates,
with input from me. I advocate shorter deliverables or checkpoints to uncover
issues with estimates sooner, but ultimately leave it up to the team to
execute. If something isn't delivered on time, I as a leader address the
underlying causes.

My philosophy as a boss is "You have a lot of flexibility. Just get your work
done when you say you will." And not everyone has the maturity to work in such
an environment.

I hope that explains my feelings more clearly.

------
ChuckMcM
I found this article pretty funny, but not in the way intended.

Here is a tip for managers (new and experienced out there): If you can't tell
by their _work product_ if your people are working or not, then you have a
much bigger problem than what they are doing on their computer when you aren't
looking.

My experience as a new manager was pretty chaotic. I knew it was my job to
lead my team to get something done but between telling them to get something
done, and it being done, how could I know that they were working on it? It
drove me nuts for a while so I asked a friend who had been a manager for while
what they did and the answer surprised me in its simplicity, it was "How much
time do you give people to do something, and did they do it?"

The secret was having something that was unambiguously measurable as "done"
and establishing that expectation at the beginning. These days I'll say to the
team "When we are done, these things will be true ..." and list off the set of
things we can say are true to indicate completion. I'll also note them in my
notebook so that I can track them over time.

The whole team knows what the exit criteria are so everyone knows if we're
done or not. Once you get to know your team better you can add incentive
things, so that conversation would sound more like, "The minimum we have to do
to insure this is done are x, y, and z. If we can also do p, q, or r it will
have this additional positive effect."

It also means I can go to a team member at a 1:1 and say, "Ok, I'd like you to
take x, what needs to be true for you to be able to say that x is true?" Which
encourages them to break up the problem into smaller bits.

If you have weekly 1:1s with people then you can check in on the status of
their smaller bits, toward making the larger bits true. You always know who is
doing work and who is under performing or needs help.

For more service type teams (like IT or SRE) you measure things like "our
backlog has not grown over the last 30 days" or "the median time to resolve
tickets is less than 24 hrs" etc. The key is you can measure it, and the
measurement is not subjective.

Managers who need "spyware" to figure out if there folks are working or not
need to be replaced with managers who know how to manage.

------
redm
Upwork has a system to automatically capture screenshots while a user is on
the "clock". While we never request this functionality, some people enable it.
I found it interesting to browse, however, I found it distracts from the
ultimate goal, work product. It can also breed distrust, i.e. instead of
looking at what your co-workers/team gets done, you start asking questions
like, why is this person doing that. My point is, it's counterproductive.

What we found was very product was goal setting and work product review at
regular intervals. I.e. once a week evaluate the code quality and velocity of
work. What we found was if it's good, it's almost always good, and if it's
bad, its bad from the start and doesn't really improve.

------
sheeshkebab
“ Frost declined to comment on whether Garrabrants, one of America’s top-paid
bank CEOs in 2018, is subject to the same monitoring when he works from home.”

Tells it all pretty much...

~~~
karatestomp
A lot of “very important” employee-control bullshit suddenly doesn’t matter
when the person in question is in a C-level or board position. See also: piss
tests, limits on doing other work while with an employer. Very important
you’re sober as a judge and giving your company your undivided productive
output—unless you’re CEO, then, a weekend habit or two and you’re involved
with four companies at once in some capacity? Sure, go nuts.

~~~
rodgerd
Anyone who hasn't read "Bullshit Jobs" really should. It's a book for the
times.

------
readme
PSA for businesses: how about instead of spying on the deadweight you fire
them and reward the productive employees.

There are tons of work from home employees (who normally work from home) who
are 10x more productive than the in-office ones, because they realize the
value of what they have.

It's too bad most people will only work when you're looking over their
shoulder, but lets not keep that on life-support with spyware. Let it die and
usher in a time when people actually take the initiative to do their work.

~~~
asveikau
I think deciding which human being to label as "dead weight" and overfocus on
that question is on the same path to paranoia as thinking you need to monitor
them all closely.

How many times have you seen contributing employees who are not understood by
their bosses mislabelled as "dead weight"? I think it happens pretty often,
especially in performance-review-obsessed cultures.

~~~
readme
>contributing employees who are not understood by their bosses

Indeed, this is a problem too. In that case I'd point the finger at the boss
who can't recognize what is and isn't a valuable contribution.

None of this is 100% exact science, but have you worked with someone who did
_nothing_ but somehow kept their job, no problem, not even an eyebrow raised?
I have, and these types of people won't last if the performance metric changes
from time in seat to work produced.

~~~
aidenn0
People are just naturally biased towards rewarding effort though. It feels
really uncomfortable to label someone who gets into work before you, leaves
work after you, and isn't ever seen to be doing obvious goof-off things as
"dead weight"

------
wayoutthere
Mark Cuban got it right last week when he said that the way companies treat
their employees over the next few months will define their brand for the next
several decades. Companies insisting on this level of control are simply
adding cost now and making employee retention difficult for when we end up
coming out of this. If your company can't handle ground-level employees having
some autonomy in their work, then your business model isn't likely to survive.

Besides, given the extraordinary circumstances I don't think it's fair to
expect everyone to be equally productive to being in the office. In addition
to the fact that some people just don't perform as well without the structure
of an office (I'm personally one of them), we've got kids to take care of,
extra chores to do, and the general anxiety coming from the media. People are
not going to be 100% right now, so the need to build a work culture that can
support that reality is more important now than ever.

~~~
CPLX
> If your company can't handle ground-level employees having some autonomy in
> their work, then your business model isn't likely to survive.

> Besides, given the extraordinary circumstances I don't think it's fair to
> expect everyone to be equally productive to being in the office.

It's worth noting that you're describing a very specific subset of the world
of employment, namely people who work with some degree of autonomy in an
office setting.

I would be shocked if even half of the American workforce primarily works in
an "at a desk" or equivalent type position.

~~~
nitrogen
_I would be shocked if even half of the American workforce primarily works in
an "at a desk" or equivalent type position._

I'm curious about this but don't have time to look up numbers. It's hard to
make a reasonable guess because while cities (and the offices within them)
have the highest density, there could be a very long tail of factory, strip
mall, grocery store, etc. jobs that would be higher per capita outside of
cities and invisible to someone living inside a city.

~~~
CPLX
Even in a city you're completely surrounded by people who don't have desk
jobs. All the people who deliver stuff to your office, the maintenance staff,
all retail and restaurant employees, law enforcement and fire/EMS, taxi and
car service drivers, and on and on and on.

And that's just what's _in an office district_. Drive down the NJ Turnpike or
something and count how many massive employment centers you see that are
primarily not office jobs. Everything from the shopping mall to the refinery
to the airport to the distribution center.

~~~
nitrogen
It's easy to be deceived by the fact that it _looks_ like there's one floor of
non-office and 40+ floors of office in a downtown.

------
flanbiscuit
We need a tutorial on how to detect if you're being monitored like this. As an
employee I would like to know just so that I'm aware. I don't necessarily
think my company is doing this but it would still be great if there was some
kind of a way to at least know.

It's a given that any company you work for has full and complete access to
your work email and private Slack workspace messages(DM or private channel).
Same goes for MS Teams or anything else similarly paid for and/or run by the
company.

I would especially like know if they were doing something like:

\- keystroke logging

\- taking screenshots at intervals

\- process monitoring

\- deep packet inspection

~~~
downerending
Until they mention of it (or you hear of it), it doesn't much matter. Once
they do, leave.

------
salawat
My recommendation:

A) Audit your base machine for any suspicious processes. Most of the time,
something will stick out. For Windows boxes, pay attention to the
Startup/Autorun sections of the Windows Registry/Group Policy. On *Nix boxes,
either unit or init scripts; audit your launched plists.

B) If you do suspect information exfiltration/monitoring; cripple/subvert the
sensors/information stream. Exact details will vary depending on the nature of
the spyware. A hardware bug is harder to do deal with than a software one, and
some forms of software bugging are more difficult to circumvent than others.

C) If it is really overt and obnoxious; organize with coworkers. The only
thing that'll eventually get the message across to unscrupulous and invasive
employers is collective organized resistance. One or two or up to 100
depending on size they may not give a damn, but when half the workforce is up
in arms, there will have to be a carefully considered response.

D) Always be ready to leave. Seriously. Particularly in today's day and age. I
don't think it's natural at first, as we all at some level I think hope that
our employer has some intrinsic loyalty toward us as an employee; but that
really isn't the case at all culturally anymore. Don't let it hold you back
from doing your best, but always keep in mind they are making more off you
than you them; otherwise it isn't a business that's going to be staying around
for very long.

~~~
Loughla
I think 'D' only applies if (1) you work in a privileged sector, or (2) we're
not expecting a 25%+ unemployment rate.

------
czbond
A manager wanting to use spy software is overtly telling the world and
themselves they are a poor manager.

------
state_less
No, just no. If a boss can't communicate deliverables and verify that these
are getting finished, they are too incompetent to manage their domain. They
shouldn't be scraping personal information off screencaps, video or audio
feeds. This doesn't even seem like it ought to be legal.

Workers are there to do a job, not have every personal detail monitored and
tracked. Should the show password feature be turned off in UIs given how much
sensitive information shows up on a screen? How much control of people's lives
can a free society hand over to shareholders before it's no longer considered
humane?

~~~
sneak
> _They shouldn 't be scraping personal information off screencaps_

I agree, but so should the employee not be accessing any personal information
on company screens.

~~~
state_less
Employees do access personal information on company screens. If I check my
healthcare plan or retirement plan, use the show password feature, look for
another job outside my managers group, etc...

This is to say nothing of a normal employer who doesn't mind breaks if you're
getting work done. I'd sooner try my luck living in the forest with the other
animals than work under such surveillance. I feel sorry for those who are in a
rough spot and feel pressed into this sort of thing.

~~~
sneak
> _Employees do access personal information on company screens._

I think that this was more of an issue back when every person on staff didn't
have their own personal wireless touchscreen computer on them at all times.
Now it's just a training issue: company hardware for company tasks, personal
hardware for personal tasks.

~~~
teddyh
But what if they use company electricity to charge their personal devices?

------
kstenerud
Eventually someone will come up with a site that lists which companies install
spyware on worker's computers, after which there will be a shaming period, and
then only the scummiest companies will continue with such a policy.

------
austincheney
Here is the key part of the article:

> Straight-up Big Brother, perhaps, but it’s perfectly legal for businesses to
> keep an unblinking eye on employees as long as they disclose they’re doing
> it.

It is the companies equipment, network (on their side of the VPN), time, and
so forth. That being said it is legally fine so long as they disclose they are
doing so.

If they monitor in ways that have not been disclosed they risk of a class
action lawsuit should that knowledge be leaked to employees.

Let's look at a far more extreme example: US Army. US Army is not allowed to
monitor user activity in that way and all users of Army networks are made
aware of this. Users must also sign their agreement to an Acceptable Use
Policy (AUP) before gaining access to the network. The Army example is more
extreme because the Army owns the computers, the network, and all physical
network infrastructure that companies typically lease to ISPs. The Army has
the ability to monitor user activity in ways that companies cannot and yet the
Army does not do so because it's illegal without a probable cause search
warrant or command directive with legal authorization.

For example, computers with an Army image monitor for attachment of mass
storage devices and moment a phone or hard drive is plugged in the network
administrator is immediately notified, the local network switch is
automatically dropped from the network, and a report is automatically drafted
for the respective violating unit. The Army can monitor for that because it is
a violation of the AUP users signed, but they cannot monitor any associated
content without probably cause and an AUP violation on its own is not probable
cause.

I have heard, on the other hand, the Air Force monitors absolutely everything
because they require their users to sign a consent to monitoring directive to
gain access to the network.

~~~
rodgerd
> It is the companies equipment, network (on their side of the VPN), time, and
> so forth. That being said it is legally fine so long as they disclose they
> are doing so.

Is the employee's house company property? Are the other people living there
company property?

~~~
austincheney
Then use your personal computer.

------
cookie_monsta
I would like to see a study of the productivity drain of having to have
someone interpret all this extra data. Who looks at all the screenshots and
keystrokes and logins to decide if they're kosher? It seems ridiculous and
meaningless.

A manager in another department has sent a spreadsheet around for WFHers to
fill in what they do _hour by hour_. Aside from the relentless mocking that
the guy has received behind the scenes, does anybody believe that he'll be
reading all that and gaining useful insights?

I think that assumptions on how people are going to act unsupervised are a
great window on how the person making those assumptions would act in those
circumstances.

------
mjasinski5
I wrote an article regarding this topic few days ago:
[https://medium.com/@mjasinski5/how-companies-failed-a-
trust-...](https://medium.com/@mjasinski5/how-companies-failed-a-trust-exam-
by-coronavirus-96b1843093a3)

The same its happening in Poland and probably all over the world. Companies do
not trust their employees.. and it doesnt end on buying spy software.

------
cameronfraser
Where I work there is less focus on micromanaging people's time and more focus
on results. Having your activity micromanaged at that level is mentally
exhausting. When I was in college and had no skills whatsoever I used to do
Lionbridge/Leapforce which had you do all kinds of stuff like rank search
results, check videos for nudity, etc. They had an extension that would
monitor all your activity and if you stopped and got distracted it would
impact your rating/health and you could eventually be fired (not sure if
firing is the right word its a gig type thing). IMO this is very nerve
wracking and not mentally healthy for workers to experience. Treat people like
adults and on average they will act like adults. You will always have
underperformers regardless of whether you are micromanaging their time or not.
Sometimes I want to take a break to play with my dog or decompress after a
long meeting. Everyone should have the same right to do so. Ironically,
archaic notions about micromanaging workers time works against employers more
than working for them.

------
duxup
Human to human communication is such a better way to do it.

We've adjusted our "standups" (I say it with quotes as our standups are pretty
informal compared to what some folks describe) to include folks who usually
weren't included (president of company) before and done a better job of
tracking time on our own.

That seems to make everyone happier... granted we're a small shop.

There's probably a "bad boss / culture" thing here for folks who are desperate
to do these things... are just going to do it and don't know / care to do
better / have no clue how to really grok productivity and the inherent
vagaries of it.

Everyone else is just chugging along without these issues.

------
zelon88
I got hit with something similar the other day. The funny part is; I have
systems in place to document everything I do as part of compliance. Plus it
just makes my job easier. There's nothing worse than solving the same problem
twice.

Lately my employer has been so on edge they want me to document the work I'm
doing. So basically they want me to perform some work, document that for
compliance purposes, and then document that I worked and documented it again
just so someone can read it in their inbox instead of the self serve help
desk. It's insanity.

------
verylittlemeat
This thread is a funny coincidence. I was looking at mice to buy yesterday and
came across this thing [0]. It's a dongle to make it look like your cursor
moved because so many corporate laptops are locked down and it cant be done in
software. People use them for everything from keeping the screen on to avoid
going afk on work hours.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/WiebeTech-Programmable-Mouse-
Jiggler-...](https://www.amazon.com/WiebeTech-Programmable-Mouse-Jiggler-
MJ-3/dp/B00MTZY7Y4)

------
mcv
My workplace has been very reasonable about this. They were early to move to
working from home, and simply accepted that it would hurt productivity. And
yet the first remote-working sprint from my team has been incredibly
productive. Less distraction from meetings and big lunches together, perhaps.
I do miss the direct contact with my team mates, and we can't have the
spontaneous brainstorming/whiteboard sessions we used to have, so we do need
to figure out how to do those remotely.

------
alexellisuk
Is anyone working at a tech company where this is happening to you? I can't
imagine the stress this would cause someone.

If anyone is considering leaving the enterprise, and going freelance. Think
twice, especially in the current climate -
[https://medium.com/@alexellisuk/what-you-need-to-know-
before...](https://medium.com/@alexellisuk/what-you-need-to-know-before-you-
go-freelance-259bd9d4b2d1)

------
k__
The boss of my girlfriend did this even when they were on-site.

I think such people should be forbidden from founding/leading a company.
Nationalise that thing and be done with it.

------
bredren
Upwork has largely required contractors to install and run their spy software
in order to earn money through their system.

Thankfully MacOS Sierra put the kibosh on the capture ability without special
permissions. I denied that request and the client never brought it up.

I do get why these tools are needed, however I find the use of them
counterproductive and creates an adversarial posture between clients and
contractors.

------
ssss11
Ugh I sat at a desk in front of our CIO once (I was service desk). I wasnt too
concerned but boy was it didtracting! I couldnt see him so he could have been
watching me all day, or just doing his work. The bottom line is it made me
more stressed, lowered my productivity and I got VERY good at flipping between
our asset database, ticketing tool and email.

------
fizixer
What if a remote employee makes one room available in their home for full
monitoring, camera, audio, whatever?

If the employee is not in the room, that's like a break.

Employers monitor cubicles in offices. Would it be worse if the are allowed to
monitor one room in the house of a remote employee?

Feel free to discuss. Pros? cons? privacy issues? any other other thoughts,
comments.

------
Miner49er
I wonder if the companies who make these products use their own product on
their employees? I can't imagine them not (hard to sell a product you don't
even use), but on the otherhand, it would be especially insulting as an
employee to be developing the very tool that is being used to spy on you.

------
bachmeier
Here's a crazy idea. Look at the worker's output. "Keeping tabs" on your
workers doesn't tell you anything about the bottom line. The worker's output
does.

Can't determine the worker's output? Then you have much bigger problems than
remote workers taking a nap in the afternoon.

------
philjohn
And the old adage of "measure output, not input" comes to the fore again.

If you don't trust your staff to do good work when you're not looking, you
hired the wrong people.

On the other hand, if productivity is within acceptable limits then why the
need for monitoring in the first place?

------
staflow
This is mildly infuriating, I’d quit on the spot because of 1) dignity, I’m
not a slave 2) this is illegal in most jurisdictions 3) this shit means trust
between employer-employee is non-existant in both directions, that’s not a way
to get any decent work done

------
JMTQp8lwXL
"Panic-buying" is buying something with the intent of securing it before the
resource runs out. Given the near infinite scalability of software, the phrase
seems poorly applied here.

~~~
wayneftw
I’m pretty sure it can also mean that you’re buying something that you don’t
need because you’re in a panic.

Where did you get the official definition?

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
> Panic buying: the action of buying large quantities of a particular product
> or commodity due to sudden fears of a forthcoming shortage or price
> increase.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+panic+buying](https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+panic+buying)

~~~
wayneftw
Great! So it actually fits this situation wherein a large quantity of spyware
has just been purchased...

the price increase being the amount they're paying for their workers
productivity.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
There isn't any evidence this software improves productivity. Also, they
aren't purchasing the software because they expect the software to (a)
increase in price or (b) become unavailable. So it isn't panic buying.

~~~
wayneftw
Well if someone is in a panic and they are buying something because of that
panic I am going to continue calling that panic buying.

I’m sure that the definition or your understanding of that definition will
catch up to my forward thinking at some point.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
The definition provided by Google is probably the the most reasonable option
to use, though I can see how pandemic is shifting the colloquial use.

------
tehjoker
If your boss is doing this to you, you need a union. The economy is crashing,
while you need a paycheck, you still have a lot of power. The bosses are
feeling extremely threatened right now.

------
legulere
Of course they would. The modern work environment is as much about control as
it is about money, if not even more.

Graeber goes a bit into this topic in his book bullshit jobs.

------
haydonchurchill
Is this really that bad? A little creepy I guess. But with remote work, you do
want to have at least some system in place to make sure people are actually
working.

At my business we all track our hours (me included) and the app takes
screenshots of the screen every 15 minutes. It's really in case there is a
problem. Not like I have time to check it / watch my employees work. It's more
of an invisible system that keeps people honest. Plus it gives me peace of
mind so I don't have to worry if people are working or not. I think it helps
me micromanage less.

------
SN76477
If you do not trust people then why did you hire them?

------
PeterStuer
“It’s not because of lack of trust,” Miller said, who compared the software to
banks using security cameras. “It’s because it’s imprudent not to do it.”

Puke!

------
codr7
Is this really a war they want to start, considering the people they're
messing with were often hired for their computer skills?

------
pcvarmint
Ironic that Bloomberg is reporting it, since Bloomberg spied on clients, and
spied on employees' computers 30 years ago.

------
jacquesm
If you need spy software to get an idea of your colleagues' productivity
you've already failed on several levels.

------
xwdv
The more spy software a boss buys, the more insecure they really are about
themselves.

~~~
sambull
Well its a good litmus to know where not to work. Better knowing with such a
straight forward method.

~~~
mc32
With a quarter of the workforce furloughed or RIFed I’m not sure most people
will have the option to be choosy.

------
timwaagh
honestly, if i were a manager and stuff wasn't getting done I would want to
see what was going on. And that's a pretty common situation when people are
implementing complex things like software.

------
notlukesky
Is there a map of where this is legal and illegal?

~~~
pp19dd
Think this is uncharted territory and laws are probably irreconcilably
disparate from state to state, from country to country.

In the U.S., it's likely that the most consistently established legal
framework revolves around recorded telephone conversations, the one-party
consent laws and two-party consent laws, of which some contain mentions and
subsets of 'electronic communications.'

"Recording conversations in all 50 states chart" (PDF): [https://www.mwl-
law.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/RECORDING...](https://www.mwl-law.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/02/RECORDING-CONVERSATIONS-CHART.pdf)

Wikipedia has a list of countries with some laws, but, it's a very shy list.

List of two-party consent laws in the U.S. is very short.

------
5cott0
butts in seats equals results

------
hidiegomariani
Paywalled

------
void445be54d48a
I can not imagine wanting to work for someplace that doesn't have the
infrastructure to allow for remote work. I'm lucky enough to be able to be
choosy about who receives my labor and it's unfortunate that some people have
to be relegate to working for bosses who fail to connect with people on a
basic interpersonal level. It would be a good outcome for allowing remote work
to become a new normal. Give the workers the option. You rely on them and your
boss job is meaningless without them.

------
freepor
“Panic buying” is the new word for “purchases I condemn”

------
Yizahi
Aww, that's so cute, a humans making around x500 to x1000 more money as a
median humans in their companies are crying about "unfaaair". Cry some more,
@#$%^&*.

PS: somehow my 1000+ ppl international company manages to work from home and
deliver results without authoritarian tools.

