Be Warned..you Office Workers

Merlin the Magician

Merlin the Magician

At the Start
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May 2, 2003
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SOUTH WALES
:eek: The ongoing debate concerning Internet and social network access in the workplace is set to continue this week following news that a group of council workers in the UK have been fired from their positions after prolonged use of online auction site eBay.

Specifically, a total of nine members of staff at Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council in Wales have received their marching orders after some of them were found to be wasting as much as two hours per day perusing eBay’s pages.

Neath Port Talbot Council outlined the staff were removed following an investigation that revealed them to be investing a "significant time" in personal online activities during work time that included "an unacceptable level of usage of shopping [and] entertainment" destinations.

"We have a policy of allowing employees to use the internet in their own time… We know it benefits them as well as the council as they became more expert in using it and more IT-aware," commented council personnel chief Graham Jones in a BBC News report. "But we clearly don't want them to use it in council time – at the end of the day they are employed to do a job of work not be shopping online."

While the council, as an employer, is of course fully entitled to wield the axe for personal Internet use during office hours, Unison union representative Mark Fisher has also apportioned them blame for allowing employees to have Net access in the first place.

"Obviously we cannot justify people spending a couple of hours of working time looking at these sites," commented Fisher, "but temptation was put in their way."

The council’s office security set-up does currently block staff access to Web sites containing pornographic material but not innocuous shopping portals such as Amazon or eBay. Unison has called for the council’s 7,500 staff members to be restricted in their Internet access to that any and all personal destinations can only be visited during official lunch breaks.
 
Should have been disciplined the first time they looked at a non-work related website in work time, fired the second time, people at work are paid to fecking work, especailly when most council workers seem to only work about 30 hours a week anyway, judging by the times that telephones are answered.
 
Its Facebook that is the biggst culprit in Australia now :suspect: .

One of my biggest peeves is people whom sit and play around on the internet during work hours. Fair enough in personal time, before/after work and during lunch hour, but during work hours for me its something that is not on.

There was a girl at my work, whom was on it so regularly, that they eventually deleted all the personal websites off her computer, so the only access during work hours to the internet she could have was on our company website and our intranet.
 
Originally posted by uncle goober@Sep 23 2007, 01:54 PM
Council worker is surely an oxymoron
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Oh, for all these people to spend a day working in the jobs that I have done for the Council.
 
I used to be able to get a bet on at work a couple of years ago, but they have now blocked absolutely any page with references to racing or gambling in general, yet my co-workers can,and do, spend hours looking at various football sites.
I rarely use the net at work now, Google a crossword clue occasionally, that's about all. There are days when we are too busy to even sit down and other days when it's hard to find anything to do. This is the nature of maintenance work though.
I use my mobile now if I want a bet during the late shift, or even for reading other pages on the Internet, but I think I'm going to treat myself to an MDA.
 
Originally posted by walsworth@Sep 24 2007, 11:34 AM
I used to be able to get a bet on at work a couple of years ago, but they have now blocked absolutely any page with references to racing
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They've done that in my place too, but then TH is the only place the fire wall doesn't recognise as having nothing to do with racing :brows: Perhaps they know something we don't :laughing:

Incidentally, I had a case of this in a Local Authority a few years back and got the alleged offender off, if Neath Port Talbot Unison stewards had used a bit of savvy they might have stood a chance, as the IT monitoring system wasn't as sharp as the employer thought
 
<< "Obviously we cannot justify people spending a couple of hours of working time looking at these sites," commented Fisher, "but temptation was put in their way." >>

Isn't this exactly what is so wrong with this country these days? No-one is expected to have any self discipline, on the contrary we are all enocuraged to feel that the THE STATE in its ever-creeping manifestations should have charge over all our acitvites and choices. And we are all encouraged to think that unbridled self-indulgence is totally without blame.

What happened to the instilling of a sense of morality, and self-respect?

These people weren't even stealing time and wages from a private company ffs, they were stealing off you and me, the taxpayer. And 'earning' their gilt-edged pensions
 
So, Headstrong, the people using the site have lost their jobs, the union has agreed their actions were unjustifiable, yet because the union dares to suggest that maybe the employer should have thought about their internet usage policies a bit harder, suddenly it means that "No-one is expected to have any self discipline" and the sky is falling again?
 
Oh, Per-leeeze!!!

All offices have computers. All have access to the web.
We are all trusted to use those at work mainly for work purposes.
The company spokesman said a little personal use of the web was not discouraged, in the staff's free time [eg lunch hour or after work]

We all know it's wrong to use two hours of work time mis-using office equipment for our own ends.
Are we not adults, to be expected to know right from wrong, and to act accordingly and responsibly?

Or are we all children, to be supervised at all times, and saved from ourselves by our "betters"?
 
Working in the public sector, I must agree with Headstrong. We are inundated with warnings about improper computer use and I have absolutely no sympathy with anybody who is disciplined.
 
You're missing my point Headstrong; it's your idea that this is 'yet another sign' that the country is going to hell that I'm arguing against. It's a total over-reaction to what basically boils down to a union trying to find some way to defend it's members in a largely open and shut case - not the nanny-state writ large that you'd have us believe.
 
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