So.
2008 brought major changes to the workplace frustrating me a little bit and frustrating others a shitload.
It seems that the powers that be have decided to block all streaming media services so that means no occasional video, radio, etc.
Now the radio part is what is killing me. I'm without my Sirius channels so that means no more Stern which will totally drive me crazy.
They've also blocked sites that remotely smell of Social Networking so that means no more Flickr and no more blogs, especially the ones that use the hosted software like Livejournal, Blogger, etc.
They've also also blocked all sites that remotely smell of "Entertainment" so that means no no TF crack sites, comic sites, or even Who while on the clock.
Even gmail no longer works, no doubt because of that goddamn embedded GoogleChat functionality.
At least I'm left with access to reading some RSS feeds. I can't comment anymore or post at my own sites while working but at least I can still catch up on some net craziness while I'm at lunch.
Barely.
Damn Nala, you need to get yourself out of that facist regime. Seriously though it's the first step to 1984. More & more & more control. First big brother, next corporations, and they keep weeding from there.
I work for American Family Insurance and it's weird surfing how I'll come accross certain pages that have blocks and then ones that you think would don't. What really sucks is the block they have on Deviantart since I'm an artist outside of work. They tell us no streaming and such but I still do it anyway. Can't work without listening to Around Comics, Wordballoon & Radiolab.
What this country needs is an enema!
That sounds familiar. Sucks, especially when you go home and all you've got is dial-up.
And the descent into George Orwell's vision comes ever more closer...
M.
While it does upset me the fact is it is a business and they can do whatever they want.
Hell. I have no doubts that it was abused company-wide and it reach a point where they could just watch the net traffic bleeding.
Those damn fun Nazis... Taking away your TF & Who at work. They had better F#ckn' watch their backs or we'll send the Blue Oyster mob round to give them a warning they'll never forget.
can you run it all thru the proxy browser ?
Folks:
Ha, I say to them, Ha. The Internet's productivity-fu is weak next to the menace that is Nethack, and that fits on a couple of floppy disks...and you can't block it...
At least the Net gets boring more quickly, and you don't have the amusement of random monsters popping up online and killing your @v@t@r.
(Imagine if you did...DAMMIT I GOT ATE BY A GRUE ON FACEBOOK A-GIN!)
(Of course, whenever some TV show starts Revealing how much productivity is lost to Youtube, they never do mention Solitaire and Minesweeper. MS has probably absorbed enough man-hours to build a highway to Hawaii.)
Cordially yours:
Autobus Prime
w/minicon Farebox.
It is absolutely the right of the company to dictate what you can or cannot surf using their bandwidth... but it's also a lot like metering out bathroom breaks in a retail store - it's petty, it lowers moral, and it may well have the opposite intended effect.
Certainly, it should be quite easier to measure if your productivity has increased or decreased with the Draconian newfound lack of Stern.
I hate this sort of shit - it's the kind of thing that comes down from management that doesn't understand its employees. If you subscribe to Theory Y management, then you know that people *want* to work - if they are spending too much time surfing, it's not just because they are unmotivated, it's that they have been actively demotivated. (And whose fault would that be, eh?)
Even now, I'm typing this on a proxy machine because our admin is on a productivity witch-hunt. And yes, that means by her measurement, I am being unproductive - unfortunately it turns out that those same measurements fail to take into account, say, all of the extra hours I put in out of the office.
Maybe it's all generation gap - even you, old Nala. :) We're a technically-proficient group of trained multitaskers that absorb information, *crave* information at an expanded pace and ignore traditional boundaries. Whereas those turning spigot on the firewall...
Are we still getting our assigned tasks done? Then what's the bloody problem?
BTW, America could do with a huge social enema. This country feels eerily like a Mickey Mouse-ified version of Victorian England.
Someone mentioned you're on dialup but I recommend logmein.com . They have a free version available.
Yeah, as long as our service department is largely staffed with nerdy 17-19 year olds, probably not gonna happen.