Employee Monitoring 274
CWmike writes "Michael Workman, an associate professor at the Florida Institute of Technology's Nathan M. Bisk College of Business, estimates that monitoring responsibilities take up at least 20% of the average IT manager's time. Yet most IT professionals never expected they'd be asked to police their colleagues and co-workers in quite this way. How do they feel about this growing responsibility? Workman says he sees a split among tech workers. Those who specialize in security issues feel that it's a valid part of IT's job. But those who have more of a generalist's role, such as network administrators, often don't like it. Computerworld contributor Tam Harbert found a wide variety of viewpoints from IT managers, ranging from discomfort at having to 'babysit' employees to righteous beliefs about 'protecting the integrity of the system.'"
Re:Know when (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Please do (Score:0, Informative)
> Unless our paychecks (and the money we get when we cash them in) are
> a figment of our collective imagination,
Well, actually... unless you get hard gold-backed cash in your hand then yes, your pay is imaginary.
I refer the Honorable Gentleman to the concept of Money Creation [prosperityuk.com]
Re:Please do (Score:2, Informative)
What the hell are you going to do with gold when the zombie apocalypse comes?
Bludgeon the zombies with the gold, classy and effective.
Re:As an IT Manager for a small company (Score:3, Informative)
Where do you get that? I never said I was refusing to do a reasonable duty. What I said was that I am unable to do a duty that requires me to make decisions that I am not empowered to make. I've been asked more than once to do things that I was not empowered to do (either by company policy, or by my direct boss's direction), and each time that situation came up, I negotiated it into a raise and an increase in responsibility.
You're right, saying no when they ask you to do something will make a short career. But I don't say no, I say that I am sorry but I am unable to to do that because of x y and z. If they say to do it anyway, then I would normally either go to my direct boss, or as high as I need to (depending on who's asking) to get permission...
Re:Get the *real* security to do it. (Score:5, Informative)
After becoming pals with the security guard at my building, the guard related to me a moment when she was watching the parking garage cam, and noticed that the director of marketing was busy going Lewinsky on a member (pun thoroughly intended) of the board of directors. Certainly it explained how she got the job, since skill in marketing clearly had nothing to do with it.
If you want to know what is actually going on in a company, the 3 groups of people you need access to are the admins (who can watch people's computer use), the security guards (who can watch people's physical activities), and the bookkeepers (who know where the money and therefor the power is going).
Re:Please do (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Please do (Score:3, Informative)
It's called fiat currency. What that basically means is money has value only because people say it does. "That's a good deal" is a daily example of this.