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Privacy IBM Your Rights Online

Workplace Privacy - IBM Hot, Lilly Not 393

Posted by simoniker from the dogged-by-the-snoop dept.
Brahmastra writes "Reuters has posted an article about the best and worst companies for workplace privacy, passing on information from the forthcoming issue of Wired Magazine, and IBM comes out on top. How does your workplace compare?" According to the summary, Eli Lilly was rated "the most notorious Big Brother boss", after "...its invasive background checks of workers after Sept. 11, 2001, some of which led to dismissals."
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Workplace Privacy - IBM Hot, Lilly Not More

Workplace Privacy - IBM Hot, Lilly Not

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  • Just fine (Score:5, Funny)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) * on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:42PM (#6904355) Journal
    How does your workplace compare?

    My employer is pretty good when it comes to workplace privacy and freedom. Afterall, they don't seem to mind me reading Slas

    • Re:Just fine (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Frymaster ( 171343 )
      the problem is that privacy invasions tend to act virally, espescially in the software biz. if your company is doing contract work or writing software for a company that believes in background checks, drug test &c. there's a good chance you will be subjected to these invasions in order to get/keep the contract. then if you go to subcontract some work, that company will probably have to submit to the requirements of the original client.

      now, having said that, my company is very good about protecting my

    • How does your workplace compare?

      They're ignorant...

      ssh home_squidhost -L 3128:127.0.0.1:3128

      Mozilla->Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Proxies->M an ual Proxy configuration [localhost] [3128]

      I call it my tunnel-O-porn, but seriously, I don't need them snarfing my slashcookie.

  • No privacy at work (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hayzeus ( 596826 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:45PM (#6904380) Homepage
    Still can't masturbate in the privacy of my cube without someone complaining to HR. The terrorists have already won...

  • Lilly (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:46PM (#6904390)

    At least they're an equal opportunity privacy violator, as happy to spill the beans on their customers [essential.org] as their employees. People just have no respect for corporate consistency these days.

  • Go Big Blue! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ikeya ( 7401 ) <dave@kuc[ ]et ['k.n' in gap]> on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:47PM (#6904411) Homepage
    Wow! IBM seems to really be doing well in a geek's eyes right now. They don't spy on employees...they are helping the Linux battle against SCO, not to mention helping further open source by contributing to Linux, eclipse [eclipse.org], and others.
    Good job, IBM!

    ikeya
    • They don't spy on employees...they are helping the Linux battle against SCO, not to mention helping further open source by contributing to Linux, eclipse, and others.

      It all adds up: while they're not watching what their employees are doing, their employees are contributing things to Linux that are getting them sued by SCO.

      Er... is what SCO might say...
    • Much like a troll who once spammed threads IBM is making headway in getting it's karma back in line.

      I applaud IBM these days for all it has done but don't forget what it was like back in the early days when IBM was that big evil co that invented the term FUD and tried to crush anything that even remotely threatened it.

      Keep it up IBM and you'll get that Karma Bonus and realize that having positive karma is a good thing.

    • Not Big, but still very Blue (Score:5, Interesting)

      by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:08PM (#6904608) Homepage Journal
      IBM used to be the worst of the worst. Everybody had to wear white shirts with plain ties. (Everybody was a man, of course.) You had to go through a lot of weird bureaucracy to buy anything from them, even a typewriter part. Their management was famous for refusing to learn to use email. I don't know if they spied on their employees, but they certainly treated them paternalistically.

      Then their business model fell apart. No more near monopoly on computers. They couldn't even control the "IBM-compatible" market. They were in deep trouble, and somebody realized that their arrogant corporate culture was a big part of the problem. So they hired a new boss [ibm.com] from outside the industry, and retooled everything, from the way people worked together to their overreliance on proprietary technology. Worked out well. That which does not kill you, yada yada.

    • Re:Go Big Blue! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by glassesmonkey ( 684291 ) * on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:11PM (#6904644) Homepage Journal
      Yeah, I used to work at IBM.. and I am afraid of what that says about the rest of the corporate world.

      They don't have internet police (well they do have a proxy and you WILL be canned for visiting certain websites), but still I would think common sense applies to ALL internet activities at EVERY company. I think the difference with IBM is they are smarter about collecting employee info and activities and make it pretty non-obvious when they use it against employees. They are also smart about keeping turn over low in HR.

      They log *everything* and they just don't cite that info directly when laying people off, they just have en-masse layoffs every few years.

      • Re:Go Big Blue! (Score:4, Informative)

        by Halo- ( 175936 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @08:19AM (#6908809)
        I completely, totally, and utterly disagree with the above. I work at IBM now, and I can promise you there are very firm policies in place about not monitoring employee activities without a good cause and serious management oversight.

        If you do something obviously stupid, and people see and complain, you will get looked at. But remember, if someone is doing something like looking a p0rn at work and the workplace doesn't take action, then the employer becomes liable for creating a "hostile" workplace.

        Contrary to a lot of public percerption, IBM is very liberal. The phrases "open-door policy" and "an equal day's work for an equal day's pay" both were coined by Watson. We've recognized same-sex unions for years, had company anti-discrimation policies long before it was the expected thing to do. I know I sound like a raving fanboy, and I'll be the first to admit that IBM also has its share of large company bureaucratic BS, but the important things which make my job pleasant on a human level are always done well.

    • Re:Go Big Blue! (Score:2, Informative)

      by zapp ( 201236 )
      yeah, and they're giving all those foreign people great 5k/yr programming jobs!

  • IBM (Score:2, Funny)

    by devphaeton ( 695736 )
    Of course IBM comes out on top, as far as privacy goes. I've never worked there, but all the stories i hear about IBM gives me the impression that they are stuffy, overly structured, and overprofessional... Kinda like the IRS or the CIA.

    Especially thier legal department. You just don't fuck with IBM....

    • Re:IBM (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Chagatai ( 524580 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:41PM (#6904876) Homepage
      Once upon a time I was a member of Club Blue, and I can say that their level of privacy was pretty good overall. Employee details such as SSNs were kept confidential, what you did on the web was ignored unless you did something completely dumb, and management tended to trust you so long as your job got done.

      But the levels of privacy made many things difficult and ultimately proved a factor in why I left. Information on salaries, expectations, and how you compared to others were confidential to the point where it was hard to tell where you were. The Personal Business Commitments (PBCs) program that would determine your variable pay (Read: bonus counted as your salary) was obfuscated and it was impossible to see the metrics behind the scores. Pay levels were discussed in closed rooms in whispered voices and it was verboten to speak of possible career advancing points. The thing that pushed me over the edge was learning that a college hire made more money than me even though my experienced dwarfed him (and I had graduated with a similar major).

      Ultimately yes, privacy at IBM was a good thing, but brought with it just as many evils.

  • IBM (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:50PM (#6904441)
    Disclaimer: I no longer, but once did work for Big Blue

    Of course they can't spy on you, you are't allowed to do anything. FACT: Leaving a single penny (or any change) in your desk at IBM is considered a security violation because someone seeing it may make them want to steal it, and they wish to keep an honest person honest.

    • Re:IBM (Score:2, Interesting)

      by stuckatwork ( 622157 )
      As a former IBM employee, this is true, to a certain extent.

      They did expect all items to be locked in a drawer when you leave your desk (even for lunch), and there was a limit on personal photographs that could be placed on one's desk.

    • Overstated a bit (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Halo- ( 175936 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @06:43PM (#6905390)
      I'm a current IBM employee. And yes, the rules are pretty strict about leaving stuff out unattended. But you have to remember we have a zillion different customers from all over the world. Some of them, like major banks, governments, etc, tend to stipulate a certain level of general security "cleanliness" as part of their contract. When security is a habit, you don't make dumb mistakes. When you only do it when you remember you're on a sensitive projuect, you're more likely to slip.

      It's a pain, but you adjust quickly. I have a locked drawer on my desk. End of the day, everything paper on my desk goes in my desk. The next day, stuff comes out as I need it. Every coupla months, the drawer gets full. And all that semi-sensitive stuff goes en-masse to the confidential recycling bin. Clean office, and no slip-up's from double stakcing papers, etc...

      • Re:Overstated a bit (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Halo- ( 175936 )
        Oh, and the penny thing must have been a local manager in overdrive. I know people with dollar bills, currency from other countries, etc on their desk. No big deal. They only care about high-value stuff. PDA's, laptops, etc.... because if it walks off, the workplace gets hostile and suspicious in a hurry...

  • opt out (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CGP314 ( 672613 ) <CGP@NOSpAM.ColinGregoryPalmer.net> on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:50PM (#6904442) Homepage
    while Ford and Sears were praised for voluntarily signing on with stringent data-protection laws in Europe and California.

    How can you voluntarily sign on to a law? Does that imply I can opt out of the laws I don't like?

    • Re:opt out (Score:4, Informative)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:54PM (#6904478) Journal
      Ford and Sears aren't based in California or Europe, but have decided to use their data-protection laws as a model, even though they don't have to and could be much bigger wangs if they wanted.

      Frankly, I'm not surprised a major drug company scrutinizes it's employees more closely than Sears does.
      • I have to agree with you there... I don't see background checks and employment screenings as offensive considering the nature of their products.

    • Re:opt out (Score:3, Funny)

      by Dr Caleb ( 121505 )
      Does that imply I can opt out of the laws I don't like?

      My vote is for the Law of Gravity. No! Wait...Conservation of Energy... mmmmmmm perpetual motion...No Wait! Inertia! Yea!

    • How can you voluntarily sign on to a law? Does that imply I can opt out of the laws I don't like?


      If you're a Canadian province you can [ualberta.ca].

  • Publishing Vaporware (Score:5, Insightful)

    by geoffeg ( 15786 ) <`gro.htols' `ta' `geffoeg'> on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:51PM (#6904452) Homepage
    So let's see.. This is an article about an article about an article that hasn't been published yet? Awesome.. Let's create news articles by playing that old game of Telephone! Oh wait.. I think that's how the media works in the first place...

    So.. This is a comment about a comment about an articl.. Oh forget it..

    Geoffeg

  • Is Reuters trying to pump up Wired sales? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by civilengineer ( 669209 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:54PM (#6904482) Homepage Journal
    The article has just 8 companies listed. That means anyone seeking further info has to buy the wired magazine. I'm already subscribing to Wired, so I don't mind, but what about people who don't.Well, maybe they will get it off Wired's website.

  • I expect no privacy at work. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Not_Wiggins ( 686627 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:54PM (#6904484) Journal
    In the work place, I expect to have all my correspondence, activity, anything that crosses their network to, at least, be open to scrutiny.

    Honestly, my time at work is for working. I know that's not a popular view with some, but it really comes down to asking yourself what you use your time for.

    If you're comfortable with your boss knowing what sites you're looking at and he's comfortable with you looking at them, then there's no problem.

    But to *expect* privacy I think is assuming you have a different relationship with your boss/company than you do: they're paying you to be there and do a job, and whatever means they take to ensure they're getting their money's worth is reasonable.

    With all that said... I did post this from work. ;)

    • Re:I expect no privacy at work. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by geekoid ( 135745 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {dnaltropnidad}> on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:13PM (#6904665) Homepage Journal
      what if they want to look into your wallet? is that ok?

      look I work, my time at work is for work, but there should be a level of privacy, even at work.

      I think it is reasonable for the work place to relize you have a life outside of work, and sometimes the to cross.

    • The Radical Right Took Your Privacy Circa 1982 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by FreeUser ( 11483 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:26PM (#6904760)
      In the work place, I expect to have all my correspondence, activity, anything that crosses their network to, at least, be open to scrutiny.

      Then you expect to work for felons. Opening a piece of US Mail not addressed to you is a felony, whether the envelope is sitting in your private home mailbox or on your bosses desk. Even the worst libertarian excesses of the 1980s War on Drugs, as presided over by Edwin Meese never changed that particular aspect of the law. These excesses, which encouraged such nonsensical interpretations of property rights to include invading the privacy of anyone who happens to be on said property (taken to its logical conclusion, your employer should have the right to strip search you on "his" property), are in fact in opposition to 200+ years of statutory and common law in the United States.

      You have a reasonable expectation of privacy on your person (and, thankfully, our only somewhat brainwashed culture continues to agree...so your boss cannot order you strip searched on suspicion of hiding company documents...yet).

      You have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your snail mail correspondence, backed by federal law enforcing that privacy with downright draconian penalties should it be violated.

      You have a reasonable expection of privacy when speaking on the phone ... alas, that privacy has become a victim of 1980s anti-drug hysteria and the radical right agenda that has followed, one that now interprets a private communication as being 'property' of one's employer merely because it happened to be conducted using a piece of company equipment (the telephone) ... at one end.

      You should have a reasonable expectation of privacy in conducting correspondence via email, but again, the same flawed logic has been applied to extend property rights over the medium to include property rights over the content (your correspondence), merely because the medium is new (a computer network) and ignoring two centuries of precedent to the contrary in every other communications medium (including, until the 1980s, telephony).

      It is unfortunate that you expect no privacy at work. You are certainly entitled to it ... and your expectation shows that you have been unfortunate enought to swallow a particularly radical right-wing agenda hook, line, and sinker, to your own, and everyone elses, detriment.

      • Re:The Radical Right Took Your Privacy Circa 1982 (Score:4, Funny)

        by Brandybuck ( 704397 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:47PM (#6904914) Homepage Journal
        <em>Even the worst libertarian excesses of the 1980s War on Drugs, as presided over by Edwin Meese...</em>

        You might want to pick up a dictionary and look at the word "libertarian".

      • You have a reasonable expection of privacy when speaking on the phone ... alas, that privacy has become a victim of 1980s anti-drug hysteria and the radical right agenda that has followed, one that now interprets a private communication as being 'property' of one's employer merely because it happened to be conducted using a piece of company equipment (the telephone) ... at one end.

        You should have a reasonable expectation of privacy in conducting correspondence via email, but again, the same flawed logic ha

      • New Jersey vs T.L.O. (1985) (Score:4, Insightful)

        by lpret ( 570480 ) <[moc.liamtoh] [ta] [24terpl]> on Monday September 08, 2003 @07:38PM (#6905765) Homepage Journal
        What's interesting is that this does not apply to high school or middle school. In high school, if a teacher has any reason to believe that you might have pot in your bag, or whatever, they can search you and your bag even if you oppose it. (New Jersey vs T.L.O.)

        Only becuase we are not minors are we able to have any expectation to privacy. Very bizarre if you ask me.

    • Common sense - FOUND! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Lord Grey ( 463613 ) *

      they're paying you to be there and do a job, and whatever means they take to ensure they're getting their money's worth is reasonable

      You're asking people to act like adults.

      As a manager/owner, I hire people for certain positions and I expect them to Do The Right Thing while they're working for me. In return, my employees want me to give them the tools to do their job and then (pretty much) get the hell out of the way, which I'm happy to do. None of us wants micromanagement.

      I know that my employee

    • I once had a coworker that acted like a hippy. The boss suspected her of being a stoner. So he'd surreptitiously search the girl's backpack when she was on her lunch break. Our boss definitely never told us he was going to search our personal belongings, although it never occured to us that we should ask.

      While I'd certainly say that the boss could make such searches a requirement of employment (or drug tests, for that matter), doing so secretly and without warning is immoral. Dunno about the legality.

    • Re:I expect no privacy at work. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "They're paying you to be there and do a job, and whatever means they take to ensure they're getting their money's worth is reasonable."

      WHATEVER means? Even unreasonable ones?

      Check this out. It should be obvious that you're getting work done WITHOUT resorting to snooping. Any job should be set up in such a way that it is easily apparent whether or not you are making progress.

      CASE 1: You are getting your work done.
      Then they have no reason to snoop!

      CASE 2: You are not getting your work done.
      Then they
    • I use my time for living. This is, afterall, the only life I get.

  • Ironic [HIPAA] (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ironic that a medical company would be at the bottom in preserving its employee's privacy... considering that the medical industry has so many dramatic and rediculously strict laws devoted solely to preserving at all costs the CONSUMER'S privacy, or at least the privacy of their records..

    • Re:Ironic [HIPAA] (Score:2, Insightful)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 )
      Considering that some of their employees could have access to some real nasty shit (viruses and chemicals and whatnot), it makes sense they'd be more closely scrutinized than a guy in a cubicle at IBM, or a clerk at Sears.

      You know who's really invasive in the background checks? The NSA.

      • Considering that some of their employees could have access to some real nasty shit (viruses and chemicals and whatnot),

        I agree, they have reason to be concerned, and more companies should be. Many goverment agency employees and their contractors' employees were recently subjected to background checks.

        it makes sense they'd be more closely scrutinized than a guy in a cubicle at IBM . . .

        I don't agree with that. The coder in the IBM cubicle could very well have the keys (pardon the pun) to restricted

  • Lilly (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Old Burke ( 679901 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:55PM (#6904488)
    I think the explanation behind Eli Lilly's bad track recor is that they deal with a lot of research data and patient information from their testing of drugs.

    While it's esay for us to sit here and complain on them for invasive background checks of workers after Sept. 11 its not that easy for them to avoid getting decent workers that don't disclose their research to terrorists. For example if Bin-Laden got hold of all the research of Elly he might avoid getting diseases like osteoporosis, cancer, depression, schizophrenia and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. So actually its better that they check their future employees than Bin-Laden getting 120 yeras old.

    • Old Ossama is so useful. Need to fire a troublesome employee? Worried about embaressing facts slipping out? Just cite the Terrorist Threat and you can do what you want! If Bin Laden didn't exist, somebody would have to invent him. In my foil hat moments, I tend to suspect that somebody did.
      • Oh come on now. We all know that it was Osama, there is proof, they just can't show us because it would make the country less secure. You know we can trust them, they're the government.

        Speaking of trust, I have this really nice Star Destoryer here, I can't show it to you, but if you pay me One Billion I will give it to you, interrested?
    • While that is funny it overlooks one point. Some of the research they do might be in vacination against small-pox or other such agents. Do you guys want someone who is unstable and has a criminal record getting to have access to all sorts of nasty things (anthrax, etc) and being able to perhaps infect themself and then run around the local mall coughing on everyone/thing they see? While I know this may just be an excuse and it may have been firing there server admin for using pot in high school etc, etc,

  • My Former Employer... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sirgoran ( 221190 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:01PM (#6904551) Homepage Journal
    snoops peoples emails, record the websites they went to, monitor phone calls (incoming and outgoing) and watch how much time you spent in the bathroom and away from your desk. If she found out you were planning on quitting, she'd have tech image your drive so she could look for anything to sue you for.

    And that was if you were on the boss's good side.

    Glad to hear the bitch's company is on the verge of failing.

    It's one of the few companies I know that has a yahoo group made of former employees where you can go to vent your spleen without worrying about getting sued by your former boss.

    Goran
  • There's not much information provided by this link. It seems very lacking in detail. They take a couple of pot-shots at Eli Lilly and Wal-mart, but fail to provide any hard data to substantiate their claims of intrusive behavior. Not very fair, if you ask me. And not worth get worked up over. Anyway, employees are a major expense for most companies -- salaries, training, benefits, payroll taxes, etc. It seems to me that corporations have a right to know a great deal about their employees' private live

    • Re:Very lacking in detail (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fucksl4shd0t ( 630000 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:41PM (#6904872) Homepage Journal

      It seems to me that corporations have a right to know a great deal about their employees' private lives after investing all that money in them.

      Um, no. All a company has to worry about is whether or not the person can do the job in a manner that meets company standards, and whether they'll be able to continue doing it for the long-term. You see, I agree that a company has a certain stake in their employees being criminals, but only because that means the employee may not be around long. He might instead be in prison. Yeah, you want to hire honest people, not thieves, typically. But just because I've spent a ton of money on someone I just hired does not give me the right to pry/meddle into his life.

  • Nothing beats working at my joint (Score:3, Interesting)

    by esconsult1 ( 203878 ) * on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:05PM (#6904586) Homepage Journal
    Linux desktops, Linux servers, Linux t-shirts, and bosses who like Linux.

    I did a stint at a big Wall Street company that will remain nameless, but they were pretty free-form. They made me seem as if I were working for a small company, but thrumming underneath it all was this behomoth.

    BUT -- despite the freedom in our dept, there were these poor slobs in the shirtsleeves who we knew could never ever tread off the path or righteousness, or the would be eternally damned.

  • Pragmatism (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mcrbids ( 148650 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:09PM (#6904624) Journal
    Companies are always searching for ways to squeeze more productivity out of their staff - I wonder if there's ever been any objective study to show that people *don't* work as effectively when they know they are amoebas under microscopic management.

    Or do they work harder, and quit earlier? What's the cost of replacement?

    It'd sure be nice if a well-funded and run study showed that being nice made people more productive... any studies at all?

    Anybody remember the campus of a software company that had free medical (via on-site doctor) child care, membership in a health club, free food (all you can eat) soccer games, and the like?

    I seem to remember seeing "60 Minutes" or something on this company - how they were able to improve productivity *and* morale by providing the extras on campus so that the people are just free to work...

    Anybody have a link? Can this method be brought to everyday, or is/was this a fluke based on uncommonly good market conditions for said company?
    • Some of this is a bit rusty, so bear with me...

      Around the 50s and 60s, there were some questions asked as to what low cost steps could be taken to improve worker output in an office environment. They tried a lot of things, plants were added to one office, light music was played in another, windows were opened for fresh air all sorts of little things, and then some of the offices were controls in which nothing was changed. What they found was, everything, including the control group had a large jump in pr

  • Heh. (Score:5, Funny)

    by FrostedWheat ( 172733 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:15PM (#6904677)
    Reminds me of an old job, when one of the bosses tried to install a key-logger on my machine. It stored the key presses as a text file in C:\. Of course I noticed this (hard not to, it kept crashing) -- and being the evil person that I am, I replaced it with some imaginative ASCI art.

    I don't work there anymore.

  • angry (Score:2, Funny)

    by KReilly ( 660988 )
    I would post a very angry reply, but I am posting this from work.

  • Not surprising a pharmaceutical company ranked low (Score:5, Interesting)

    by meanfriend ( 704312 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:18PM (#6904698)
    I work in the parmaceutical research industry (cancer biochemistry) and it doesn't surprise me that a pharmaceutical company brings up the rear w.r.t. privacy concerns (specifically background checks)

    I'm in Canada and a friend got a job in the States for a big pharma a few years back. They did the whole background check and called up all his references etc... I assumed it was because he was Canadian trying to work in the US, but all this was before 9/11. I imagine it's gotten even more stringent since.

    One reason for the security is that big pharma have HUGE animal facilities for thier pre-clinical experiments. Not trying to start a flame war here, but it's part of the process that you test potential drugs on animals before you submit an application for a new drug for human trials (IND) to the FDA.

    It's quite normal to use thousands of rodents to develop a potential new drug. Not only efficacy, but parameters like maximum tolerated dosage, bioavailability of various formulations, biological half-life, clearance routes, metabolism, etc etc, all have to be characterized in animals before you even think about testing in humans. While appalling to some, it's part of the industry and just a small part of what it takes to get a drug onto the market.

    For some companies, the animal facilities are housed in their own massive buildings and secured like a military installation. They probably use hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of animals per year and would make prime targets for animal activists. Probably not a very enticing a target for terrorists, but background checks in this industry are nothing new.

    I work for a small company, and we dont do background checks, but during interviews we try and get a sense of a candidates interests and hobbies. Things like volunteering for PETA immediately raises serious red flags.

    • I agree. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Tangurena ( 576827 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @06:23PM (#6905245)
      Publicity of so-called "Animal Rights" Terrorists is no where near as massive as the publicity AlQeda gets. Destroying a restaurant in California is not as sexy as destroying Bagdad, so it gets missed by the 6 o'clock news.

      I also worked at a Bank before 9/11. There was massive surveillance of its employees. Ebay? You're fired. Talk about looking for another job? You're fired. Using Hotmail or Yahoo for personal email? You're fired. That bank lost a major lawsuit for videotaping the bathrooms in that West Palm Beach headquarters. They still videotape it: the "winners" of the lawsuit also got fired. They had a security department devoted to listening to phone calls, watching your email and snooping your web tracks. Being hired to develop software with Visual Studio, my first task was to hack the locked down NT boxes (wow, padlocks on the floppy drives! C2 is a joke) because Visual Studio was not on the approved software list. And of course, after a few months, the software audit showed unapproved software on the computer, so I was fired. LMAO.

      Background checks for employees probably got a big boost after the tylenol tampering case. I am sure that some disgruntled employees have flicked boogers into the medicine before it gets bottled or tabletized. I am sure you have seen the "real tv" shows with the surveillance footage of some guy urinating into a coffee pot at the office. Could your company afford to make 100,000,000,000 pills with urine in them?

  • Mine's great (Score:3, Funny)

    by PD ( 9577 ) * <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:18PM (#6904700) Homepage Journal
    They kindly leave the firewall configured so I can SSH to my home machine and tunnel to my private proxy. Thanks boss!

  • Privacy is so good.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by zapp ( 201236 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:18PM (#6904701)
    because all their employees work in Singapore, India, Russia, etc.

    Pretty hard to walk buy and catch someone watchin porn when they're halfway around the world!

  • Worker Privacy (Score:2, Interesting)

    by evildogeye ( 106313 )
    At my company, we give everyone the idea that they have complete privacy, but in reality every email/IM conversation is logged and read. This probably seems morally reprehensible, but given the sensitivity of our work, it is necessary. If an employee is up to no good, we need to know immediately.

    I used to work for a fortune 500 company that had a similar policy.

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    • What do you do when employees are tunneling? You can't really call them on it, because that would require admitting monitoring.

      For that matter, what happens when you catch an employee at something using the logs of emails or IMs? Once s/he tells colleagues, isn't your grand plan of clandestine monitoring sort of exposed?

    • At my company, we give everyone the idea that they have complete privacy, but in reality every email/IM conversation is logged and read

      Thus I use trillian and SecureIM. Keeps those guys in IS/IT out of my business.

  • George Bush, Sr. & Lilly (Score:5, Informative)

    by mr.henry ( 618818 ) * on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:25PM (#6904753) Journal
    Not to troll or anything, but after Bush Sr. left the CIA in '77, he became director of Eli Lilly.
  • How about the US government?

    they certainly employ a large number of people.

  • Atmosphere (Score:3, Interesting)

    by defishguy ( 649645 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:26PM (#6904762) Journal
    There is a line somewhere between spending time working and spending time in jail.

    Let's say I hypothetically work for some state goverment in horse country...err... in their IT dept.

    I fully expect to have everything I do monitored and checked and this is fine and good. However there are those that tend to feel that such parental micromanagement is more a hindrance than a nessesity. How do you measure the LOSS of productivity? How many times does one NEED to go over an email to make sure that it isn't offensive to some obscure sect of midget neo-nazi lesbians that might accidentally get it?

    It takes an awful lot of time to cross the building when you have to walk on egg shells to do it. I'm not trying to say that businesses should not monitor employees but I am trying to say that there is a loss of productivity in trying to make sure that you are walking a very tight, narrow line.

    I know most monitoring is for porn, company secrets, company porn or whatever but the truth is that monitoring has gone into overdrive and we are losing our ability to communicate because everything has to be bleached of meaning to avoid offending even the most sensitive soul.

    I'm not sure that we can have real communication when we are so worried about accidentally communicating something unpopular.

  • One thing about the Eli Lilly employees on the webpage: they're either bloody small, or they've got one huge photographer!

  • knee-jerk privacy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by josephgrossberg ( 67732 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:29PM (#6904782) Homepage Journal
    According to the summary, Eli Lilly was rated "the most notorious Big Brother boss", after "...its invasive background checks of workers after Sept. 11, 2001, some of which led to dismissals."

    Umm ... doesn't it matter what those background checks uncovered (say, personally donating money to Hamas vs. simply having smoked a joint once in college)?

    And what the hell does "invasive" entail?

    Specifics, please!
    • my friend just graduated college from IU as an analytical chemist; he just got a job at Lilly and having been an Indiana native (it's based here; one of the states largest employers)everyone knows about lilly (hell i even own some stock)

      they required a huge background check, a stringent drug test (no detox is gonna get you outta this one) and several interviews and when they found out he had been arrested for disorderly conduct (drunk at a party) they wanted to see a copy of the police report too... the fa

  • Don't seem to bad (Score:3, Interesting)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:42PM (#6904883) Homepage Journal
    Where I work they don't even check up on how many hours you work.

    Then again I'm working through the University, so they probably could get access to my school records, and I'm only making $9 an 'hour'

  • Good (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @06:00PM (#6905029) Homepage
    As someone who relies upon medicine from Eli Lilly to keep me alive from day to day, I think it's a very good thing that they have background checks in place.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @06:06PM (#6905102)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I used to work at IBM (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Asmodean ( 21717 )
    They had cameras in ever corner of the room. Then again the helpdesk I worked on was a showcase for clients. They would show the clients the helpdesk from remote locations through the cameras. The problem with this was that we were not allowed to have ANYTHING but the computer, phone, and a notebook on the desk. It sucked, but at least you could tell when the camera was on (it wasn't pointed at the wall behind it).

  • Anecdotally speaking, Lily == the mob (Score:3, Interesting)

    by whovian ( 107062 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @07:31PM (#6905717)
    I've got an acquaintance at Lily who's been partially sucked into their Collective. He's been told that the company expected their workers to report back any gossip -- particularly negative gossip -- about their products.

    Now, wait a minute, you're thinking. It's not inconceivable that in doing so it could help to seal your next step up (hopefully) within the company, but it's been made pretty clear that (at least in his division) your life is the Company's, and vice-versa. A career, if you will.

    It was just a little too scary to hear.

  • Not surprising to me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AxelTorvalds ( 544851 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:03PM (#6905905)
    I did time at IBM and in retrospect I can pretty much only praise the operation. Didn't move as fast as I'd like in all respects but they are a remarkable company. The biggest difference between IBM and the mid-sized and small companies I've since worked for is that IBM actually manages people. The management corps at IBM takes management very seriously. In a Dilbert sort of way it sounds really funny and it looks incredibly inefficient from time to time while you're working in the trenches.

    There are a lot of managers out there. A relatively few number of them actually have any special training, most within IBM have special training. An MBA alone doesn't turn you in to a good manager or executive. IBM knows that and they have a process of creating good managers and execs, just like the military has a process of creating officers. People from the engineering career path decide to become managers, they go through training than then they are managers. At other companies it's an over night process, one day a guy is a senior software engineer and the next he's a manager. Subsequently, the MBAs I've had to deal with who weren't manager tended to be assholes who thought of themselves in a completely different light that the worker bees (just by virtue they should be paid more, drive a BMW and give orders, not all of them but an alarming number of them were that way) and those engineers come managers that I've worked with desparately wanted a number to quantify employee performance without actually knowing how the employees were doing. They either micro managed and their employees could only ever fail because they "could never do it as good as the boss" or they were left totally hands off and the boss had no idea who did what, when or why. At IBM my bosses trusted my judgement, they worked within that, they protected me, they asked my advice on technical matters, they dealt with politics, they were enablers and at the end of each year they had a pretty good idea why I worked for them, what I brought to the table, how i needed to improve and how I was of value; they knew the skill-set that I had and at times they moved me to better match that or to grow those skills in directions I desired. Also at IBM if you screw up, it goes to your manager, you surf porn and it's your manager that hears about it and sees the report, except for a few major offenses it's usually put in to your boss' hands when you do something wrong. Who better knows what the circumstances may be? Who better to judge your value to the company when you screw up?

    I think the classic example was a coworker who got caught drinking in his car at lunch time. He was just sitting out there drinking from the bottle, it was a flat violation of policy (I think booze is semi okay at IBM now, they have beer at some functions) well as it turns out his wife had left him the night before. He could have been fired, HR at a midsized company may have just fired him. His manager had a talk with him, gave him a repremand, explained that it can't happen again and didn't fire him. Offered to get him enrolled in some alchohol classes or rehab and at that point this person essentially started to rebuild his life that had just been falling apart.

    Now there are always problems, but IBM is a company that is built on trust and when the right people are in the right places and the trust is there they are a very very powerful company and a very difficult company to compete with. They've been around nearly 100 years and I expect them to be around another if they keep to these practices. They are a company to emulate in many ways and the ways they manage and trust their employees is one of them.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:48PM (#6906187)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • IBM (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08, 2003 @10:17PM (#6906679)
    I work for IBM which is why this will be anonymous. IBM may be fine as long as you only work at an IBM office but the majority of their workforce is in the field and IBM will bend over backwards for clients no matter how agregious their policies. For instance I work as a field tech and one of our clients for Point Of Sales equipment is GAP Inc. Well the Gap and their other retail stores has a policy of routinely searching the bags and persons of their employees as they leave the store. We field techs were told that we were to submit to these same procedures and that we should not raise any complaints about it! I told my boss and my dispatcher not to assign me to any of these calls because I would refuse to submit. I can't imagine being forced to submit to that every day. Hell I just walk past the idiot security guys at places like Best Buy. I will not allow them to assume I am a crook for shopping or working at their stores.

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