Using the Internet on County Time... Investigation

[janet]

"I think people should be able to have unlimited access to the internet
at work, but a list of what sites they visit and for how long should
be posted on a generally accessible intranet page." [PaulW]

When my former employer hooked all staff (more than 15,000 people globally) to computers and gave them unlimited access to the Internet to carry out their official responsibilities (oh so many years ago), this was the policy from the start. For the first three months, the employer reminded staff that their Internet activity was being watched and action against misuse would be taken. After that time, two (union) staff members were fired, one for spending more than an hour a day on a porno site and one for spending about two hours a day shopping. About a year later, a (very dumb) staff member was fired for trying to run a side business on the official computer.

From that point on, there was no "exceptional" misuse of the Internet - although all staff would occasionally shop, or hit a game site, etc. When questioned about such short-term misuse, the employer stated that it was considered the same as a staff member staring out the window or daydreaming for a little while.

Such a policy could be instituted anywhere now, with adequate notice to the staff.

[mdd7000]

Doesn't the county already have an established use policy for the internet? If so, all they have to do is start enforcing it.
As a taxpayer, I would be upset to find out that some county (or state or federal) worker was getting paid overtime when they also spent part of their time surfing the internet.

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by PaulW
So it's just a coincidence that you stopped posting videos of street
brawls and school fights (oh yes you did) when you managed to find advertisers?

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1. I stopped posting them because I had found most of the good ones that I could find at the time and it was taking too much time from other things.

2. Honestly... I didn't "Manage to find" ANY ADVERTISERS.

Every Advertiser on my blog asked me to advertise on my blog...

(And on top of that... I believe they are all Punaweb users)

My content on my blog will not change because of my advertisers... AND THEY KNOW THAT!


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Damon Tucker's Blog
FBI Blogs

[Greg]

Back to the topic at hand;

I'm a fan of blogs and have even started blogging myself. But as a small business owner, I can tell you I'd be pissed if an employee of mine were :
1.surfing the internet
2.Reading Surfer magazine
3.Looking at the newspaper (radio is fine for news)
4.Playing solitaire (digital or treeware)
or
5.Giving self a pedicure. While on MY time.

If I had a business that depended on internet access for anything, I'd feel it justified and responsible to monitor that activity.

If an employee of mine had to run to Pahoa Hardware for a tool, I would monitor that activity as well. (It better not take six hours).
It's the same thing.





punatoons

[centipede]

These are county employees who are using a computer that's been paid for with taxpayer dollars and they're fooling around on it while at work, where they draw a paycheck that's also funded with taxpayer dollars. And that's about it.

[Jon]

Ummm... thats easy... if they don't relate to the job, they are blocked... News Papers are all blocked... your site is blocked, this site is blocked... all of them.. only job related sites would be open...

Internet access at work in not a right.

quote:

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Originally posted by Damon

Not so fast Jon.

Who makes the determination of what is a good site to visit and what isn't?

Why is the Local Newspapers per say any better then some blogs [B)] or "Blog sites".

And trust me... most of the county servers already have filters on it where you can't access chat rooms/porn sites/gambling/etc.

I had to specifically request the Dept. of Education to lift my blog from their "ban list" to give access to Public Schools throughout the State.

At least they deemed my blog worthy of being accessed by "Kids" by their standards.

However, they still can't access any Educational Youtube videos that I might want to post at sometime.


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FBI Blogs

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I do not believe that America is better than everybody else...
America "IS" everybody else.
HBAT

[mgeary]

This shouldn't be difficult, folks. There are lots of existing policies out there to deal with this. I work for a county government here in central California, and here is our IT Services policy: http://www.co.kern.ca.us/cao/policy/07.pdf. The gist of the policy, for the purposes of this discussion, is Appendix B.

If you violate the policy, you are subject to disciplinary action up to and including termination, and we all have to sign a piece of paper saying that we acknowledge that every year with our annual performance evaluation. We terminated a few employees that I'm aware of, just in my department, but that was in the beginning of the implementation of the policy (and employee access to the 'web), but I don't recall any problems in the last couple of years AFTER the terminations occurred.

I don't really see what the problem is. I need to use the internet in the course and scope of my work (spot Wx forecasts, situation reports, helicopter availability, equip't specs and purchases, etc.) If I'm stupid enough to gamble online, or browse porno sites, or download unlicensed software, or waste large amounts of my work time shopping or looking at properties on the Big Island, or whatever is not related to actually doing my job, then I'm inviting retribution. And I have enough integrity to accept that retribution as the cost of my own stupidity.

I believe that the vast majority of the county employees, at least in my county, do not abuse their internet privileges, and the ones who do, are generally dealt with. Not exactly sure how things work in the county of Hawai'i, but I suspect it's probably the same. If they haven't already, they are welcome to "cut and paste" a similar policy from lots of different sources. And then they have to actually enforce the policy, which is difficult in the beginning. Once employees understand the policy will actually be enforced, the policy becomes a lot easier to manage.

Aloha! ;-)

[centipede]

I agree that it would be easy to block any internet usage that is not job-related, so why isn't the government dealing with such wasteful behavior in a logical and responsible manner? The answer, of course, is rhetorical.

[Barbara]

Great posts.
Blogging, web-surfing, texting, twittering, etc. on company time are NOT OK.
Damon, got it?

[Bob Orts]

So what's the issue?

If an employee needs to use the internet for their official job duties, and the policy allowes that use, they use it for their official job duties!

If an employee is using the internet for personal, non official job purposes and the employer has a policy restricting computer use for official business reasons and not personal, the employee is violating policy and could be discipline.

Is this one of those - the County is a bunch of bumbling boobs for not doing anything right but if they act properly and enforce a policy that impacts peoples ability to visit particular websites (blogs) for personal enjoyment and use at taxpayers expense, well now it's a bad policy?