Do you use the internet for personal use at work?

[Firefighter]

Its the happiest and most effective bunch of people I've ever worked with, and I defy any IT organization in the entire world to prove that they do more than we do with equal resources..

You no doubt win on the happy part, but I would venture to say that we might have you on the productivity part. (We have an IT staff of three, one of which is useless.)

[TomH]

You no doubt win on the happy part, but I would venture to say that we might have you on the productivity part. (We have an IT staff of three, one of which is useless.)

Don't be so hard on yourself. I'm sure you're not completely useless.

[Firefighter]

Don't be so hard on yourself. I'm sure you're not completely useless.

Good one....

[nebula_omega]

We don't have internet access at my store, which is strange. I think if we did though, my PIC would be straight with it as long as all the work is done. I mean, she lets me study on the job, so there's not much of a difference.

That's one (of many) problems I have with my pharmacy chain. I think our pharmacists would be a lot more helpful if they could access LexiComp for questions that stump them. I mean, if corporate's scared about overusage, they could always block access to most other sites. But I think being able to pull up Micromedex, PubMed, etc. would be very beneficial. But that's just me.

[tango]

Smoke breaks is stealing time as well. If your work has to stop to listen to the radio, then that is stealing time also.

So what if the company expects you to work extra time for no money? Do you regard that as them stealing time from you?

Woudl you regard taking 15 minutes to go to the bathroom as stealing time? If you'd eaten something dodgy and were holed up in a cubicle for 30 minutes or more is that stealing time?

What about if someone's mind is stuck in a rut and they step outside for 5 minutes for some fresh air, and come back refreshed and better able to concentrate? Is that 5 minutes of stolen time, or a responsible way of increasing their productivity?

[HisLeast]

I can see both sides of the issue and I imagine there are pretty clear dividing lines depending on if you're salaried or hourly, external or internal. Back when I was a consultant it was 10 to 12 hour days with no breaks and lunch if I was lucky. When I worked in grocery and manufacturing the lunch and breaks were more stringent because you got paid by the hour of production. Now that I work IT the primary objective is getting deliverables met and the corp culture is how I described above.

[Gulah Papyrus]

I can't believe anybody actually has time to do personal interwebbing at work. Must be nice.

[HisLeast]

I can't believe anybody actually has time to do personal interwebbing at work. Must be nice.

In my case the flow of work isn't constant. I have projects that I'm leading so I spend time poring over all the details and working deliverables. I have X number of support issues which may or may not need vendor support or client feedback. There are several times in a day when I'm plain old waiting on other people or spending 30 minutes of build and 15 minutes of waiting on test results. Then there's one day or so during the week where I go full burn through the day and take more work home for the evening and weekend. Then there's the days when someone in Australia or China has an emergency in the middle of their day and I have to deal with it whenever that is.

It really depends on the kind of work one does.

[nebula_omega]

I can't believe anybody actually has time to do personal interwebbing at work. Must be nice.

It depends on where you work. I wouldn't have been able to surf the web at my old store because we were just too busy. My current store has a lot less customers, so we have a fair amount of downtime, especially on the weekends.

[TomH]

It depends on where you work. I wouldn't have been able to surf the web at my old store because we were just too busy. My current store has a lot less customers, so we have a fair amount of downtime, especially on the weekends.

Well then, scrub the floors, wash the windows, take out the trash!!! And when your done with that, scrub the floors, take ou......

[tango]

I can see both sides of the issue and I imagine there are pretty clear dividing lines depending on if you're salaried or hourly, external or internal. Back when I was a consultant it was 10 to 12 hour days with no breaks and lunch if I was lucky. When I worked in grocery and manufacturing the lunch and breaks were more stringent because you got paid by the hour of production. Now that I work IT the primary objective is getting deliverables met and the corp culture is how I described above.

I've used the web for personal stuff when I was salaried, when I was employed, when I was an external consultant. In the days when I worked for an hourly wage there was no internet so I've never had to deal with that combination.

When I've been salaried there have been times when work was so hectic that even a trip to the bathroom felt like a distraction and there have been times where I'd spend an entire day with little to do. Likewise when I've been an external there have been days when the client wanted me to be present and paid me a daily rate but didn't actually have work for me to do that particular day. In both cases in the absence of any specific tasks to complete I see nothing wrong with doing whatever I wanted to do using my own resources, as long as I remained available for any tasks that arose. If I was browsing the web for something personal and one of my users called me I'd stop what I was doing, take their call, deal with whatever they needed, and only then go back to personal stuff.

[Reynolds357]

So what if the company expects you to work extra time for no money? Do you regard that as them stealing time from you?

Woudl you regard taking 15 minutes to go to the bathroom as stealing time? If you'd eaten something dodgy and were holed up in a cubicle for 30 minutes or more is that stealing time?

What about if someone's mind is stuck in a rut and they step outside for 5 minutes for some fresh air, and come back refreshed and better able to concentrate? Is that 5 minutes of stolen time, or a responsible way of increasing their productivity?

The company can not require you to work extra time without pay unless you are on salary. If you are on salary, as long as your work gets done, you can do whatever you want. If you are paid by the hour, give your employer the full hour he pays you for.

[tango]

The company can not require you to work extra time without pay unless you are on salary. If you are on salary, as long as your work gets done, you can do whatever you want. If you are paid by the hour, give your employer the full hour he pays you for.

So what if the company pays you by the hour but for one particular hour only allocates you enough work to fill 30 minutes?

If you're sitting around for 30 minutes waiting for some more work, what difference does it make whether you sit in your seat twiddling your thumbs or sit in your seat surfing the internet? As long as you are responsive as and when another task comes to you, does it make a difference at all?

[wswbrook]

Our Internet policy at work allows us to access it for personal use during our own time, like during lunch and on breaks.

[RabbiKnife]

Well then, scrub the floors, wash the windows, take out the trash!!! And when your done with that, scrub the floors, take ou......

But what will the illegal Mexican aliens....I mean, poor undocumented migrant workers....do if I take their job???