I got my first job with Web access on my desktop in 1996. Previous to that, I had e-mail, and I could get to the Web at work but it wasn’t on my desk - I had to go down the hall to a special ‘Web room’ to get to it. Sluffing off at work prior to 1996 involved sending too many e-mails or hanging out in another person’s office and shooting the shit. Both of these sluff techniques had one major problem - I needed another warm body who I knew personally who also wanted to sluff off at the same time as I did. E-mail sluffing doesn’t work if there’s not someone at the other end replying; hanging in someone’s office requires that a) there’s someone at work who I like enough to socialize with; b) that person is also up for sluffing and c) the boss won’t find out.
When the Internet became instantly accessible from my desk, all barricades to workplace sluffing disappeared. There’s always someone in cyber-world who wants to sluff with you. Either they’re there on message boards or IM, or they’ve put up interesting content like Romanesko’s or Lilek’s pages. It’s also difficult for the boss to catch you, because the Web can be clicked off when you see the boss approaching. I’ve whiled away many a work hour on the SDMB and the likes. I get the idea I’m not the only one.
I know if the Web wasn’t accessible, I’d work more. There’s no question about it. I remember what it was like to sit at a desk bored. I’d eventually work, just to ease the tedium.
So just how much has our productivity gone away because of this? If you were to start a company, would you allow Web access on the desktop? Be honest - if paychecks were coming out of YOUR pocket, wouldn’t you be worried if the employees had Web access? I know I would.
I’m a pretty lenient boss, but I’m still ready to turn on web page tracking (I’m in charge of the IS shop, so I really can do this). I check my home email from work a couple of times per day, but that’s about it - and that’s as much of a mid-morning or mid-afternoon break as I take.
I think your assessment of the issue is dead-on. I’m close to firing a guy next week because of this issue - rather than working, he’s on web sites about all sorts of silly shit - MP3 sites (which also clobber my company’s internet access bandwidth), “anarchy today” or some such thing, etc.
The problem is that we use the web for work stuff as well - I can’t take it off people’s desks. But in my company’s case, the honor system has failed miserably.
i rarely spend time on the web at work - because they don’t allow it. However, I can telnet into my school server to get my email, and also have access to Lynx (the text-based browser) through them. So if I REALLY wanted to, I probably could, but I don’t want to imagine the mess these boards would be in text-only - assuming I could even load them!
In all honesty, I spend less than 10 minutes a day on the internet at work. I just don’t have the time. From the minute I get in until the minute I leave I’m jammin’ busy. I do have free access, and nobody else would care if I was screwing around, so it’s not about getting away with anything. I’d love to have the time to read e-mail all day. Usually when I get home I have about 80 new messages to catch up on.
I spend all day on the web at work, primarily because I work in on-line training, but because I’m pissed with my boss at the moment and he’s 8-hours away, I have been slacking off and working at about 50% capacity for the past week.
(hey… I do have an excellent working attitude… when needed.)
My job requires me to monitor about 15 windows across 3 monitors on my desk. So, I keep a web browser up most of the time too, and I can watch for system messages while being online.
mnemosyne, until a couple of months ago, my work access was limited to text only, and the boards load much quicker that way, and are usually easier to read also. But not nearly as fun.
I’ve relucatantly figured out that its a good thing, but to my inital chagrin, i recently discovered that at my new job, my G4 doesn’t have enough RAM to run IE and ProTools, my main work program at the same time. ProTools is a an audio multitrack editor and is notoriously resource heavy, and it also has a longish initialzation sequence- scans for plug ins, configurations, audio engines, etc…
the net result of all this is that I am very selective about my net time. As i can’t just click on and leave IE idle in the background. I check email once at every break, wich takes about five minutes. The cigarette, elevator time, bathroom to wash hands after cigarette and occasional trip to the kitchen for a coke all adds up to 10-12 minutes, 3-5 times a day. so I’d say an hour, max. but its part of my break time so i never surf on company time, unless I happen to be doing something mindless but necessary, like burning CDs or batch converting audio files.
I’m also hourly- and fill out job sheets and time sheets, so I tend to be more conscientious (paranoid) about it that the salaried folks who spend tons of time on line.
I worry that the big guys will see my hours and my job sheets and wonder why so little gets done in 9 hours, so i tend to keep plugging along.
CJ
Some days around 80% of the day is spent surfing.
Other days, nada, zip, zilch, not a sausage.
It varies inversely proportional to how much work I’m supposed to be doing and whether I like what it was I was supposed to be doing.
Depending on how busy I am, I could easily spend an hour or two online during the day. I’m salaried, and sometimes not all that busy. My job involves work on individual customer proposals, if they aren’t sending any out that day, I don’t need to work on them. When I have a lot to do, surfing goes right down to zero, though I do ALWAYS find time to check email and a couple of other things throughout the day, taking up maybe 10-15min of total time. I also ALWAYS find time to eat lunch, sometimes I will do my internet on busy days while eating lunch at the desk.
As long as my work gets done (it does), and I don’t surf porn sites (I don’t), the company is happy.
Kee-RIST, I spend a hell of a lot of time online here at work. Mainly because, well, for the 8 hours I’m here, a lot of it’s waiting around for the next news broadcast, so unless I’ve got a really good book on me or the board’s really slow or dull, I’d say I spend about three hours sitting here infront of the computer. But hey, it’s what everyone else does because, well, there ain’t much else to do when sitting on one’s ass. GOD I love my job
A lot of the time on my job is spent waiting for test scripts to execute. There’s really nothing else for me to do while the scripts are running, and they usually take several minutes to run, so I turn to the SDMB to pass the time. As long as the tests are passing I don’t have to tend to them. If they don’t pass, then there’s work to do and I have to go back through and figure out what is causing the tests to fail. I like having something to do that makes me feel productive and doing something that is worthy of the company’s time.
I spend more time surfing than working. But I get all my work done, and my bosses seem happy. I keep waiting to get laid off, but it never seems to happen.
LIke many, I spend a good bit of down-time (while on hold on the phone, waiting for a program to run, etc) on-line. But I also don’t take breaks and eat at my desk. My work is completed in a timely manner and I have enough initiative to help others that need it when I’m caught up. I also do much less chatting with co-workers and many others do. My company’s internet policy is basically personal use is fine, but no porn sites and don’t abuse the privilege.