About Chris Williams
Location: Dallas, Texas
Occupation: Web Designer
Bio: Webmaster for PopSyndicate.com and other sites. You can see more of his work at his web design site, Martini Lab, and his blog as well.
Posts: 163
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My IT department tells us no more surfing. Now I've got the YouTube withdrawal shakes.
Our company policy states that using the internet for personal use is forbidden. Please, it's the internet; is there any other kind of use? I'm not sure if their definition of our internet bandwidth is like mine--consists of a phone cord, some bubble gum wrappers, and a paper clip (see MacGyver), but internet radio and YouTube recently caused IT to notice slow servers and network lags.
My day job is the exciting world of email direct marketing. I'm an E-mail Production Specialist. That's a fancy way of saying we sell spam, and I'm their html monkey. My business card does, in fact, hyphenate the word email. I don't give out my business card because of this. It is all above board though. We are very strict about following spam laws. A lot of what we do is transactional receipts; buy something online, get an email confirmation. It's not a very exciting business. It involves long hours of writing html 1.0 code while waiting for lists to import. Sometimes, an ISP will block one of our clients for spam reasons. That's when things really get exciting!
Like my business card's behind-the-times grammar style, my job lacks that progressive attitude one comes to expect from a "dot com" corporation. My old job in video production had breakfast catered (lox anyone?). Writing code for a small internet office in Vancouver meant weekly visits from a masseuse. When I worked for Apple, they had a bi-weekly employee appreciation beer festival. Sometimes, BT would show up to jam on the turn tables. Everyone at Google commutes to work in a jetpack. Where I work now; we get free coffee.
So it's not the hip trendy gig of Silicon Valley. But everyone I work with is knowledgeable in what they do. Most of us come from technical backgrounds and have plenty of experience in this industry. That's why I'm always surprised in how our IT department regards us. Faced with the pending doom of blocked tubes (I've got to stop making Sen. Ted Stevens references), rather than sending out a friendly email asking those of us using internet radio to stop for bandwidth's sake, we get a curt reminder of HR policy. This is the point in the story where I bring up the importance of seeing Office Space at least once in your life. If for no other reason than to understand the meaning of TPS Reports, please watch this movie.
Anyway, company policy states (and follows other companies, I'm sure; check your own) the internet is not allowed for personal use including instant messaging, internet capable applications outside of those approved for business use, nor is fun or sunshine. Such violations will result in being reported to HR, yadda yadda yadda, we're monitoring traffic for now on. It's arguable which applications are or aren't allowed for office use. For example, we all have Windows Messenger running so we can chat without having to use the phone. Perfect for the telecommuters, or those of us who listen all day to iPods and don't like the phone interrupting This American Life. Plus IM'ing is easiers than the phone when it comes to copying a windows location or letting your co-worker know when cuteoverload.com posts new photos. Kitty in a bucket ZOMG!!1
That's OK though, I understand IT's perspective. While they're busy fixing connectivity time-outs, we're the ones spending all this time not working. At 44% of the total time wasted, according to a survey by AOL and Survey.com, personal internet usage costs $333.49 billion in salary and wages (no results for how much of that time is spend at AOL or survey.com, however.) That means, on average, you and I are surfing for about an hour a day. I can't dismiss the point of IT's memo, but to go so far as to threaten HR action? We're all adults, we're all professional (presumably so), and throwing harsh memo's doesn't accomplish anything. And as far as monitoring internet traffic goes, IT can expect to start seeing hits for monster.com.
So it's losing myspace religion for now. Those friend requests from Allison, Jenna, Zoe, Julie, Brenda, Tina, Vixen, and Hope will have to wait until I get home.
My day job is the exciting world of email direct marketing. I'm an E-mail Production Specialist. That's a fancy way of saying we sell spam, and I'm their html monkey. My business card does, in fact, hyphenate the word email. I don't give out my business card because of this. It is all above board though. We are very strict about following spam laws. A lot of what we do is transactional receipts; buy something online, get an email confirmation. It's not a very exciting business. It involves long hours of writing html 1.0 code while waiting for lists to import. Sometimes, an ISP will block one of our clients for spam reasons. That's when things really get exciting!
Like my business card's behind-the-times grammar style, my job lacks that progressive attitude one comes to expect from a "dot com" corporation. My old job in video production had breakfast catered (lox anyone?). Writing code for a small internet office in Vancouver meant weekly visits from a masseuse. When I worked for Apple, they had a bi-weekly employee appreciation beer festival. Sometimes, BT would show up to jam on the turn tables. Everyone at Google commutes to work in a jetpack. Where I work now; we get free coffee.
So it's not the hip trendy gig of Silicon Valley. But everyone I work with is knowledgeable in what they do. Most of us come from technical backgrounds and have plenty of experience in this industry. That's why I'm always surprised in how our IT department regards us. Faced with the pending doom of blocked tubes (I've got to stop making Sen. Ted Stevens references), rather than sending out a friendly email asking those of us using internet radio to stop for bandwidth's sake, we get a curt reminder of HR policy. This is the point in the story where I bring up the importance of seeing Office Space at least once in your life. If for no other reason than to understand the meaning of TPS Reports, please watch this movie.
Anyway, company policy states (and follows other companies, I'm sure; check your own) the internet is not allowed for personal use including instant messaging, internet capable applications outside of those approved for business use, nor is fun or sunshine. Such violations will result in being reported to HR, yadda yadda yadda, we're monitoring traffic for now on. It's arguable which applications are or aren't allowed for office use. For example, we all have Windows Messenger running so we can chat without having to use the phone. Perfect for the telecommuters, or those of us who listen all day to iPods and don't like the phone interrupting This American Life. Plus IM'ing is easiers than the phone when it comes to copying a windows location or letting your co-worker know when cuteoverload.com posts new photos. Kitty in a bucket ZOMG!!1
That's OK though, I understand IT's perspective. While they're busy fixing connectivity time-outs, we're the ones spending all this time not working. At 44% of the total time wasted, according to a survey by AOL and Survey.com, personal internet usage costs $333.49 billion in salary and wages (no results for how much of that time is spend at AOL or survey.com, however.) That means, on average, you and I are surfing for about an hour a day. I can't dismiss the point of IT's memo, but to go so far as to threaten HR action? We're all adults, we're all professional (presumably so), and throwing harsh memo's doesn't accomplish anything. And as far as monitoring internet traffic goes, IT can expect to start seeing hits for monster.com.
So it's losing myspace religion for now. Those friend requests from Allison, Jenna, Zoe, Julie, Brenda, Tina, Vixen, and Hope will have to wait until I get home.
Chris Williams writes a weekly column for PopSyndicate. His MySpace page is NSFW
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