internet at work

[alecstilleyedye]

what's your employer's internet policy?

mine's pretty block-happy (although they haven't blocked this place, yet); even the bbc is out of bounds.

is my place living in the past, or am i unrealistic in expecting an open internet policy?

 

[Dangermouse]

The usual is restricted at work, porn, gambling inc lottery, anything that may bring up NSFW photos yet I once googled blue feet boobies and hey presto.........thought I would be sacked.

 

[MikeG]

I am in the early stages of planning for taking over a practice (the principle is retiring soon), and one of the things I am certainly going to set up is that there will only be one computer on-line. All the remainder will be networked, but off line, (other than the secretary) so that we can focus on work. When someone needs to look something up, or retrieve emails etc, they will have to go to a stand-alone machine and do it there. I know how damned distracting the internet is, evidenced by the fact that I am typing this on a forum when I really should be drawing.

 

[HLaB]

My work blocks any site its heard of, luckily they haven't heard about CC yet!

 

[helston90]

Mine was quite broadly filtered and I've been slowly chipping away at IS to get them to unblock things for "work reasons"- so far I've managed to convince them I need Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Youtube. Now that is a recipe for distraction.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

I am in the early stages of planning for taking over a practice (the principle is retiring soon), and one of the things I am certainly going to set up is that there will only be one computer on-line. All the remainder will be networked, but off line, (other than the secretary) so that we can focus on work. When someone needs to look something up, or retrieve emails etc, they will have to go to a stand-alone machine and do it there. I know how damned distracting the internet is, evidenced by the fact that I am typing this on a forum when I really should be drawing.

I think you will find this counterproductive, you need somebody who knows what they are doing to set-up your network properly expecting people to all go to one PC to view their emails is archaic.

Alan...

 

[asterix]

Where I worked it - IT dept - was open. They also had comprehensive data on what sites were being visited but didn't say much about that. I discovered it wasn't too hard to access the data. It was very useful at times to get info on IT systems off t'internet, non-work I stuck to this site, ebay, amazon and the beeb mostly. Business Admin staff were much more restricted and so they should be, the slackers.

 

[Pale Rider]

At my place it's open access but zero tolerance for accessing anything naughty - if you are caught.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

My work proxy doesn't block this site (yet), but does block the GeeksChat.net site linked to on the top of this site. Which is pretty funny, given that I have a (kind of) legitimate reason to visit the latter at work, being a software engineer .

 

[helston90]

zero tolerance for accessing anything naughty - if you are caught.

Love it.
In the land of the guilty the only crime is getting caught!

 

[ACS]

As a Sys Admin and head internet gate keeper my mantra is "block everything and make 'em beg".

(I do work in a school and we do have a duty of care)

 

[Deleted member 26715]

As a Sys Admin and head internet gate keeper my mantra is "block everything and make 'em beg".

Seems to be standard for Sysadmin's, they all should have little black tashes & goose step around, ***wonders*** if they become parking attendants in later life?

Alan...

 

[ACS]

Seems to be standard for Sysadmin's, they all should have little black tashes & goose step around, ***wonders*** if they become parking attendants in later life?

Alan...

Only those with a gammy leg, a walking stick with a desire to work for NCP.

 

[ASC1951]

I am in the early stages of planning for taking over a practice (the principle is retiring soon), and one of the things I am certainly going to set up is that there will only be one computer on-line. All the remainder will be networked, but off line, (other than the secretary) so that we can focus on work. When someone needs to look something up, or retrieve emails etc, they will have to go to a stand-alone machine and do it there. I know how damned distracting the internet is, evidenced by the fact that I am typing this on a forum when I really should be drawing.

I don't see any sense at all in that. My policy for my employees was that as long as the work got done I wasn't going to look over their shoulders seeing what they did online - especially when they all had smartphones. They all knew that if they abused it I would be on their case and in fact they didn't.
If you treat your colleagues like children you will just create a less efficient business and lose their respect.

 

[Melonfish]

Mines open, but then i work in IT, we tell our staff to be sensible, some sites are blocked but we're talking hard core pr0n etc.

If everyone checks their company handbook they may find something they don't like about their IT policy, what is normally standard nowadays is the line "users should have no expectation of privacy"
what does this mean however?
simply put, your IT department can see everything you do on your computer, up to and including bank details, passwords and whatever you type in.
99.999999999999% of the time there's no reason to look a this stuff mind and it would be unprofessional to go rooting through someones stuff but on rare occasions it is requested by HR. (although we've not had a request for bank details or passwords ever)
if you're sensible with your staff they'll generally be sensible back.