BigBrother! Monitoring software.....

[pauldee]

Sounds like pummelling the keyboard with your fists and producing bulltulip code is being rewarded, whilst stopping and thinking things through is being penalised. Good luck with that!

Developers generally try to please, and they do this by writing the best code they can. Start introducing KPIs, and devs will work to them. So if you send out the message that more lines of code is what's important to you, that's what you're going to get.

[andyg]

Regulator

The financial regulator do this to a certain extent after you have given notice. You are added to a 'watchlist' and emails. etc are observed to ensure you are not stealing IP/etc. Not widely advertised but I was informed by their Group Security dept during my notice period.

[billybiro]

Nope, but I can guarantee it would be a very short experience.

Life's too short for this sort of management bulltulip. In fact I wish I had some twat try to implement this in a contract just so I could show how little of a tulip I gave about it, and see what inventive workarounds I could find to keep it entertaining while it lasted.

That keyboard weeble is a good one. Saw it in an episode of The Simpsons where Homer set one up at his work to always press 'Yes' when the system kept asking him questions. Predictably, it ended up with him blowing up the nuclear reactor.

Personally I'd look around for another contract and in the meantime laugh out loud whenever you hear anyone mentioning the tracking and how fearful they are. I'd be winding the permies up, particularly any management supporting this practice, it's what they deserve for putting up with this tulip.

I did have a client where they had some very bad management practices, for the permies, I used my contractor 'not interested in it, I'm just here to finish this project' get out of permie bollocks card and ignored all their 'must do this or must not say that' happy clappy bulltulip. Unfortunately I wasn't in the office on the day a fellow contractor stood up and exclaimed it was all a load of bollocks and the management were dickheads and walked out. I would have given him as standing ovation. That wasn't as bad as this tracking stuff though.

To be honest, I wouldn't even put up with this just to see how far I could push the non-compliance aspect. This kind of overbearing nonsense has no place in any organisation, is wholly unproductive and destroys team/company morale.

If I walked into something like this on the first day of a contract, I'd quietly and calmly turn around and walk right back out and never set foot in that place again. They'd have an email from me within a matter of minutes indicating that I'm terminating the contract immediately - and I'd do this no matter what the contract specifically "allowed" me to do - contractual "obligations" be damned.

I put up with some amount of this crap in my early permie days many years ago, and thought almost all of this kind of "management" had been eradicated in the intervening years, but clearly some of it still exists. Life is simply too short to put up with this bullsh*t, so I simply won't. At all. And neither should you.

[greenlake]

Sounds like pummelling the keyboard with your fists and producing bulltulip code is being rewarded

This chap should do well then....

[woodyuk]

Thanks for the comments. I am going to refuse to have it running from tomorrow; if they say no I will walk - life is too short. The contract was direct and no agent involved, so should be easy in that regards.

The sad part is - they really need my help, and I can fix their problems.

They did say they monitored internet access etc - but nothing about screenshots etc. It was only because I googled the company they were using that I saw what else it did + what the staff were telling me. So pretty sure they are in breach of the law in that regard, also for GDPR they most definitely are!

This will teach me the next time I think picking a small local business close to where I rather than taking one in town (London) with a real company!

[cojak]

Thanks for the comments. I am going to refuse to have it running from tomorrow; if they say no I will walk - life is too short. The contract was direct and no agent involved, so should be easy in that regards.

The sad part is - they really need my help, and I can fix their problems.

They did say they monitored internet access etc - but nothing about screenshots etc. It was only because I googled the company they were using that I saw what else it did + what the staff were telling me. So pretty sure they are in breach of the law in that regard, also for GDPR they most definitely are!

This will teach me the next time I think picking a small local business close to where I rather than taking one in town (London) with a real company!

Try talking to them and explaining why you are walking, and point out the GDPR consequences of their actions.

You never know, they might actually listen...

[mattfx]

Try talking to them and explaining why you are walking, and point out the GDPR consequences of their actions.

You never know, they might actually listen...

Small businesses? Take the professional advise of other small businesses? I think I can see some winged piggies just about to cross the North Star.

Good luck OP, I sympathise; this type of management style is entirely draconian and will lead the businesses where it is deployed to their death as the Gig Economy takes over.

[Lance]

Thanks for the comments. I am going to refuse to have it running from tomorrow; if they say no I will walk - life is too short. The contract was direct and no agent involved, so should be easy in that regards.

The sad part is - they really need my help, and I can fix their problems.

They did say they monitored internet access etc - but nothing about screenshots etc. It was only because I googled the company they were using that I saw what else it did + what the staff were telling me. So pretty sure they are in breach of the law in that regard, also for GDPR they most definitely are!

This will teach me the next time I think picking a small local business close to where I rather than taking one in town (London) with a real company!

So you don’t have any evidence of the extent of monitoring?
You know what the software can do, but not whether it is doing it. And rumours from staff.

You might want to understand the facts before you burn any bridges.

As for law.... are you certain? Are you a lawyer?

They cannot breach GDPR yet either. Not till 8th May.

[psychocandy]

Sounds a bit OTT to be honest. Can't see it ending well.

I had client once who would go nuts if contractor even looked at bbc webpage. Yet permies sat around one desk one day and watched live streaming feed of the ryder cup gold for an entire afternoon. tulipe client that was.

There was loads of monitoring at this client - similar sort of thing but they had loads of call centre staff. Looks like the IT boys had turned it off for themselves but not the contractors.

[psychocandy]

So you don’t have any evidence of the extent of monitoring?
You know what the software can do, but not whether it is doing it. And rumours from staff.

You might want to understand the facts before you burn any bridges.

As for law.... are you certain? Are you a lawyer?

They cannot breach GDPR yet either. Not till 8th May.

Yeh nothing to kick off about until they come around to see you and say "we're a little disappointed that you only scored 45.83% last week".