Appropriate internet usage at work

[Alexandrah]

I'm not sure how many people here post in this forum at work but this thought occurred to me while reading a thread in the womens forum (about someone looking at porn/adult sites at work)

Do you feel that it is possibly unethical to spend periods of your workday discussing personal and religious beliefs? You are getting paid and therefore should be working or making a contribution to your employer. Are you ripping off your company by posting at work?

 

[bunced]

Well I personally do and so stick to using this forum (and other things like my personal e-mail etc) to either lunchtimes or when I'm at home

 

[jwu]

Do you feel that it is possibly unethical to spend periods of your workday discussing personal and religious beliefs? You are getting paid and therefore should be working or making a contribution to your employer. Are you ripping off your company by posting at work?

I think so.

On the other hand, i believe that e.g. reading newstickers that relate to the job is perfectly ok, as long as it isn't done excessively.

Personally, when i notice that some article on the internet is going to keep me busy for too long, then i just send a link to it to my personal email address. That also may turn out to be useful when my boss says that i overdo the private internet usage - then i can prove to him that i have taken measures on my own to limit it, and that i didn't act maliciously.

 

[stan1980]

Do you feel that it is possibly unethical to spend periods of your workday discussing personal and religious beliefs? You are getting paid and therefore should be working or making a contribution to your employer. Are you ripping off your company by posting at work?

Guilty as charged I'm not about to start feeling guilty for it though. I'll be honest, my aim is to do as little work as possible for maximum money. I've been clever enough to engineer myself a position or job where i am now getting away with doing very little without it being too obvious. I'm not about to start worrying whether i'm ripping my company off, although i might feel differently if i worked for a small company that didn't make any money.

 

[Braunwyn]

I'm usually too busy at work to have down time. Sometimes I'll take a look during my lunch hour.

 

[merybast]

I'm not sure how many people here post in this forum at work but this thought occurred to me while reading a thread in the womens forum (about someone looking at porn/adult sites at work)

Do you feel that it is possibly unethical to spend periods of your workday discussing personal and religious beliefs? You are getting paid and therefore should be working or making a contribution to your employer. Are you ripping off your company by posting at work?

Of course it's unethical to cheat on your firm by doing anything other than work during your allotted hours. If you don't have enough work to do go and find some and leave the internet to your lunch break.

 

[Robbie_James_Francis]

Guilty as charged I'm not about to start feeling guilty for it though. I'll be honest, my aim is to do as little work as possible for maximum money. I've been clever enough to engineer myself a position or job where i am now getting away with doing very little without it being too obvious. I'm not about to start worrying whether i'm ripping my company off, although i might feel differently if i worked for a small company that didn't make any money.

Yep...my attitude exactly. Hence why I was up in arms when I thought they were cheating me of my time and half on bank holidays, but if they overpaid me I'd keep my mouth firmly shut.

 

[sidhe]

Eh, I've been instructed by my manager that, when there's nothing else to do, I can surf the internet. It's what we all do here. And there's a LOT of times where there's nothing else to do. The majority of my duties (other than helping patrons) are done by 9:45am, sometimes sooner. After that, unless something special comes up (like an acquisitions search), I keep abreast of the forums I visit.

I try, at least, to read online library journals at least part of the day, or work on things for my MLIS degree. I think everyone else does online shopping or myspace, or reads the news.

 

[ClaireZ]

I always believed in a fair day's work for a fair days pay.

I only surf the net at home.

 

[feral]

The type of job I have, nannying, is very flexible and occasionally I have free time when the children are napping that I can use to read, study or go online. Out of respect for the family I work for, I don't chat when I'm working and I don't visit controversial sites or anyplace I wouldn't be comfortable telling them about. For instance, I wouldn't post here at work because the areas of this site that I visit are controversial. However, I don't see a problem with checking BBC or other news sites, or looking up craft ideas and projects for the kids while I'm working. Since the amount of time I can spend is limited, and since nannies seldom get lunch breaks or other breaks even in a typical 10-12 hour day, I don't feel it's a rip off. Having a bit of time to read and relax is a perk of child-care, just like free snacks.

 

[Caitlin.ann]

I'm not sure how many people here post in this forum at work but this thought occurred to me while reading a thread in the womens forum (about someone looking at porn/adult sites at work)

Do you feel that it is possibly unethical to spend periods of your workday discussing personal and religious beliefs? You are getting paid and therefore should be working or making a contribution to your employer. Are you ripping off your company by posting at work?

I personally think that if you're at work then you should be working, not chatting online. However, there are downtimes throughout the work day where checking certain websites (yahoo, forums, MSN, etc.) for a moment shouldn't be a big problem. The issue is that many businesses (to my knowledge) can still see what websites you've visited and when without even having to look through your personal computer, so that could be basis for a violation which could lead to being written up.

 

[stan1980]

The issue is that many businesses (to my knowledge) can still see what websites you've visited and when without even having to look through your personal computer, so that could be basis for a violation which could lead to being written up.

Make sure you are always friendly with your IT team then, so that they don't grass you up.

 

[Caitlin.ann]

Make sure you are always friendly with your IT team then, so that they don't grass you up.

Lol, thats also a good idea.