So you did not notice that they didn’t actual do anything…? But were happy that their mouse was moving around…?
This is what I fail to get. You give people things to work on. Why do you want to spy on them instead of just looking at the results? Even if someone spends half the time watching YouTube, if all the work is done… who cares?
I’ve been the one identifying the people who use jigglers. Usually it was a manager coming to us to look for a reason to fire a poor employee or a contractor trying to bill a suspiciously large number of hours for the work produced. If it was just poor performance, HR would make us do a PIP and waste 3 months on them. Violating security procedures and falsifying time sheets was an immediate termination. And for the contractors, you need evidence in order to refuse payment.
Btw, if you want to get away with it, don’t use a software or USB one. Get one that interfaces with a regular mouse. Modern cybersecurity software logs every process executed and device connected.
Exactly. I kind of don’t give a shit about how my employees manage their time. If they get the thing done when we both agreed it should reasonably be done by, and they’re reasonably available to support their coworkers during business hours, then they can play video games for half the day for all I care.
One thing to keep in mind: with “knowledge work”, the work is never done - there’s always more to do.
So for middle management it’s really hard to measure productivity, so we get this nonsense.
This is also why Agile project management is so popular - it provides a daily metric of what’s going on, what people are doing. It forces a granularity of communication (which for those of us with lots to do, gets pretty fucking annoying).
According to the disclosures, the terminated employees worked in Wells Fargo’s wealth- and investment-management unit.
Time and time again, these funds don’t really beat the average of an index fund.
But the Uber wealthy dont like being lumped together with regular people. So they pay commissions to get the same performance, resulting in less profits than an ind x when it’s all said and done.
But the company points to the small parts that do over perform, and downplays the bad parts.
Turn 1 million into 5 million, and it’s easy to forget there was another 10 million that’s worth 6 million now.
Sure you up a million, but you’re focused on that 5x gain and not the 4 million loss. So before commissions it’s a draw.
In real life there’s interest, inflation, and lots of other stuff that muddies the waters.
It’s like their version of horse racing, they bet on a bunch and hope one hits it big and pays off the losses on the others. It’s the same as gambling and just as addictive.
So if these employees were answering their phone when a big client calls and letting stuff sit, their performance was probably fine.
I know people who use the mouse jiggler. They get all their work done and are good employees.
I’m a manager at a large company and have employees who work mostly from home. I don’t bother checking if their picture has a green or yellow mark next to their name. If they respond to my emails quickly and get their overall work done, I’m happy.
No, that’s not how employment works in this country. Employers pay people for the right to tell them what to do. You, as an employee, have sold your time to someone else. You are literally paid for the hours. Your employer is paid for the job. You are paid to do the things your employer tells you to do, which usually is part of the job they were paid to do.
Ofc all of this is subject to a whole mess of laws, regulations, policies, and whatever other horseshit HR decides to try. The important lesson is that you as an employee should NEVER put in work beyond the time you are paid to work.
You’d like to think that, but the last several years have proven beyond a doubt that they’re much more concerned that we’re sitting at our desks during set hours than any actual outcomes.
The more the old lies are proven as lies, the closer we get to the truth:
Just as important as “getting the job done” is the notion among many employers that they truly believe that with their payroll they are buying human lives and happiness. That if they are paying a worker for their time and labor that they are entitled to also dictate how that person feels about it…and if that worker is not sufficiently miserable, then they can be squeezed further.
I used to think that it was purely about money…that the idea was that if a worker ever got “all caught up” and had free time, then they should be generating more wealth for their employer in some other way…but then we had the pandemic.
The pandemic where lots and lots of workers had to suddenly do the whole work from home thing. And in that time, these employers were thrilled to go along with it, since it meant continuing to make money. And in that time, most office workers eventually turned out to be happier and even more productive.
…yet in the wake of the pandemic, many of these employers have chosen less productivity in exchange for bringing their employees back to offices. The only explanation for bringing employees back in who were happier and more productive from home is that these employers value the image of control and the ability to make their workers unhappy more than they value productivity and money.
The alternative explanation is that the employers have investments in corporate real estate and don’t want their investments to lose value. Personally, I think that the the people at the top probably have investments in corporate real estate, while middle managers are the way you describe.
I don’t think the people at the top usually care what the employees are doing so long as they’re making money, and being in the office means they’re keeping corporate real estate prices afloat. As such, being in office makes money for the executives, even if that money isn’t made directly through the company.
Middle managers on the other hand, likely don’t have any significant corporate real estate investments, nor are they as likely get significant bonuses for company productivity. As such, it makes more sense for their motive to be more about control than it is money.
That said, I do know some executives do indeed see employees the way you’ve described them; an infamous example comes to mind about the Australian real estate executive talking about how they needed to bring workers to heel and crash the economy to remind workers that they work for the company and not the other way around. I’m just not sure that many executives actually think about their workers in that much depth. I think if they did then we’d see a stark contrast of very ethical companies and highly abusive companies instead of the mix of workplace cultures we have now; because some ceos would come to the conclusion that a happy worker is a good worker, while others would become complete control freaks.
They absolutely don’t. It’s a combination of apathy, an aversion to recognising a workers specific value, and the utility of letting them spin their wheels while you ignore them, so they don’t have the cognitive capacity to do something bad for you like find a different work environment.
So you did not notice that they didn’t actual do anything…? But were happy that their mouse was moving around…?
This is what I fail to get. You give people things to work on. Why do you want to spy on them instead of just looking at the results? Even if someone spends half the time watching YouTube, if all the work is done… who cares?
I’ve been the one identifying the people who use jigglers. Usually it was a manager coming to us to look for a reason to fire a poor employee or a contractor trying to bill a suspiciously large number of hours for the work produced. If it was just poor performance, HR would make us do a PIP and waste 3 months on them. Violating security procedures and falsifying time sheets was an immediate termination. And for the contractors, you need evidence in order to refuse payment.
Btw, if you want to get away with it, don’t use a software or USB one. Get one that interfaces with a regular mouse. Modern cybersecurity software logs every process executed and device connected.
Exactly. I kind of don’t give a shit about how my employees manage their time. If they get the thing done when we both agreed it should reasonably be done by, and they’re reasonably available to support their coworkers during business hours, then they can play video games for half the day for all I care.
You measure the results, not the clicks.
One thing to keep in mind: with “knowledge work”, the work is never done - there’s always more to do.
So for middle management it’s really hard to measure productivity, so we get this nonsense.
This is also why Agile project management is so popular - it provides a daily metric of what’s going on, what people are doing. It forces a granularity of communication (which for those of us with lots to do, gets pretty fucking annoying).
Because it’s not about getting work done, it’s about having power over your employees.
Found the answer.
Slaves is what they want and we fail to provide it to them.
They don’t have a real job…
Time and time again, these funds don’t really beat the average of an index fund.
But the Uber wealthy dont like being lumped together with regular people. So they pay commissions to get the same performance, resulting in less profits than an ind x when it’s all said and done.
But the company points to the small parts that do over perform, and downplays the bad parts.
Turn 1 million into 5 million, and it’s easy to forget there was another 10 million that’s worth 6 million now.
Sure you up a million, but you’re focused on that 5x gain and not the 4 million loss. So before commissions it’s a draw.
In real life there’s interest, inflation, and lots of other stuff that muddies the waters.
It’s like their version of horse racing, they bet on a bunch and hope one hits it big and pays off the losses on the others. It’s the same as gambling and just as addictive.
So if these employees were answering their phone when a big client calls and letting stuff sit, their performance was probably fine.
Because it’s not a real job.
I know people who use the mouse jiggler. They get all their work done and are good employees.
I’m a manager at a large company and have employees who work mostly from home. I don’t bother checking if their picture has a green or yellow mark next to their name. If they respond to my emails quickly and get their overall work done, I’m happy.
Ah, a lower end manager I see. The higher ups wouldn’t be smart enough to get that.
They care because it means you could be doing even more work in the time allotted.
It’s the “if you have time to lean you have time to clean” of the white collar world, why would they be paying the peasants if the toil isn’t visible
Another way of putting it is that it’s the “I paid for X, I want to use all of the X” of the upper management world.
“I paid for this traffic light, therefore I want to use all three bulbs at once”
These people are salaried. They don’t owe companies hours.
No, they don’t actually owe them shit. But the employer thinks they do.
That’s what salaried positions are supposed to be like. You’re getting paid for the job, not the hours.
No, that’s not how employment works in this country. Employers pay people for the right to tell them what to do. You, as an employee, have sold your time to someone else. You are literally paid for the hours. Your employer is paid for the job. You are paid to do the things your employer tells you to do, which usually is part of the job they were paid to do.
Ofc all of this is subject to a whole mess of laws, regulations, policies, and whatever other horseshit HR decides to try. The important lesson is that you as an employee should NEVER put in work beyond the time you are paid to work.
You’d like to think that, but the last several years have proven beyond a doubt that they’re much more concerned that we’re sitting at our desks during set hours than any actual outcomes.
The more the old lies are proven as lies, the closer we get to the truth:
Just as important as “getting the job done” is the notion among many employers that they truly believe that with their payroll they are buying human lives and happiness. That if they are paying a worker for their time and labor that they are entitled to also dictate how that person feels about it…and if that worker is not sufficiently miserable, then they can be squeezed further.
I used to think that it was purely about money…that the idea was that if a worker ever got “all caught up” and had free time, then they should be generating more wealth for their employer in some other way…but then we had the pandemic.
The pandemic where lots and lots of workers had to suddenly do the whole work from home thing. And in that time, these employers were thrilled to go along with it, since it meant continuing to make money. And in that time, most office workers eventually turned out to be happier and even more productive.
…yet in the wake of the pandemic, many of these employers have chosen less productivity in exchange for bringing their employees back to offices. The only explanation for bringing employees back in who were happier and more productive from home is that these employers value the image of control and the ability to make their workers unhappy more than they value productivity and money.
The alternative explanation is that the employers have investments in corporate real estate and don’t want their investments to lose value. Personally, I think that the the people at the top probably have investments in corporate real estate, while middle managers are the way you describe.
I don’t think the people at the top usually care what the employees are doing so long as they’re making money, and being in the office means they’re keeping corporate real estate prices afloat. As such, being in office makes money for the executives, even if that money isn’t made directly through the company.
Middle managers on the other hand, likely don’t have any significant corporate real estate investments, nor are they as likely get significant bonuses for company productivity. As such, it makes more sense for their motive to be more about control than it is money.
That said, I do know some executives do indeed see employees the way you’ve described them; an infamous example comes to mind about the Australian real estate executive talking about how they needed to bring workers to heel and crash the economy to remind workers that they work for the company and not the other way around. I’m just not sure that many executives actually think about their workers in that much depth. I think if they did then we’d see a stark contrast of very ethical companies and highly abusive companies instead of the mix of workplace cultures we have now; because some ceos would come to the conclusion that a happy worker is a good worker, while others would become complete control freaks.
They absolutely don’t. It’s a combination of apathy, an aversion to recognising a workers specific value, and the utility of letting them spin their wheels while you ignore them, so they don’t have the cognitive capacity to do something bad for you like find a different work environment.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does
Seeing the world through this lens has been both freeing and disheartening…