There’s a Slacker In Every Office

Clare Briggs

Clare Briggs is a famous cartoonist who lived from 1875 to 1930. Poems by Wilbur Nesbitt.

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8 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    In the 90’s, we had “personal use” rules for emails. Don’t use your work email to ask the wife if she needed you to pick up some garlic bread on the way home! That’s misappropriation of company resources!Report

    • Fish in reply to Jaybird says:

      Remember that day when we worked for “large American computer company” and all those people got walked out for abusing email?Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Fish says:

        That was a weird day.Report

        • North in reply to Jaybird says:

          That actually happened? Wow… just wow. I know the past is another country but I was a teenager through the 90’s…Report

          • Jaybird in reply to North says:

            There was a “private” email list that the contractors/managed services providers used to tell jokes to each other and forward funny movie clips.

            The manager was part of the email group and he alternated sending emails to the entire team saying “QUIT ABUSING COMPANY RESOURCES” with sending emails on this private group saying “here, watch this funny clip!”

            It was either Halloween or the Friday before Halloween. My team lead was wearing a Winnie-The-Pooh costume before lunch and, after lunch, half the room was gone and my team lead was no longer in costume.

            “What’s going on?”, I asked him.
            “Are you still here?”
            “Yeah.”
            “Then don’t worry about it.”Report

            • Fish in reply to Jaybird says:

              I was on vacation when this happened. When I came back…people were missing. Shortly after I arrived I was called to the carpet. Bosses explained to me that my name was on the list, too, but I wasn’t getting fired because I never forwarded any of the emails!Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Fish says:

                I remember the day CA took over at Ingres (mid-90s). One of their first acts was to cut off the internet; it was one of Charles Wang’s firmest beliefs that it was a distraction for real work.

                It took them a day or so to understand that we communicated with our customers via e-mail, and as far as they could tell tech support had all gone away.Report

            • fillyjonk in reply to Jaybird says:

              On college campuses there have been similar issues with “private” Slack channels or….was it called Yik Yak? I vaguely remember an app that rapidly devolved into what was basically a slam book and there were charges it was being used to harass.

              We used to have an admin here who would have put panopticon cameras in our offices/classrooms to check up on us to be sure we weren’t slacking off, if they thought they could have got away with itReport