Blackberry Owners Chained to Work 210
seriouslywtf writes "New survey data suggests that Americans are split over whether Blackberrys are chaining them to work. While people who own Blackberries feel 'more productive', those with Blackberrys are more likely to work longer hours and feel like they have less personal time than those without. A Director of Marketing Strategies who owns a Blackberry pointed out that many employees feel obligated by employers who have handed out the devices. 'While being always on in a social context is a natural for young people, many of those in the 25-54 age group with families and corporate jobs are struggling with work-life blending. There is a need for the mainstream workplace culture to offer ways to counterbalance.'" Is the constantly connected, often mobile nature of the modern workplace a good thing, or not?
Geez... are people really that malleable? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Geez... are people really that malleable? (Score:5, Interesting)
At a previous job, I had a pro-forma email I'd send out about every 6 months to remind people of the paths of communication, their optimal uses and expected responsiveness. The general gist was email --> IM --> text message --> call --> in person. If you need someone but its not important, start at the left. If it is critical, start at the right. Follow up with slower technologies to keep record of important points or clarify details once engaged. And use your judgement to escalate - the excuse "i IM'ed you about the server room being on fire" doesn't hold water!
Are They Really More Productive? (Score:5, Interesting)
Workers whose productivity doesn't increase even when they get expensive technology investments like a Blackberry aren't reliable people to ask whether they're more productive. Working longer hours isn't productivity: often it's a decrease, leaving more to get done in longer time, when fatigue, resentment and just arbitrary final cutoff times decrease productivity.
If they're less productive, and feel more productive, then they'll want more pay, though they produce less, and cost more in IT costs. How about a real answer to this question, instead of mumbo jumbo about how Blackberries "feel"?
Many workers misled (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a lot of people who voluntarily take on lots of unpaid overtime. They sincerely believe that this will get them ahead, put them lower on layoff lists, get them higher raises, etc.
I'm a staunch 40-hour guy, and have yet to be laid off from this particular job, for 5 years now, where there are a lot of people like that. I suppose if I'd worked 70 or 80 hours a week, I might be making a few percent more, though. If you work that out per hour, I'd be way better off doing a side job with that time. Oh, there's stock options, though; I shit you not, when this employer got bought a while back, I stood to gain $4000 before taxes from my 4.5 years' worth of stock options. I'm sure that would have been good incentive to work 50% more.
I'm not worried about layoffs. My job will go to India when it goes to India. There won't be anything I (or anyone else, right on down from the CEO of the company) can do to prevent or delay it, so why bust my ass trying?
Re:Geez... are people really that malleable? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you are getting alert notification mail from the systems you administer on a regular basis, you might wish to consider another career because you're not doing a good job as a sysadmin. And I am saying that from both the vantage point of having been one as well as having managed 100+ both directly and indirectly.
So, now that we've established that alert notifications from your systems are a pretty rare event, I leave it as an exercise to the reader to craft a procmail script such that your blackberry only alerts you to these specific incoming alert messages.
Re:Change the labor laws (Score:2, Interesting)
Correlation Is Not Causation (Score:4, Interesting)
People who work harder on their careers at the expense of personal time tend to progress further than those who take an easier path and put personal time first.
Blackberries [at least initially] were a tool for managers and the most critical infrastructure staff as most companies wouldn't pay many hundreds to buy the hardware plus the service costs for the average employee to check email on the toilet.
So, one explanation is that people who were already obsessive about their careers and already obsessively shackled themselves to work anyway are the ones who gained Blackberries to simply maintain an existing destructive behavior.
Whilst it's easy to assume that Blackberries allow working out of hours and people are forced to work longer hours because they get a Blackberry, another explanation is that people get Blackberries because they're the kind of people looking to work longer hours (or at least stay obsessively aware of things which equates to the same thing).
It's easy to make the assumption that, because there's a correlation between A and B, there is the causation that A must clearly lead to B. It's just as possible that B actually leads to A. If B is a bad thing, we need to be careful not to assume A is thus the cause of a bad thing and therefore just as bad if not worse - it may just be that A is simply yet another symptom of the bad thing (B) itself.
It's kind of like saying, "People who stay in bed all day are much more likely to have the flu." The easy assumption to make there is that beds somehow lead to the flu. Easy. But totally wrong.
Re:Change the labor laws (Score:3, Interesting)
Work for free Jan 1 - Feb 23 (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.worksmart.org.uk/workyourproperhoursda
Re:Geez... are people really that malleable? (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, in my original post..I did mention that I do enjoy my work...
I like messing with computers, databases...etc. I do a considerable amount of 'play' with my computers at home...however, it is ALL my stuff and interests I want to do. While at the job site..I try to be 100% concentrated on the efforts to do the job there...to get paid. But, I do not give my work responsibilities a 2nd thought as I leave...I really don't. I do, do some of the same things for fun at home as at work, but, they are my projects...and only for my pleasure, or to increase money I can make on my own. I just do not mull over 'work problems' when I'm not there...I pretty much only solve work problems when I'm 'on the clock'. I do not waste my free time, limited as you pointed out, thinking about other people's problems....I only do that for pay.