I Should Be Working

4 Pages 875 Words

In the last five years, Internet access at the office went from rare to ubiquitous. With it came new problems for corporate managers to manage -- such as employees using the corporate network to visit adult websites, download pirated software and waste corporate bandwidth and time to recreationally surf.
Here are some interesting and sobering statistics from those who study these things. Thirty percent to 40 percent of Internet use in the workplace isn't related to business. Seventy percent of all Web traffic occurs during work hours. Seventy percent of employees admit to viewing or sending adult-oriented e-mail at work.
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Twenty-five of the most visited sites during work hours include Amazon.com, eBay, RealNetworks, and Travelocity. I suppose that people are mostly bidding on new desks for the office, watching educational streaming media and buying plane tickets for their next business trip. I believe that. Don't you?
Experts say employees surfing the Web from their office PCs cost corporate America more than $1 billion a year. The costs are mostly attributable to lower productivity levels and bandwidth expenses.
Then, let's not forget e-mail. It may not be the bandwidth hog that the Web can be, but it's time consuming. The fact is that many employees use their corporate e-mail to do things like write to Aunt Tilly and Uncle Bob. Again, it's all about lost productivity.
There are even sites that are designed to entertain your workforce while you're paying them. One good example is www.IShouldBeWorking.com. When you arrive, the site greets you with ``Welcome Slackers!'' Moreover, to help those employees you love to hate, it has an ``Uh-Oh, It's Your Boss'' panic button.
The instructions on the panic button tell your slacker that ``If you should be working but you're not, you may need to give the impression that you are indeed busy. The panic button, located in the upper left corner of every ISBW page, bridges the...