Internet Abuse Monitoring – Yes
I was recently forced into this ethical dilemma at work. A co-worker, who also happens to be my supervisor, has been blatantly abusing his usage of the internet on company time. He sits and posts to forums all day long, and has previously caused an RPG (role-playing game) site to be blocked - the first time that our Systems Administrator had ever had to block a site in his 12 or so year career. Unfortunately, the SA no longer works for us and did not inform management before he left, so they have not been monitoring to see the constant abuse.
Over a period of about 6 months this man has been posting to a political forum throughout the day. I called him out on it back in August, and his response was that (1) I was the only one who notices and (2) he uses it as a means to clear his head and regain focus.
Well, he must really have been off focus or had a really clouded head, because last week he made 77 posts between 9 AM and 6 PM. That's right - 77 separate posts! So he could not have done much else that day when you take in all the time it takes to read and actually respond! Little does he know that I, too, created an account at that forum site to keep tabs. After the astronomical amount of posts that day, I informed upper management to check the proxy server.
My manager's response was quite receptive. It is fraud, waste, and abuse, and my co-worker will be reprimanded. The company should not be paying him to post all day while he "delegates" and assigns all of his tasks to those under him. On the other hand, the manager says he should not have to babysit us since we are all adults... but all it takes is one bad apple to spoil the bunch.
Since I am not the only one who has noticed his abuse, contrary to his assumption, it has drastically affected morale among my peers. And, people also act like whatever wrongs they do will not compare to this, so they push the envelope to see exactly what they can get away with, decreasing productivity across the board.
Had the management monitored the internet usage, he would have been flagged months ago, already received his counseling statement, and chances are the rest of us would have no clue what he had even done. But as the election gets closer, his pounding on the keyboard increases, as do his outbursts of laughter. I am anxious to see the outcome next week after the audit logs have been reviewed. He may be the sacrificial lamb...
