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[scriver]

Or so a Swedish study claims. Two "working life researchers" has found that letting people do private surfing at work is not as costly or harmful for the business as previously been claimed, and that it in fact might have the opposite effect. Among other things, they say it lets the employee "recover lost energy" (for lack of better English) and/or regain creativity.

The research will be published in the "Journal of Workplace Rights" in the near future, says the article. There might not be very much to discuss about this, but I just wanted to let all of the forum's working folk know that yes, they really are in their right to check bay12 at the job.

[MagmaMcFry]

Wait, there are still people out there believing the opposite? I mean, look at Google. They have the most awesome workplaces ever, and their Internet presence gets overhauled every two minutes.

[Svarte Troner]

Wait, you've got surfing in Sweden too? Do you hunt moose across the frozen Öresund on a surf board, eating smörgåsbord? What else have I been missing out on?

[penguinofhonor]

Wait, there are still people out there believing the opposite? I mean, look at Google. They have the most awesome workplaces ever, and their Internet presence gets overhauled every two minutes.

This would require employers to view their employees as real people that suffer from things like overworking, boredom, and stress. The current view is "if you take away their ability to do anything except work, how could they possibly be less productive?"

[SalmonGod]

Wait, there are still people out there believing the opposite? I mean, look at Google. They have the most awesome workplaces ever, and their Internet presence gets overhauled every two minutes.

This would require employers to view their employees as real people that suffer from things like overworking, boredom, and stress. The current view is "if you take away their ability to do anything except work, how could they possibly be less productive?"

Yup.  At least in the U.S., employees are not seen as human beings by the upper management responsible for designing workplace policies. 

I'm being serious, too.  No dark sarcasm here.  Upper managers literally do not want to view their employees as human beings, and make great efforts to reduce them to numbers on a spreadsheet.  This is why low-level managers exist.  They exist solely as a proxy for direct interaction with employees, so that they catch all the hatred that employees are powerless to direct higher up, and so that upper managers and executives never have to look their people in the eyes.

Anyone who cannot be made to behave like a cog in the machine devoid of individual personality via threats and purging the work environment of distractions is simply replaced.

It is cool to see study done on this, though, purely for my own personal vindication.

[scriver]

I actuallly thought of you when posting, Salmon. Iirc you've talked before about how you need to take small e-breaks every so often to keep your working rate up.

I were thinking that another thing that might be part or this is that, well, regardless of how it's regulated, people are still going to slack off and browse away anyway as long as internet isn't walled away (and, as the reportage brought up, even if it isn't people have smartphones and such these days). And if you have to constantly watch over your shoulder, it's going to make you more stressed out, and stress isn't good for work efficiency or workplace atmosphere (and a bad atmosphere is in turn bad for stress and efficiency). So having a system where people are allowed to break-browse might actually reduce their stress a little as they won't constantly have to be on their watch, which would make them perform better overall (and once more make the work environment less paranoid and stressful in turn). Maybe?

Wait, you've got surfing in Sweden too? Do you hunt moose across the frozen Öresund on a surf board, eating smörgåsbord? What else have I been missing out on?

Surfing? Tss, that's for those Californian weaklings. We put sails on our sleds and sledsail across the frozen Östersjö at 130km/h in hunt for cute seals to club. The smörgåsbord isn't until afterwards, so we can wear funny party hats made out of seal heads for it.

[Blizzlord]

Wait, you've got surfing in Sweden too? Do you hunt moose across the frozen Öresund on a surf board, eating smörgåsbord? What else have I been missing out on?

Surfing? Tss, that's for those Californian weaklings. We put sails on our sleds and sledsail across the frozen Östersjö at 130km/h in hunt for cute seals to club. The smörgåsbord isn't until afterwards, so we can wear funny party hats made out of seal heads for it.

Never has something so true been said about Sweden on the internet.

Now if you excuse me, I have seal cubs to pike with spruce trees.