by Jaye Green

Created on: May 21, 2009   Last Updated: May 24, 2009

Troubleshooting a business, first check; the computers. Why are they having to repair/replace so frequently?

There's Miss Fish. Looks busy. Until you get a screen shot. She's playing a game she downloaded "Free". She doesn't know that most "Free" games come with spy-ware, viri and malware. She probably doesn't care either. She's filled the company's machine with 5 or 6 gigs of garbage, and as she has never run any form of clean up, the hard drive is as fragmented as that crystal bowl you dropped at the last Xmas party.

Over there is Miss Take. She's the Yahoo Queen. She lives on I.M. Chat. She's running six different conversations, many of them quite juicy, when Mr. Exec interrupts with some foolish document he wants typed. She gets around to it, very often in such manner as it will have to be done over, as she didn't notice she typed paragraph 3 twice.

Mr. Doommaster is in the corner. He is not answering that phone, not now, not when he's this close....and beside him is Mr. Lonely who has joined seven different dating sites.

Does anyone wonder why this office is more unproductive now than when everyone was on a manual typewriter?

Most companies connect every single machine to the Internet. Why I don't know, but I've found that companies which could easily survive with one computer on a dial up have ten on broadband. Many people use their office machines for their cyberlife. They aren't just checking email and doing a search or two which might have some value to the business, they are playing. They are actually being paid for playing.

Now there is a difference where the worker is playing solitaire on the computer because s/he has nothing to do and playing games on the Internet, especially those very dangerous "free" ones, where the sheer bulk of the download is spy-ware.

Turning one of these machines into a zombie server is child's play. Many of these machines are actually sending millions of pieces of spam in the background, hacking into other machines, and transmitting infections.

Further, exactly what is the justification of the employee who is conducting his or her social life during the hours they are being paid to, (pardon the expression), work?

This is not the big one complaining to mommy that the little one is hogging the computer. This is an employee who is being paid for eight hours of work spending at least four of them playing. Playing games, enjoying their social life, and, of course, sending chain emails.

The number of emails I get every week with a caution at the bottom warning that the information is privileged clearly indicates that the computer on which it was sent belongs to some company which deals with sensitive matters. So why is it being used to send chain letters?

Employers who don't monitor and limit Internet access will find themselves buying new computers by the gross, becoming extremely unproductive, and handing out weekly gifts in lieu of salaries.

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