February 1st, 2013 -- by Bacchus
What “Not Safe For Work” Means
Maggie Mayhem nails it in a sentence:
What does it mean to be “NOT SAFE FOR WORK”? If you ask me, that’s the capitalist beast barking at people not to be distracted by their human drives for pleasure and spare time above directing their hearts, bodies, and souls for the profit of a hungry machine.
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Shorter URL for sharing: http://www.erosblog.com/?p=9286
Or it could be a reluctance to be sued into bankruptcy for sexual harassment (the unsafe workplace variety).
Which is just a less-poetic way of saying the same thing, isn’t it?
When people have little choice about being in your company you should be polite about their sensibilities whether it be perfume, blasphemy, politics, choice of music, annoying fidgeting or drooling at porn.
Most bosses are quite happy for you to follow any personal interests during your down time at the desk.
I think it quite sad if someone has no other interests in life than sex that they can indulge for pleasure at work. I like flowers, though they are also genitals, I suppose.
I work in a high school, we expect the students not to show naughty pictures to each other, so we hold ourselves to the same standard (when the doors are open and/or unlocked that is)
No, Bacchus, it’s not the same thing, unless you assume the lawsuits are frivolous and the desire to avoid them is purely driven by money. Maggie’s comment takes “NSFW” as being solely about the person involved, while O’s comment is about its affect on other people.
(It is to be noted that Maggie’s post is not actually about workplaces, and so the fact that her comment ignores the crux of the workplace issue is not a reflection on her.)
Anyway. A workplace is a place where people of many different sensibilities are required to interact with each other, in ways that often have very large power dynamics. A person who finds that casual displays of pornography make them uncomfortable in the workplace does not have the option that they have in the “real world” of turning off the radio, of going somewhere else, of associating with other people. If they complain about it, the interpersonal results of that complaint are likely to be problematic — especially if they’re complaining to their boss, but even if they’re complaining to their coworkers.
Which is just saying that workplace harassment is a serious problem for the harassed people involved — not just for the Corporation — and that exposing people to unwanted pornography is harassment because it is strong non-consensual discomfort.
(And what you do on your work computer in your own time is still likely to unexpectedly show up for someone else someday.)
Argh; I have mixed up “affect” and “effect”, which is a pet peeve of mine. Please read the above as corrected!
Here’s a rather unpopular view:
If your employer is paying you to do a job, they own the computer, and they pay for the bandwidth, anything not specifically related to your job is NSFW.
Watch porn, read personal e-mail, tweet, facebook, etc. on your own time, equipment, and bandwidth and you never have to worry about getting fired for it.
Even if your employer could care less about your internet browsing habits I’m pretty sure they don’t want to pay you to indulge in them.
It never ceases to amaze me how people think this is crazy talk or something….
To those yet trapped inside the maze, it seems a whole nation, and one worthy of patriotism.
Note to commenter #8:
Somewhere out there I’m certain there’s a study which shows that students learn better, and that workers are more productive, when they are periodically allowed to “blow off a little steam”. In fact, I’m fairly certain that I’ve seen something to that effect somewhere.
Happy workers who are more productive, make more money for their employer. Miserable workers who call in sick, make NO money for their employer.
re: Comment #5 (And what you do on your work computer in your own time is still likely to unexpectedly show up for someone else someday.)
You can’t structure life to fit the lowest common denominator. We can’t treat all adults as though they have the sensibilities of an eight-year old, just in case they possibly do.
Most people who drive automobiles throughout their adult life, will most likely be involved in an accident sooner or later, yet to protect the innocent/faultless driver, no one says we must stop driving cars, or all drive at a maximum rate of 5 miles per hour.
If you have a narrow comfort level regarding porn, you can always look away when confronted with it, rather than study it.
If the employer agrees with those studies showing a few minutes of fuck off time now and then leads to better productivity, then their computer use policies will reflect that. I’m not even saying I disagree, just that when you sign that little form that HR hands you with the computer use policy you are knowingly agreeing to abide by it. If you don’t, and get terminated for violating it… well, by signing that agreement you’ve pretty much pissed away any chance of even getting unemployment (for the record, I personally know three people who were denied unemployment and lost their mediation appeal because of exactly this scenario playing out, and none of them was even for porn).
I’m also pretty sure that if you were to drop your car off at the garage at $140/hr for repairs, and they said “Repair took two hours… actually an hour and a half but I was checking Facebook for a 1/2 hour of that…. that’ll be $280 plus the cost of parts” most people wouldn’t be whipping out their checkbook happy that their mechanic lowered his stress levels. Same principle.
Also: Fucking off at work in a manner that leaves a digital record of exactly what you were doing and when is just kind of stupid. Use your own smartphone if you must goof off at work :)