Comments about ‘Pornography problems at work harm companies, coworkers’

In my opinion most business lose thousands of dollars on employee abuses and theft of company hours because of internet access to employees who have no business or need to be on the internet. It has always been a pet peeve of mine to see how abusive coworkers were and the hours of time they wasted. Some even run a side job from the office and employers don't see this a bigger problem?

This article is putting undo accusations on a single individual when it should be applied to every worker in a office/working environment. Internet and cell phone access should not be a perk for some and a complaint for others. Telephone and personal matters would all be funneled through the supervisors desk and no cell phones in the building.

If a company is allowing its employees access to internet and wifi and blue tooth etc. then only owner can be held accountable for what his employees choose to do with their time he allows them on the internet. Its the business owners and management problem and he should man up and take full accountability for how and where people shop the internet on company time.

2cents, so you're saying there is no employee accountability with what they do behind the employers back? Glad I don't work for you and glad you don't work for me!

A friend who works as an auditor for a large group found that some employees in a certain department they audited were averaging 5-6 hours a day viewing porn.
The blames rests squarely on the individual who is entrusted to do his/her job for the 8 hours they are paid.
Those individuals who were wasting the employers time have been dismissed. And I doubt they'll receive a very positive letter of recommendation from their department head.

As I commented on last weeks weekly porn paranoia story, it's just not that common. Wasting time on the net at work? Oh yeah, big time. Wasting it on porn at work. No.

Maybe it's time to return to a "work" ethic in this country? If you can spend the day watching porn you obviously don't have enough to do at work.

@toshi1066:

"If you can spend the day watching porn you obviously don't have enough to do at work."

They should be home drawing unemployment.

It could be that fire fighters are the culprits... They have nothing to do but sit around the station if there's no fires to fight. And there rarely is.

Besides, pornography is in the eye of the beholder.

@My2Cents

Micromanagement doesn't work. An employer should have a zero tolerance policy for viewing inappropriate material on the internet. All else, including personal phone calls should be allowed. I acknowledge that there are employees who abuse it. But employers frequently require weekend work without extra pay, overtime, etc, so it balances out. The point is, productive employees don't need micromanagement and if they are micromanaged, they will simply find another employer to work for, and the micromanaging employer will be left with average and worse employees.

I am sure this happens... but wide spread.. I highly doubt it. At least among the people i work.

You all endorsed my exact statements, you all think its okay to wastes your companies time and money surfing and operating a personal business on company time as long as its not on a XXX web site. Pathetic hypocrisy. Work ethics apply to all, not the pornography.

You don't micromanage this, you make it company and business employment policy to keep cell phones and internet use to a very minimum. You don't give your workers and alternativer to work on their task or surf the net, you shut down the net and confiscate phones or fire those who break company policy.

If a business does not have any employment policies or job descriptions for their employees then they don't deserve to be in business and time will put them out of business. Any company that has to hire 10 people to to the job of 2 people that is poor judgment and management and why work ethics don't exist anymore and the economy is reflecting it.

You may not like working for me but its my (Boss's) choice to keep the best and most loyal and productive workers. You're fired!!!!

My2Cents.... I guess what you are missing is a lot of companies are run like parochial institutions anymore. Mine in particular works very hard to provide a good work/life balance for its employees. There is no start time nor finnish time. There is no recording days you are sick. We actually have tennis courts, 2 soccer fields, an olympic swimming pool, a fitness center, and hiking/walking trails through out our campus. We also get a week more vacation than most companies grant. We don't subcontract out security, nor facilities or maintenance people, or cafeteria people, they are all full employees of the company. We have two preschools on campus, and parents often eat lunch with their kids.

And yet, we have over 30 years of continuous growth and profitability, and employ over 15,000. The difference between what you describe and how we operate is we hire adults, who can be given a task, and are self motivated enough to get their jobs done, and well. We hire smart people who want the company to succeed.

What you have sounds like some vision of 50 years ago. I wouldn't work at a place like you describe.

Wow, some serious denial going on in these comments. Pornography is a huge problem and with the wave of constant internet access it is only getting worse. Pornography is a real problem, it's not subjective, it's real. If you think its not affecting you or someone you know in some way or another, you're dreaming. If you don't believe that, just wait. Denial can only get you so far.

There was a story on the news about a man who was the CEO of a company in SLC. He was openly viewing child porn at work. His own employees turned him in and now he has to face the consequences. This was recent news. Anyone who thinks pornoraphy is harmless is living in a state called denial. Pornography addictions can and have lead to divorce, loss of employment, and in some instances criminal activity. I have been a probation officer supervising sex offenders. I have had first hand experience with this problem. Sex offenders have an uncanny ability to rationalize the most perverse behavior. Enough said.

UtahBlueDevil:

My suspicion is that you work for SAS. They have been nominated several times as the employer of choice, and are a national model for how the employer/employee contract should function. Unfortunately that model can't be entirely ported over into every industry, still, the philosophy can and should be disseminated. You are however correct, that the SAS model is completely counter to the inane kind of dictatorial faux leadership being advocated by My2Cents. I'm doubtful he's ever employed anyone, as he seems to understand the need for quality labor, yet he doesn't realize that the management style he is advocating generally mitigates efforts to attract quality labor. He seems to think that because convention is that we pay lower tier jobs at an hourly rate, that means we profit off of "time". We profit from output, the rate of which is sytemically tied to the production process. The focus should be production, not micromanaging cell phones or internet access, except where those things hinder production.

As for the pornography angle, this is one of DNew's better articles on the subjects. There should be zero tolerance of pornography in the workplace.

The article is good, though it doesn't mention the pornographic talk that goes on in many workplaces, with both managers and employees using graphic language, obscenities, etc. on a regular basis...a clean engine runs better than a dirty one, more efficiency, success, comes from eradicating any type of porn from the workplace.

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

@ NeilT:
"Sex offenders have an uncanny ability to rationalize the most perverse behavior."

We could easily substitute the words "politicians" or "elected officials" in place of "sex offenders" and have another very true statement.

@gdog3finally:

"And I think to myself, what a wonderful world."

The culture around here sure is obsessed with porn.
I do not believe a company exists that doesn't block porn sites, so I think this article is most likely completely fictional.