Companies use scans to track employees

[superconnected]

Source: Associated Press

NEW YORK - Some workers are doing it at Dunkin' Donuts, Hilton hotels, even at Marine Corps bases. Employees at a growing number of businesses around the nation are starting and ending their days by pressing a hand or finger to a scanner that logs the precise time of their arrival and departure — information that is automatically reflected in payroll records.

Manufacturers say these biometric scanners improve efficiency and streamline payroll operations. Employers big and small buy them with the dual goals of curtailing fraud and automating outdated record keeping systems that rely on paper time sheets.

The new systems, however, have raised complaints from some workers who see the efforts to track their movements as excessive or even creepy.

"They don't even have to hire someone to harass you anymore. The machine can do it for them," said Ed Ott, executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO. "The palm print thing really grabs people as a step too far."



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080326/ap_on_hi_te/fingerprint_timecards

[justgamma]

1. Most blue collar workers

punch a time clock. Same thing.

Now you want creepy. I work in a small factory (about 300 employees) that makes shelving. Not exactly rocket science. There is a paranoid something or other in the front office that has decided to spend thousands of dollars on spy cameras. I work in receiving so I get these packages. I'll bet he's bought 50 of those things. They're about the size of your thumb so you know they are not just security cameras. On top of that, he's got his son putting them up on the weekends so nobody can know where they are. I get an icky feeling whenever I walk in there and I've been there for 36 years.

When I deliver them to him, I always say "here's some more spy stuff" To others I say "how very republican of him."

[superconnected]

2. My repeated experience with that is that the person who spies the most

is the least to be trusted.

I know this first hand and the rule has been proven over and over. Often in the computer industry it's the sys admin who locks down the system the most, to the point it's a pain for users to get in, who ends up being the one breaking into computers and even selling information to other companies. I explained it when I worked at microsoft and my co-workers said, "naw, he's just overly protective of his servers", and of course in a few months he was arrested for exactly what I told them he was doing.

People who have an unnatural fixations with things - like watching others, are projecting.

Fred Phelps is gay or he wouldn't have this unnatural fixation with them, and your boss is breaking the law all over the place. It should bother you that he/she has access to your personal information - social security numbers etc. If that person is ultra worried about theft, beware he's the thief.

[TlalocW]

5. I agree with you on Fred Phelps

And I look forward to the day when he dies - which sounds bad, but it's more for the shock his family will get when they have to go through his personal belongings, and they discover his stash of gay nudie magazines and videos.

TlalocW

[zonmoy]

6. does it mean

that the democrats are actually republicans since they seem to have an unnatural fixation with trying to be like the lite form of them.

[superconnected]

8. I think the ones that have that fixation might be.

I don't think most of us have that fixation.

[defendandprotect]

7. Agree with you totally --- PROJECTING . . .

Some want to suggest that it's unfair to say this ---
but I think it has to be understood.

The r-w are paranoid, but mainly the people they fear are actually themselves ... !!!

[DRoseDARs]

3. That was my first thought. I've used punch clocks, logged into computers, and written in pen...

ZOHMYFUCKINGGOD TEH OVERLORDS KNOW I'VE COME TO AND LEFT WORK!!1 SWEETJEBUZ NOW I'M GOING TO GET PAIDED, OH TEH HUGE MANITEE11!

Edit: misspelled SWEETJEBUZ

[TlalocW]

4. The scary part is that it's finger print/hand print stuff

If you have to swipe any kind of card to get into a building or log into a computer, chances are what times you do that are being recorded automatically.

At my first real corporate job (computer programmer) during my first week, I spent an hour and a half one day just bullshitting with my boss, and he was telling me about all the different things he had worked on in his life (he was in his mid-50s at the time), and one of them was a card-swipe-unlock-doors system. He told me that he added a routine to the code that if it was his card swiped and his first swipe of the day, the time he entered would be randomly chosen from the interval of 7:50 a.m. to 7:59 a.m. (workday started at 8:00 a.m.) He then started coming in at 8:30 a.m. or later.

I learned a lot from that man. At my current workplace, I wrote the hours-reporting system that employees record what project they worked on, for how long, and type any relevant details. Both the work date and the date you enter the data are recorded so the boss can get onto you if you're not recording your hours on the same day you worked them. I have a condition in the code that no matter what, my work date and entry date are the same. :)

TlalocW